Here is the PowerPoint presentation I refer to in my article
“Becoming Aware of Cultural Differences”.
It was designed for Teacher-Training purposes.
As I explain in the introduction to that article, in this context the terms ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ are not in any sense intended to convey approval or disapproval. They simply refer to opposing ends of a continuum of accepted behaviour in a particular cultural context.
‘Positive’ could loosely be equated with directness, and ‘negative’ with indirectness. In fact, I wish such terms had been the ones linguists had coined for discussion of these culturally sensitive matters!
(For anyone not familiar with PowerPoint, if you are using a PC, once the presentation has opened, click once each time you want the next element or slide to appear. To return to the previous slide, simply press ‘P’, or use the back arrow.
On a mobile device, the presentation may simply appear as a series of individual slides, and you can scroll down from one to the next…)
When giving the presentation to a live audience, I would stop at intervals to invite the participants to discuss the content in pairs or small groups, and elicit their responses before moving on.
politeness-cultures-by-rosie-mcandrew