28.4585, Review: English; Applied Linguistics; Sociolinguistics: Dervin, Holmes (2016)

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Subject: 28.4585, Review: English; Applied Linguistics; Sociolinguistics: Dervin, Holmes (2016)

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Date: Thu, 02 Nov 2017 13:53:23
From: Robert Higgins [rob.higgins at kwansei.ac.jp]
Subject: The Cultural and Intercultural Dimensions of English as a Lingua Franca

 
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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/27/27-1212.html

EDITOR: Prue  Holmes
EDITOR: Fred  Dervin
TITLE: The Cultural and Intercultural Dimensions of English as a Lingua Franca
SERIES TITLE: Languages for Intercultural Communication and Education
PUBLISHER: Multilingual Matters
YEAR: 2016

REVIEWER: Robert M Higgins,  

REVIEWS EDITOR: Helen Aristar-Dry

SUMMARY

The Cultural and Intercultural Dimensions of English as a Lingua Franca, 
edited by Prue Holmes and Fred Dervin, is comprised of an introduction by the
editors and 9 chapters, which offer some different perspectives on the
symbiosis between interculturality and English as a Lingua Franca (ELF). The
chapters are divided into Part 1: The Interconnections and Inter-Relationships
Between Interculturality in ELF Communication and Part  2: Grounding
Conceptual Understandings of Interculturality in ELF Communication. Part 1
offers a more macro conceptual discussion, whilst Part 2 is primarily focused
on investigating localised analysis of lingua franca interactions. Part 2 also
exemplifies a range of research methods to gain insights into how to approach
interculturality in ELF communication research. The final commentary section
of the book 
offers some interesting perspectives on the implications of both Part 1 and 
Part 2 approaches for future research on interculturality and English as a
Lingua Franca (ELF).

The Introductory Chapter by the editors, Prue Holmes and Fred Dervin, is a key
chapter in terms of understanding the overall rationale of the publication.
They establish the importance of investigating lingua franca research from
more holistic perspectives.  The ways in which the authors do this is by
problematising some understandings of culture and by asking questions of how
we can rupture the ‘cultural cul-de-sac’ that informs some of our attitudes to
what is or is not informing lingua franca interactions. They provide some
answers to these issues by exploring the concepts of interculturality and
identity, and suggest that political dimensions such as power relations must
also be considered in this kind of analysis.

Part 1: The Interconnections and Inter-Relationships Between Interculturality
in ELF Communication.

Karen Risager, in Chapter 2, introduces two interesting concepts related to
the meaning and culturality of language: linguaculture, which is bound to
specific languages; and discourse, which is not necessarily bound to specific
languages. Linguaculture is composed of three dimensions: semantic-pragmatic;
poetic; and identity. Discourse, Risager argues, whilst mainly linguistic in
form, is a carrier of content to transnational contexts through translation
and other forms of transportation.  Thus, intercultural concepts such as
identity, for example, communicated through cosmopolitan discourses, can
contribute to greater inter-relationships between peoples and countries
(Holliday, 2010). These perspectives relate to and with Holmes and Dervin’s
analysis of the political dimensions and power dimensions that are often
communicated through essentialising discourses on issues such as identity.

Richard Fay, Nicos Sifakis and Vally Lytra note in Chapter 3 the historical
origins of lingua franca research has focused on narrow linguistic aspects.
They provide a more holistic discussion of the educational and (inter)
cultural developments of using English internationally. Situating the
discussion in the Greek context, familiar to these researchers, they suggest
that the pedagogical responses to using English in diverse contexts require a
development of multicultural awareness through English (MATE), rather than the
more traditional inter or intra cultural approaches. This MATE approach would
consist of some the conceptualisations of linguaculture and discursive
identity construction introduced in the chapter by Risager.

In Chapter 4, Will Baker, completes this particular section of the book.
English Language Teaching (ELT) has, in Baker’s opinion, been focused on the
competency of communication but has often taken a quite essentialist position
on the intercultural dimensions of language. This kind of essentialisation is
reflected in dichotomies such as the native and non-native speaker of English
paradigm, where critical cultural awareness is often lacking in ELT
approaches.  Baker also importantly notes that ELF has, at times, attempted to
conceive of communication as culturally neutral. Language form and function,
Bakers suggests, need to be managed alongside the multitude of contexts and
speakers that diverse English users will encounter.  These ideas integrate
well with Fay, Sifakis and Lytra’s concept of MATE, as language is not
culturally neutral, and requires an understanding of the multicultural
dimensions of English, to challenge essentialist and relativist assumptions
about issues such as linguistic and cultural identity.

Part  2: Grounding Conceptual Understandings of Interculturality in ELF
Communication.

Chris Jenks, in Chapter 4, provides an investigation of ELF interaction
amongst postgraduate students studying in the United Kingdom. There is a
continuation of the theme of identity construction and how it is shaped and
formed in diverse intercultural contexts. Using conversation analysis (CA) and
membership categorisation analysis (MCA), Jenks demonstrates how mundane,
everyday interactions are of the utmost importance when we try to understand
ELF interaction. Rather than researching ELF with a broad-brush approach,
Jenks’ analysis reveals that national identities are less likely to be made
relevant when all of the participant-interactants are international students.
This, in Jenks’ opinion, provides a space for the co-construction of identity
through exchanges of intercultural dialogue using ELF. 

Chapter 5, written by Anne Kari Bjørge, offers another examination of ELF
interaction from a localised perspective. Bjørge’s analysis is concerned with
conflict through expressions of disagreement. Specifically, mitigated and
unmitigated disagreements are evaluated. Highlighting how corpus and published
materials have focused on the importance of mitigated forms, Bjørge suggests
that, whilst for the sake of politeness mitigated forms are preferred, in
reality, particularly for reasons of clarity, unmitigated forms like “no” are
often necessary. Focusing on mitigated forms has, to some degree, promoted
forms of idealised language usage around interactions of disagreement. From
this research, Bjørge argues that both mitigated and unmitigated forms of
disagreement do not, in and of themselves, lead to intercultural conflicts.

Jagdish Kaur continues the theme of intercultural misunderstanding in Chapter
6. Kaur outlines how historically intercultural communication has been based
on the ‘principle of difference’. Echoing Bjørge in the previous chapter, Kaur
argues that this approach contributes to essentialisation and presupposes some
forms of miscommunication and misunderstanding. Therefore, Kaur takes a
different approach that analyses misunderstandings in ELF from a more micro
perspective. Four main areas are highlighted: ambiguity; performance-related
misunderstandings; language-related misunderstandings and gaps in world
knowledge. Kaur, builds on the concept of ‘third culture’ research to attempt
to navigate around the ‘cultural cul-de-sac’, to support Holmes and Dervin’s
perspectives in the introductory chapter. The findings of this particular
study, Kaur believes, point towards forms of intercultural communication
interaction that are cooperative and consensus-building rather than
essentialised and difference-based. This study underlines how ELF interactions
are complex in terms of the four areas highlighted above but this study also
importantly demonstrates that a fluid conception of language usage can
challenges idealised models.

Tiina Räisänen, in Chapter 7, by tracking the professional trajectories of a
group of Finish engineers, builds upon Risager’s discussion of linguaculture
from Chapter 2, by outlining how linguaculture and communicative repertoires
form the basis for the identification of the self and are therefore important
for understanding discursive identity construction. Räisänen suggests there is
a gap in research in relationship to intercultural dimensions in ELF users’
identity construction. ELF interactions and ELF users’ identities, Räisänen
believes, are not static and are particularly fluid (and hybrid) when
investigating users’ trajectories across contexts and time.  The research of
the participants revealed that, for example, in some ways, the participants
had a reinforced attachment to Finnish identity and did not necessarily
co-construct new ways of speaking and being. These kinds of findings are of
the utmost importance when trying to balance new approaches to ELF and
intercultural research, as it is important to recognise that ‘messy’ research
does not always offer the findings we had hoped for. 

Eric S. Henry, in Chapter 8, offers an ethnographic perspective from China. In
contrast to most ELF interactional analysis, Henry is concerned with the
intracultural communication medium. Henry highlights the importance of
immediate and localised concerns of  English in Chinese contexts. This study
recognises the importance of how cultural capital  is played out in the
negotiation of identity constructions formed through interactions with other
native speakers of Chinese. Henry positions the research in the contrast to
two common approaches of interculturality and intelligibility, in order to
broaden the scope of this kind of research.  He does so by arguing for the
replacing of intercultural with intracultural, and replacing intelligibility
with indexicality. This approach, Henry suggests, provides salient
perspectives on usage in intracultural interactions, and on users in the form
of identity construction.

In Chapter 9, John O’Regan, returns to Holmes and Dervin’s discussion of
political dimensions, when researching ELF in a global context. O’Regan
provides a compelling critique of attempts to describe ELF in ideologically
neutral language. Throughout the discussion, O’Regan problematises the ELF
‘hypostatisation’, in order to highlight that this conceptualisation of ELF is
inadequate to the sociolinguistic complexity of global and local uses of
English in the world. O’Regan suggests lingua franca Englishes (LFEs) better
reflect the ways in which LFEs are created anew from one context to another.
This study  discusses how global and local interactions mediated through LFEs
can in some ways reduce or remove the necessity to essentialise the
interactions of English in diverse and evolving contexts. ELF research to
date, O’Regan argues, is constrained by a theoretical cul-de-sac
conceptualisation of lingua franca uses and users  (2014).

EVALUATION

Holmes and Dervin in the introductory chapter discuss whether furthering our
understanding of identity and interculturality and the interplay between them
is a way out of essentialised conceptions of culture. They also suggest that
more research on the muddy terrain of politics can contribute to a better
appreciation of the power dynamics at play in constructions of culture and
hierarchies. This edited volume does, to some extent, enter into this world of
politics.  O’Regan’s commentary reminds us all of the dangers of over
simplifying or under theorising how English is used, and by whom, in glocal
interactions. Other contributions by Henry and Baker remind us of the
necessity to question how well the current ‘accepted’ conceptualisations of
ELF help us to theorise better and generalise less.

The contributions of Risager and Fay, Sifakis and Lytra’s attempt to bridge
the undertheorised relationships between interculturality and ELF.  They
provide through linguacultural perspectives and MATE perspectives ways in
which identity can be understood as fluid (and hybrid), and the use of
English, as contextual. Further, in the other chapters in this publication, a
variety of frameworks and research approaches give increased impetus to glocal
ELF research in intracultural and intercultural contexts.

This book will be of value to a range of diverse researchers, in a range of
diverse contexts. More research is necessary to understand how ideological
sociopolitical and sociocultural discourses contribute to static and
essentialised concepts of culture. These discourses also play into static
concepts of ELT and ELF. The theoretical cul-de-sac discussed by Homes and
Dervin, and also by O’Regan, are challenged and navigated by the kinds of
research approaches exemplified by this book. More research, however, needs to
be done. 

REFERENCES

Holliday, A. (2010). Intercultural Communication and Ideology. London: Sage.

O’Regan, J.P. (2014). English as a lingua franca: an immanent critique.
Applied Linguistics 35(5), 533‐552.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Robert M. Higgins has been teaching in Japanese higher education for the past
12 years. Currently, he is a Ph.D. candidate with the University of Nottingham
in the UK, where he is researching how the creation of national language
policy and planning are shaped by sociopolitical and sociocultural discourses,
and how these polices are interpreted and enacted at the institutional and
local level of English language education.





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