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This study approaches the phenomenon of ethnic food—in particular, Italian food—from a semiotic perspective, keeping in mind the notion of food as communication. The restaurant chain Fazoli’s is used to exemplify some of the communicative strategies employed to promote the association of a company and its products with Italy. These communicative strategies serve the ultimate goal of commodifying the Italian ethnic identity and promoting its symbolic consumption. Through a semiotic analysis, the article identifies a core group of seven themes that constitute the basic structure of the myth of Italian food in the United States. The analysis highlights an unobtrusive use of stereotypes, a mass phenomenon of identity construction, and the depletion of a cultural capital. At the same time, it is recognized that the myth has some positive aspects—namely, the celebration of personal relations (romance and family) and the enjoyment of a more expressive and slow-paced lifestyle.

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Abstract-Chinese demand for American-style education is on the rise as many Chinese students seek opportunities to gain a true global education in China. However, importing US education style in China is challenging. American education emphasizes the importance of students' in-class participation; however, Chinese students' reluctance to communicate in class is notoriously strong. To explain such reluctance, scholars have focused their attention on constructs such as "willingness to communicate" and "communication anxiety" (Ellis, 2012). In our study we proposed a different approach to understand Chinese ESL students' in-class participation, by using the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB; Fishbein & Ajzen, 2010). TPB applies to any human behavior under volitional control and has been successfully applied in several fields, such as health psychology, sports, and marketing. Our theoretical TPB-based model was tested by administering a questionnaire to 133 Chinese university students enrolled in a Sino-American university located in South-East China. Data were analyzed using partial least squares (PLS) path modeling method (Hair, Hult, Ringle, & Sarstedt, 2014). Overall, our findings provided some initial support to our proposed model. The model accounted 39% of explained variance in intention to participate in class. The stronger predictors for students' participation were attitudes toward participation and self-efficacy. Gender also appeared to play a role: Female students reported statistically stronger intentions to participate in class. In our future research we plan to further test our model and expand it by considering the contribution of additional constructs, such as face-saving and communication anxiety.Index Terms-theory of planned behavior, SEM, partial least squares, in-class participation, willingness to communicate, Chinese ESL students

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