| The goals of this study were to understand how Taiwanese students communicated their meaning successfully or unsuccessfully with their American e-counterparts and how both might gain cultural awareness with one another through the use of e-mail. In this cross-cultural e-mail exchange program, I examined 18 students who attended the same university in the northeastern United States. They were undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral students and were divided into two groups: Taiwanese students and American students.; The participants consisted of one American paired with one Taiwanese. There were nine pairs overall and four out of nine pairs were selected to do in-depth analysis. The data collection process was carried out in informal settings, such as at the campus library, dormitories, or at the students' homes. The participants communicated with their e-counterparts through weekly e-mailing. I used qualitative approaches to conduct this study. The data sources included pre-survey questionnaires, interviewing, participant observation, reflective journals, and e-mail entries to triangulate the validity of the data analysis.; The results of the analysis of the exchanges showed that successful and unsuccessful communication depended upon appropriate speech act behaviors, motivation, and time arrangement. There were particular native cultural values that appeared in the e-exchanges, such as humility, politeness, education expectation, and family bonds. However, there were no apparent findings of significant cultural conflicts occurring in the e-communication. This might be attributable to the time limitations of the study, the relatively small number of participants, and cultural and personal values.; This study indicated that composing appropriate speech acts could connect two different cultural and linguistic backgrounds successfully. It also indicated that language learners might have differing outcomes when conducting e-exchange within or outside the target culture. It was notable that both the ESL/EFL teachers and learners indeed seemed to acquire specific speech act behaviors and literacy skills during the process of the e-mail discourse. |
