Seth Haack
shaack@uwyo.edu
How do Chinese immigrants adapt their communication styles to the styles of different cultures? How do students respond to non-native speaking professors/instructors? How do people manage their communication anxiety?
These are questions that Chia-Fang, Sandy to her students at UW, Hsu has tried to answer through her research in communication.
Hsu was born in Taipei, Taiwan where she spent most of her early life. She came to the U.S. in order to further her education, and attended Washington State University, where she received her doctorate’s degree in communication and found her mentor.
Hsu’s mentor, Joe Ayres, was a professor for one of her seminar classes at WSU and really piqued her interest in the studies of communication.
“I took his seminar class and found out that everyone has some degree of anxiety communicating with people,” Hsu said. “It has a negative impact on peoples’ social and professional life. So I think it is an important topic to investigate.”
Hsu came to UW because of her mentor, who referred her to the program here and the opportunities she could have.
“He strongly recommended this school,” Hsu said. “He thinks it’s a good fit for me to come over.”
Hsu has been with UW for 13 years and has taught, and continues to teach, a variety of courses through the communication department, including: research methods, nonverbal communication, group communication and communication conflicts. Alongside these classes, Hsu also finds time to conduct her own research.
Hsu’s research in communication concerns communication apprehension and cross-cultural communication. Hsu said part of the reason she enjoys working at UW is because she gets the ability to further her own research while teaching students about communication research as a field of study.
“This is a research university, so the environment enables me to do both my research and teaching,” Hsu said. “There’s a balance between research and teaching.”
Those are not the only reasons Hsu likes Wyoming, she also enjoys the views and fresh air that the state has to offer, and the level of diversity she is exposed to through the university.
“I mean, just have contact with all kinds of people, people of different nationalities,” Hsu said. “And people of different ethnic backgrounds. The contact part of interaction part with people here.”
Her focus on communication apprehension led her to create an undergraduate class for students.
Sandy created this course for the Spring 2017 semester, and it will allow students who have interest in communication apprehension to continue their research and discuss it with fellow students to figure out how to better it.
The course is called COJO 4210: Communication Apprehension and Competency and according to the course listing its focal point lies on, “intensive study of such special problems and topics in human communication processes as gender relations, power dynamics, family and political communication.”
Hsu links this apprehension to that of her other topic she studies, cross-cultural communication, and the level to which cross-cultural communication increases apprehension.
“Some of my interests in cross-cultural research, my research mostly about communication apprehension, while adapting yourself to different cultures,” Hsu said. “So I think it is a very important subject today. I feel many cross-cultural problems arise because of anxiety or fear, I think it’s very unique research.”
Hsu conducted some of her research via a national survey that she sent out to Chinese immigrants across the U.S. This research focused on Chinese immigrants and the level of apprehension they had when communicating with other persons and how much time within the U.S. could affect that apprehension.
Following this survey and her research, she was able to form a conclusion.
“Yes, the more Chinese immigrants live in the United States, the more willing they communicate with other people and also the less apprehension, the more competence in their communication with other people,” Hsu said. “Also, they are more positive when they talk about themselves.”
The future for Hsu’s research has begun with the next step being the level of apprehension students feel when having a non-native teacher. She believes this research is important because she is a non-native speaker, so it will help her to be able to better interact with her students, as well as helping non-native teachers from across the country.
