The Differences in Communication Style between Japanese and American College Students and the Development of Data-based Teaching Material

本研究是对日本和美国学生的交际风格的比较研究和基于数据的教材开发相结合的。研究过程和结果如下：（1）语篇补全测试，包括20种常见的会话情景，分别用日语和英语设计。日语测试对象为母语为日语的大学生，英语测试对象为母语为英语的大学生。(2)并对数据进行了分析和讨论。我们发现文化背景可以解释这种差异。(3)以日美大学生的交际风格差异为依据，制作了教学材料，并在日本的箱根大学、信州大学和美国的韦尔斯利学院进行了测试，结果表明，数据化教学材料在讨论式课堂上效果显著，受到了大部分学生的欢迎。目前正在编写教材以供出版。(4)作为这个研究项目的进一步发展，我们已经开始调查日本人和美国人在我们所研究的会话情景中感到的愉快或不愉快的程度。

This research is a combination of a comparative study on the communication styles of Japanese and American students and the development of data-based teaching materials. The procedures and results are as follows :(1) A Discourse Completion Test, consisting of twenty common conversational situations, was designed in Japanese and English. The Japanese test was given to L1Japanese-speaking college students and the English version to L1English-speaking college students.(2) The responses (data) were analyzed and discussed. We found that cultural background could explain the differences.(3) Teaching material based on the differences in communication style between Japanese and American college students was produced and tested on students at Hakuoh University and Shinshu University in Japan and Wellesley College in the USA.We found that the data-based teaching material was very effective and welcomed by most of the students in discussion-style classes. The teaching material is now being prepared for publication.(4) As a further development of this research project, we have started to investigate the degree of pleasantness or unpleasantness Japanese and Americans feel in the conversational situations we have been studying.