Exploring Intercultural Communication

Language in Action

Zhu Hua

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9781351658294
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Exploring Intercultural Communication investigates the role of language in intercultural communication, paying particular attention to the interplay between cultural diversity and language practice. This second edition increases and updates the coverage on emerging key topics, including symbolic power, communicative turbulence, conversational inequality, stereotypes, racism, Nationality and Ethnicity talk and the impact and role of technology in intercultural communication. Including global examples from a range of genres, this book is an indispensable resource for students taking language and intercultural communication modules within applied linguistics, TESOL, education or communication studies courses.

Part I
Intercultural communication in everyday life

This part focuses on five sites (i.e., language classroom, the workplace, business, family and studying/travelling aboard) in everyday life where people from different cultural backgrounds come into contact with each other. It aims to explore how intercultural communication permeates our everyday life and what the practical issues concerning intercultural communication are in these five sites.

To start exploring what the practical concerns are, we need a working definition of intercultural communication so that we know what the scope is. Conventionally, intercultural communication studies refer to studies of both interactions between people of different cultures and comparative studies of communication patterns across cultures (which used to be referred to as cross-cultural communication). There is a caveat with the definition, however. The notion of culture means different things to different people. We will explore the term ‘culture’ and the definition of the field of intercultural communication in Part III (Chapter 11). But for now, we will take ‘culture’ as how it is defined or used in the contexts examined.

1
Language classrooms

In today’s globalising world, there are increased motivations, purposes, opportunities and means to learn languages in addition to one’s first language(s). The language to be learned can be the language used as the primary language of communication in their host community for minority or immigrant language speakers, a foreign language to which the learner has little direct access in daily communication, a heritage language which younger generations in immigrant families learn from their parents or grandparents, or a language of the enemy out of concerns for national security. It can also be a classical language, like Latin, or an artificial language, like Esperanto, for scholarly pursuit. Learning can take place in classrooms or through technology, for example, online or mobile learning. In this chapter, we will look at language learning as sites of intercultural communication. The central question we will focus and reflect on is: What are the cultural and intercultural communication issues in learning and teaching languages in the classroom? We will explore this question in three sections.

1.1 Culture and language learning and teaching (Does learning a language mean learning a culture?)

Reality link: a suitcase of stereotypes

It has been interesting to observe both as a parent and a researcher how my 12-year-old son, Andrew, is taught French in his school in London. One day he came home with a piece of homework called ‘A suitcase of stereotypes’. The teacher had asked him to prepare a list of things he would bring in a suitcase if he were to visit a French pen-friend and likewise things his French pen-friend would bring for him. For the first suitcase, Andrew wrote: ‘roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, fish and chips, a model of Big Ben, a model of the London Eye, a model of a black cab, PG Tips, and a jar of Marmite’. For the second suitcase, Andrew wrote ‘baguette, croissant, a model of the Eiffel Tower, frogs’ legs and snails, a copy of the Mona Lisa, a model of Concorde, a model of the TGV, a model of Euro Star, hot chocolate, champagne, red wine, cheese, a French flag, and a souvenir of the Tour de France’. Clearly, Andrew’s French teacher is trying to encourage her students to think about the differences between the English and French cultures. At the same time, she is very aware that there are many stereotypes associated with them.

Learning another language inevitably exposes the learner to facts and practices of a society or community where the target language is used. For many language learners, learning about the cultural traditions and practices of other people is the primary motivation for learning their language. For others, language learning provides an opportunity to interact with the people whose language they are learning, and to understand their culture and traditions. Language and culture, then, become intrinsically linked to each other in this specific context. Nevertheless, issues such as what cultural and intercultural knowledge is useful in language learning and how that knowledge should be incorporated into language teaching and learning are a matter of debate, and very often shaped by motivations and purposes of language teaching or learning at an individual level, and by pedagogy, policy and politics at the macro level. We will look at several different ways in which culture is ‘handled’ in language teaching and learning.

Teaching culture as content

The culture-as-content approach to language teaching focuses on getting to know the language community and developing cultural awareness through fact finding. While listening, speaking, reading and writing are the core skills the language teacher aims to transmit, culture is used as a pedagogic device to capture the learner’s interest or to contextualise language teaching. In the early days, culture-as-content language teaching was very much limited to literature, history and geography, which were often simplified and reduced to what Kramsch (1991) called the four Fs, i.e., food, fairs, folklore and statistical facts.

With the influence of anthropology on the study of culture since the early 1960s, it has become clear that culture does not exist merely in facts and statistical information. Instead, it is a form of sharing among a group of people. While it may be ‘invisible’, it exists wherever human beings conduct their social life. Here, it is particularly worth mentioning two scholars’ work in describing and analysing what culture is with reference to language teaching and learning. Brooks (1960) distinguished ‘Culture with a capital C’ and ‘culture with a small c’ in language learning. While the former refers to art, music, literature, politics, etc., the latter refers to the ‘behavioural patterns and lifestyles of everyday people’ which is less visible, but equally significant, if not more so. To illustrate his point, Brooks listed sixty-four cultural topics ranging from patterns of politeness to verbal taboos, from cafes and restaurants to medicine and doctors, from contrasts between city and country life to careers, etc. Nostrand (1967, 1974), on the other hand, believed that a culture is characterised by certain core elements such as values, traits and worldviews. He proposed an inventory of themes under the categories of culture, society, ecology and the individual personality as a way of discovering emergent patterns in ‘feelings, beliefs, and thought processes’ of members of the target culture. For example, Nostrand (1974) defined the twelve themes of French culture as the art of living; intellectuality; individualism and civil liberty; realism and good sense; law and order; distributive justice; friendship; love; family; religion; the quest for community and loyalty to a province or region; and patriotism. Following such broader views of culture, theme-based language teaching, which explored various aspects of culture, became popular and non-fiction texts of various kinds representing everyday life such as menus, travel guides, instructions, newspaper and magazine clips, are used as teaching materials. The Standards for Foreign Language Learning in the 21st Century endorsed by ACTEL (American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages) adopts a culture triangle model which represents culture as three interrelated components: products, practices and perspectives (National Standards in Foreign Language Education Project, 1999/2006).

In addition, a range of practical teaching techniques have been developed to raise the learner’s cultural awareness as part of language teaching and learning. Summaries of these techniques can be found in Hughes (1986) and Risager (2007). Technology-mediated techniques are reviewed in Dema and Moeller (2012) and Liddicoat and Scarino (2013). To give some examples:

Culture capsule This technique encourages explicit discussion of difference between one’s own culture and the target language culture, facilitated by visual illustrations of the differences. The visual illustrations and a summary of the discussion will be put into a capsule for later use.

Culture assimilators/critical incidents This technique takes the form of scenario-based questions and answers. In each scenario, a critical incident of intercultural communication (i.e., events in which there is communication breakdown) is described and a number of possible explanations are given. The students would be asked to select the correct explanation.

Culture island This technique aims to raise one’s awareness about cultural differences through decorating the classroom with posters, pictures or anything else that remind students of the target language culture, and encouraging students to think and talk about them.

Drama This technique provides an opportunity for students to act out intercultural interactions in which communication break-down takes place, and then to explore possible explanations and solutions in the classroom.

Target culture artwork Presenting and creating artworks from a target culture encourages students to learn about the target culture and to be creative in communicating their ideas and perspectives. Google Art Project (www.google.com/culturalinstitute/about/artproject/) offers more than 45,000 artworks from over 250 museums across the world and allows one to build their own collection and to share with friends.

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Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Permissions
• Transcription conventions
• Series editors’ introduction
• Notes on using this book
• PART I Intercultural communication in everyday life
• PART II Developing intercultural communicative competence
• PART III Understanding intercultural communication critically
• Task commentaries
• Glossary of key terms
• References
• Index of subjects
• Index of languages, cultures and geographical areas