33.3509, Review: Applied Linguistics: Baker (2022)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-33-3509. Fri Nov 11 2022. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 33.3509, Review: Applied Linguistics: Baker (2022)

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Editor for this issue: Maria Lucero Guillen Puon <luceroguillen at linguistlist.org>
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Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2022 16:21:54
From: Laura Dubcovsky [lauradubcovsky at gmail.com]
Subject: Intercultural and Transcultural Awareness in Language Teaching

 
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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/33/33-1689.html

AUTHOR: Will  Baker
TITLE: Intercultural and Transcultural Awareness in Language Teaching
PUBLISHER: Cambridge University Press
YEAR: 2022

REVIEWER: Laura Dubcovsky, University of California, Davis

SUMMARY

Will Baker’s book, “Intercultural and transcultural awareness in language
teaching”, underlines the need for presenting culture and language as
sustained and integral components of the language teaching experience. The
author urges practitioners to focus not only on linguistic skills but also on
communicative competence and cultural awareness. To pursue this goal, he
proposes to relativize the higher status given in the past to native speakers
only and to embrace, instead, multicultural speakers of a community of
practice, where “own” and “others’” languages and cultures can navigate and
intermingle smoothly (Lave & Wenger, 1991). This small book is divided into
well-articulated sections, the first of which serves as a general
introduction. “The role of intercultural and transcultural communication in
language teaching” includes an overview of the book’s major topics, defines
the guiding terms of the title, and provides trends and directions followed in
the book. Baker claims that, overall, his book pursues finding common ground
between researchers and practitioners interested in the language-culture
relationship, helping them to develop fruitful ideas, and nurturing strategies
to use in the classroom (Rose, 2019).  

Section 2 addresses the two notions of “Culture and language” from a wide
range of perspectives, including cognitive, anthropological, and linguistic
studies. The first term is examined both as a finished product and as a
symbolic representation, following semiotic, discursive, and ideological
approaches. Baker weighs in varied, sometimes complementary, and sometimes
even contrasting viewpoints, wherein culture may be associated with real
objects, ways of thinking, talking, and writing, and even to issues of power,
negotiation, positioning, and conflict management (Kramsch, 1998). For the
term “language” the author follows the criterion of linguistic relativity,
which ranges from weaker to  stronger interpretations. He also considers the
language-culture nexus construct, by which the terms “language” and “culture”
can be studied separately or in a connected way (Risager 2006). Finally, he
describes language and culture as a flow, departing from traditional fixed
categories (Pennycook, 2007), and illustrates the close relationship between
these terms through a complex adaptive system where individuals interact
within and across cultures and languages (Miller & Page, 2007).

In the third section Baker details “Intercultural and transcultural
communication”, situating it in current global scenarios. He understands that
today’s learners are immersed in increasingly digitalized settings, where they
are served by multiple media and abundant resources that provide them with
larger amounts of information. Among the benefits, online tools help speakers
gain a more accurate vision of targeted languages and cultures, preventing
them from old (and usually false) assumptions and stereotypes, as they shape
meaning in real time. Moreover, the new, fast, and gradually more accessible
means of communication contributes to expanding the interlocutors’ capacity to
adapt, accept changes, and be open-minded towards unknown cultures and
languages in an easier and more natural way. The author follows core concepts
of hybrid cultures and third spaces to better understand the coexistence of
multiple cultures and languages (Baker & Ishikawa, 2021), translanguaging
practices (Garcia and Kleyn, 2016), and transmodal resources (Li, 2018).
Moreover, these “in-between” spaces enable the explanation of historical
shifts from monolingualism to multilingualism as the prevalent norm, as well
as the move from local to global orientations, and privileging heterogeneous
over homogeneous speakers and discourses, as illustrated in the “Chinglish”
example (Figure 2, p. 30). 

Section 4 extends the previous goal by achieving not only communicative
competence but also “Intercultural and transcultural awareness.” Although
traditional grammar-based methods have been mostly replaced by holistic
approaches, where linguistic structures and content are taught in context to
make meaning, the role of culture is usually relegated to isolated instances
and mainly treated at a superficial level. Therefore, Baker proposes to
elevate the relationship between language and culture by teaching them in an
integral manner and by raising students’ intercultural and transcultural
awareness (Piller, 2017). He proposes basic, advanced, and intercultural/
transcultural levels of awareness, detailing components and giving examples
(Figure 4, p. 44). The author draws from modern paradigms that point to
dynamic views of language and culture, by which the categories are situated in
a flowing continuum that transcends the national scales and permeates global
borders (Byram et al, 2001). Moreover, the new approaches show learners how to
expand their horizons and move away from ethnocentric positions, assuming more
inclusive positions and adopting critical stances (Canagarajah, 2013). Today’s
multilingual speakers are used to interacting in real, virtual, and in-between
spaces, with closer and distant speakers and communities in a natural way, all
of which facilitate the raising of students’ communicative and intercultural
awareness.

In the last section Baker turns to the implications of “Intercultural and
transcultural language education.” He emphasizes that although the notion of
culture has been introduced in language classrooms since the 1990s, most
teachers still focus on special dates, foods, festivals, and tourist images,
in that way confining cultural aspects to shallow practices. In contrast,
contemporary teaching approaches attempt to intertwine language and culture at
communicative and linguistic and cultural levels of awareness. Therefore,
language teachers employ multilingual repertoires of symbolic, discursive, and
performative artifacts (Canagarajah, 2013), and design activities that address
issues on, through, and about language and culture. Baker lists principles
that may help teachers and students explore the complexity of local cultures,
revise cultural representations in textbooks and materials, use digital and
multimedia resources, and sponsor face-to-face and virtual encounters. Above
all, these principles support the creation of “intercultural citizenships,”
which can integrate communicative competences, cultural awareness, and
critical thinking. As a closing note, the author summarizes the major steps
that represent the passage from traditional to “transcultural language
education” (Table 1, p. 63, adapted from Baker and Ishikawa, 2021: 309).  

EVALUATION

“Intercultural and transcultural awareness in language teaching” is part of
the Cambridge Series “Elements in Language Teaching” that attempts to create
bridges between researchers and practitioners. In line with the desired
connection between theory and praxis, Baker offers a brief book, written in a
plain and direct style, that facilitates the reading of novice and experienced
teachers. The author unveils major topics through a clear structure, in which
the five sections follow a sequenced order, including a few definitions, some
visual supports (figures and tables), and examples that illustrate theoretical
and empirical viewpoints. Moreover, all sections resume previous relevant
issues and finish by clarifying summaries, visuals, or succinct conclusions.
Readers will find useful principles, key studies, and guiding criteria that
will inform their practice and help them to develop specific strategies to
meet students’ needs. Purposefully, the book is not intended as a manual or
procedural text of “how to” instruct language and culture, because, as the
author emphasizes throughout the book, there does not exist a single method
that will suit all teaching scenarios. 

Clearly, the book respects a serious length constraint that limits the breadth
and depth of ideas treated. Therefore, authors in this Series must be very
selective in their content. To save space, I would suggest Baker include a
shorter list of references and avoid repetition throughout the sections, so
that he could elaborate some of the examples mentioned, especially those in
languages other than English, such as Thai, Japanese, Iranian, Indonesian, and
Chinese (45-46). Likewise, the central issue of teaching language and culture
during current COVID 19 (p. 20), as well as the similarities and differences
between English as a Lingua Franca and as a Multilingual Franca (p. 54), which
are just mentioned in the book, deserve further examination. In this way, the
book would have contributed to the field of language and cultural practices
with empirical studies, which are usually less explored, as these issues“…can
only be answered by investigating individual examples of communication…”
(Baker, 2022: p. 16).  Finally, a more technical and minor suggestion: a list
of abbreviations used in the book (ELF, EMF, ICC, ICA, etc.) would greatly
facilitate reading. Overall, however, “Intercultural and transcultural
awareness in language teaching” constitutes a valuable resource for present
and future educators interested in implementing a stronger and more consistent
connection between language and culture in the language classroom. 

REFERENCES

Baker, W., & Ishikawa, T. (2021). Transcultural communication through global
Englishes. Abingdon UK: Routledge.

Byram, M., Nichols, A., & Stevens, D. (Eds.). (2001). Developing intercultural
competence in practice. Multilingual Matters: Clevedon, UK.

Canagarajah, S. (2013). Translingual practice: Global Englishes and
cosmopolitan relations. London: Routledge.

García, O., & Kleyn, T. (Eds.). (2016). Translanguaging with multilingual
students. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.

Kramsch, C. (1998). Language and culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral
participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Li, W. (2018). Translanguaging as a practical theory of language. Applied
Linguistics, 39(1), 9-30. doi:10.1093/applin/amx039

Miller, J., & Page, S. (2007). Complex adaptive systems: An introduction to
computational models of social life. Princeton, New Jersey Princeton
University Press.

Pennycook, A. (2007). Global Englishes and transcultural flows. London:
Routledge.

Piller, I. (2017). Intercultural communication: A critical Introduction (2nd.
ed.). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Risager, K. (2006). Language and culture: Global flows and local complexity.
Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.

Rose, H. (2019). Dismantling the ivory tower in TESOL: A renewed call for
teaching-informed research. TESOL Quarterly, 53(3), 895-905.
doi:10.1002/tesq.517


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Laura Dubcovsky is a retired instructor and supervisor from the Teacher
Education Program in the School of Education at the University of California,
Davis. With a Master’s in Education and a Ph. D in Spanish linguistics/with
special emphasis on second language acquisition, her interests tap topics of
language, bilingual education, and bilingual children’s literature. She has
taught bilingual teachers to use and practice communicative and academic
Spanish needed in bilingual classrooms for more than ten years. She is
currently helping with professional development courses for bilingual
teachers, interpreting in parent/teachers’ conferences, and translating for
several institutions, such as Davis and Riverside Joint Unified School
Districts, the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento, YoloArts in Woodland, Davis
Art Center, STEAC, and the Zapotec Digital Project of Ticha.  Laura is a
long-standing reviewer for the Linguistic list Serve and the California
Association of School -University Partnerships (CASUP), and she also reviews
articles for the Elementary School Journal, Journal of Latinos and Education,
Hispania, and Lenguas en Contexto. She published “Functions of the verb decir
(‘to say’) in the incipient academic Spanish writing of bilingual children in
Functions of Language, 15(2), 257-280 (2008) and the chapter, “Desde
California. Acerca de la narración en ámbitos bilingües” in ¿Cómo aprendemos y
cómo enseñamos la narración oral? (2015). Rosario, Homo Sapiens: 127- 133.





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