Youth Roles and Linguistic Functions in Cross-Cultural Practice: Implications for Japanese Language Education

Abstract

While the multipolar world drives rapid and high-quality global development, it also gives rise to new issues of the times. Taking Chinese and international students at Inner Mongolia Honder College of Arts and Sciences as its subjects, this study adopts a case study approach to examine two types of cross-cultural practice: first, Chinese students' capacity for cultural symbol transmission in English public speaking; and second, Mongolian international students' language adaptation and their cognition of Sino-Mongolian cultural contrasts during their studies in China. On this basis, the paper foregrounds youth roles and language use, exploring the functions and influence of young people in multipolar cultural dialogues. Drawing on the above case analyses, the paper further discusses the implications of cross-cultural practice for Japanese language education and puts forward preliminary approaches to integrating language and cultural content in Japanese language teaching. The findings tentatively indicate a mutually reinforcing relationship between youth participation in cross-cultural practice and the enhancement of their linguistic competence and cultural awareness. Accordingly, the study advocates creating contextualized opportunities for language use for young people in educational practice and introducing a cross-cultural comparative perspective into university-level Japanese language teaching, so as to promote the dual acquisition of linguistic forms and cultural understanding.