CFP: Linguistics for Intercultural Education in Language Learning and Teaching

[Francis Hult]

Via lgpolicy...
 
Call for Chapters: Linguistics for Intercultural Education in Language Learning and Teaching 	


Call for Chapters (deadline for abstracts: 1st March 2010) 
Linguistics for intercultural education in language learning and teaching 

Editors: 
Fred Dervin 
- Adjunct Professor in Sociology (University of Joensuu Finland) 
- Adjunct Professor in Language and Intercultural Education 
(University of Turku Finland) 
Anthony J. Liddicoat 
- Professor of Applied Linguistics (University of South Australia) 

According to Daniel Coste (1989), the field of language education consists 
of a vast array of direct and indirect discourses on language teaching and 
learning as held by various actors (teachers, researchers, publishers, 
scientific and professional associations...). As such, the field is complex 
and multifaceted. This volume is interested in one aspect of language 
learning and teaching, intercultural education, and the role that 
linguistics can play in its design and implementation. The relationship 
between linguistics and language education has varied over time and most 
recently, linguistics has played a more reduced role in developing theory 
and practice in language education, especially where views of the nature of 
language teaching and learning have moved beyond simple code based views. 
This means that while fields such as anthropology, sociology, psychology 
and philosophy have had a clear influence on theory, practices and research 
directions for intercultural education, there have been relatively few 
attempts at linking linguistics and intercultural education. 

In language education, the learner has now become a real "subject" - a 
subject who is at the centre of learning and teaching; a subject who is 
taught to be responsible for his/her learning; a subject who interacts; a 
subject who is required to be both performer and analyser of language in 
use. The emergence of an intercultural perspective in language education 
has had a significant role to play in allowing these changes. Many 
researchers such as Abdallah-Pretceille, Byram, Kramsch, Zarate, etc., have 
called for systematic integration of work on intercultural communication 
and the development of intercultural capabilities in language classrooms. 
Though their approaches and theoretical backgrounds often differ, their 
main message seems to be the same: language educationalists need to move 
away from an educational approach which consists in building up facts about 
a "target culture," comparing "cultures" and analysing the cultural 
routines and meanings of a particular group of people and overemphasizes 
national/ethnic identities and cultural differences in an objectivist 
perspective. These scholars seem to agree that "culturalism" (or the use of 
culture in an uncritical and systematic way to explain intercultural 
encounters) tends to give a very objectivist-differentialist vision of 
"cultures"; it also corresponds to "analytical stereotyping" (Sarangi) and 
ignores the postmodern understanding that identities are multiple and 
co-constructed - even within the self. This is why methodologies which 
consist of "soft" content analysis, which merely paraphrase what the Other 
or the Self have to say to serve as evidence of "culture," need to be 
questioned. 

In attempting to move intercultural language education beyond superficial 
ways of understanding the intercultural, methods such as 
participant-observation, self-reflexive essays, role-plays, simulations, 
and even "stays abroad" have been used for allowing learners to develop 
what most authors call "intercultural competence" (Byram, 2008). Such 
activities are developed as opportunities for students to develop reflexive 
and critical skills, yet how the students build up these skills through 
such activities is often less well explored. 

One of the main problems facing intercultural education is our heavy 
reliance on interpreting and understanding discourses and actions. 
Discourses are unstable and do not always correspond to actions. These 
problems call for different ways of understanding and analysing learners' 
relations to interculturality and their discourses on the self, the "same" 
and the other. The analysis of language can allow people to examine how 
they construct/co-construct themselves and others through the discourses 
they use and encounter. Faced with unstable and contradictory discourses 
and actions, learners need the resources to analyse both their construction 
and their (in)consistency. We believe that linguistics has a role in 
developing more sophisticated understandings of the nature of the 
intercultural in language education. 

One of the reasons that linguistics has been seen as having little 
relevance to interculturally oriented language education is that it has 
often been perceived as being concerned with formal descriptions of 
autonomous linguistics systems, however, linguistics, just like language 
education, has evolved massively since the 1970s. In a very similar vein to 
other human sciences, new approaches in linguistics have emerged which give 
greater emphasis to language in use, to the culturally embedded nature of 
language, to the role of context, to interaction, and to analysing the ways 
discourses are (co)created and negotiated between interlocutors. 

Some of the linguistic approaches that may serve as tools for understanding 
and researching intercultural language learning and teaching include, but 
are not limited to: 
- Conversation analysis 
- Critical discourse analysis 
- Dialogism 
- Discourse analysis 
- Ethnography of communication 
- Interactional sociolinguistics 
- Membership categorization analysis 
- Positioning theory 
- Pragmatics 
- Reconstruction method 
- Rhetoric 
- Semantics 
- Semiotics 
- Theories of enunciation 
- Theory of pre-discourse. 

The editors of this volume believe strongly that linguistics has a lot to 
offer to both language and intercultural educationalists and researchers. 
This volume aims to present a range of investigations of intercultural 
language teaching and learning which demonstrate how linguistics can 
contribute to understanding the field. Focusing on any field of language 
education (primary, secondary, higher education, lifelong learning, adult 
education...), the contributors will examine how teachers and researchers 
use linguistics to promote and research interculturality in language 
education. 

Possible topics to be covered include the role and use of linguistics in: 
- language and intercultural education in the classroom; 
- in computer-mediated language learning and teaching; 
- in informal language learning contexts; 
- in teacher education (pre-service or in-service); 
- in preparation for study abroad; 
- in assessing intercultural capabilities; 
- in combination with other disciplinary approaches to develop 
interdisciplinary perspectives on intercultural language education. 

Call for Papers: November 2009 
Deadline for submitting proposals: 1st March 2010 
Decisions: 15th April 2010 
Chapters to be handed in by 15th September 2010 

Potential authors are invited to submit a 300-word proposal (including a 
few lines about the author(s)) in English to both editors by 1st March 2010 
(frederutu.fi <http://utu.fi/>  & Tony.Liddicoatunisa.edu.au <http://unisa.edu.au/> ). The proposals should clearly 
explain the theoretical framework and concerns of the proposed chapter, and 
include a short description of a corpus (where applicable). A basic 
bibliography may also be added. Authors of accepted proposals will be 
notified by 15th April 2010. Full chapters are expected to be submitted by 
15th September 2010. The book is scheduled to be published in autumn 2011 
by an international publisher. All submitted chapters will be reviewed on a 
blind review basis. 	


-- http://linguistlist.org/issues/20/20-3776.html

_______________________________________________
Edling mailing list
Edling at lists.sis.utsa.edu
https://lists.sis.utsa.edu/mailman/listinfo/edling
List Manager: Francis M. Hult