4.1 Accuracy of Non-native Interpretation of Intra-cultural Emotional Communication

The consideration of accuracy of non-natives’ interpretation of the emotional cues that native speakers use when communicating with one another is essential to determining if cross-cultural differences exist between these two national groups in terms of emotional cue interpretation. The literature offers two suggestions for how accurate the non-native speakers interpretations will be. Ekmans (???) and other’s (???) suggest that emotions and emotional cues are essentially universal, so there should be little difference in interpretations, while Mead (???) and other’s (???) expect that we will find striking differences. The data from this study offers two windows into the question of accuracy. The discussions of the focus groups provide one window into the accuracy of non-natives’ interpretations, while the notetaking worksheets provide another, and more traditional method of measuring the accuracy of non-native interpretations of any cross-cultural interpretive act.