Communicating with Strangers

William B. Gudykunst is a professor speech communication at California State University, Fullerton. He received his B.S. and M.A. degrees in sociology from Arizona State University. After completing his M.A., Bill spent three years in the U.S. Navy stationed in Yokosuka, Japan. He became interested in intercultural communication while working as an Intercultural Relations Specialist in the Navy. After being released from active duty, Bill went to the University of Minnesota, where he completed his Ph.D. in 1977. Bill's work focuses on developing a theory of interpersonal and intergroup effectiveness that can be applied to improving the quality of communication. Bill is the author of Bridging Differences (Sage, 1994) and coauthor of Cultural and Interpersonal Communication (with S. Ting-Tommey, Sage, 1988), Bridging Japanese/North American Differences (with T. Nishida, Sage, 1994), and Building Bridges (Houghton Mifflin, 1995). He has also edited six other books with various publishers. Young Yun Kim is a professor of communication at the University of Oklahoma, Norman, and formerly taught at Governors State University in Illinois. Young was born wand raised in Seoul, Koreas, where she received her B.A. degree from Seoul National University. In 1970, she moved to the United States and completed her M.A.. degree at the University of Hawaii in conjunction with the East-West Center. She received a Ph.D. degree in 1976 from Northwestern University. Young teaches courses and directs doctoral theses in the area of international, intercultural, and interethnic/interracial communication. She has published her work in journals such as Communication Yearbook, Human Communication Research, and International Journal of Intercultural Relations. She is the author or editor of a number of books including Interethnic Communication (Sage, 1986), Theories in Intercultural Communication (Sage, 1998) Communication and Cross-Cultural Adaptation (Multilingual Matters, 1998). She is a member of the editorial boards of Communication Research, Human Communication Research, and International Journal of Intercultural Relations.