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… 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.
CFP: 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 a300-wordproposal (including a few lines
about the author(s)) in English to both editors by1st March 2010 (freder@utu.fi &
Tony.Liddicoat@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 by15th April 2010. Full
chapters are expected to be submitted by September 15th 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.