The current study adopts Spencer-Oatey's theory of rapport management as the main framework, and examines the IT A participants' perceptions of their management of rapport, i.e. social relationship, with their American undergraduates, which are also compared with perceptions of American counterparts, including American professor and ATA participants. An analysis is also made on how these perceptions are manifested in the interaction between instructor participants and undergraduate student participants. The current research employs two categories of data: interview data from instructor participants, and naturally occurring interactional data from instructor participants and their respective students. 9 ITAs, 11 ATAs, and 9 American professors participated in the interview, and interactional data, in the form of office-hour or in-class talk, were collected from 2 ITAs, 2 ATAs, and 1 American professor and their respective students. Both types of data were recorded with audio-recorder and were transcribed for analysis. The current study has shown that ITA participants have acquired the essence in their understanding of American interpersonal rapport culture with respect to teaching, and they are capable of employing a certain number of strategies to strengthen rapport with American undergraduates, as well as strategies for other rapport orientations, including rapport maintenance, rapport neglect and rapport challenge. The study has shown that ITAs' choices of rapport strategy are driven by their constructed identity, and their identities are still under negotiation. The current study makes contributions to the research regarding the ITA population in terms of its implications for ITA training and their pedagogical skill improvement, a new model to explain speaker's investment in a learned or used language, as well as the cultural conceptualization of the teacher-student role relationship in the American university context. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]