Thomas K. Nakayama is Professor and Director of the Department of Communications Studies, Northeastern University. He received his Ph.D. in communication studies from the University of Iowa. He has been a Fulbright lecturer at the Universit� de Mons-Hainaut in Belgium and Libra Professor at the University of Maine. He has taught at Arizona State University, California State University, San Bernardino and the University of Iowa. His interests are in critical theory, cultural studies, and rhetorical studies.
Min-Sun Kim (Ph.D., Michigan State University, 1992) is Professor in the Department of Speech at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Her research focuses on the role of cognition in conversational styles among people of different cultural orientations. She has applied her models (based on conversational constraints) in the areas of requesting, re-requesting, conflict styles, communication motivation, etc. She has conducted extensive research in this and related areas and has published more than 40 research papers in major communication journals, plus several more papers which are in press. Her two newest theoretical developments, focusing on relativity of communication constructs, appeared… in two consecutive volumes of Communication Yearbook (Vol. 22 and Vol. 23) . She is the recipient of numerous top paper awards in major international communication conferences, and was recently invited to give a keynote speech on Paradigms of Cultural Identity at the 3rd annual conference of the David C. Lam Institute for East-West Studies, Hong Kong. She has served as a Division Secretary for the International and Intercultural Communication Division of the International Communication Association. Since 1994, the author has also served as a workshop leader for the annual Summer Workshop for the Development of Intercultural Coursework at Colleges and Universities (which is run by the Center for International Business Education and Research at the University of Hawaii at Manoa). She is currently serving as an Associate Editor for Communication Reports and also as a reviewer for various communication journals.