Blurb:

Xinren Chen directs attention to the introductory part of the lecture activity in Chinese universities and demonstrates how the host and visiting professor’ interaction at this phase serves as a site of interpersonal work such that they attach an additional interpersonal meaning to the basically academic activity. His study shows that the hosts are profuse in the use of approbation strategy, directed to different aspects of the visiting professors, including their popularity and fame, prolificacy and achievement, expertise and authority, contribution, conduct, lecture value, and sometimes a combination of several aforesaid aspects; in reaction to the hosts’ complimentary introductions, the visiting professors demonstrate a variety of responses, including acknowledgment, approbation downgrading, approbation denial, phatic communion, and compliment return, sometimes in singular ways and sometimes in combined ways.