Culture and language in intercultural communication, English as a lingua franca and English language teaching: points of convergence and conflict

Abstract

English as a lingua franca (ELF) studies, intercultural communication research and English language teaching (ELT) have all been concerned with ideas of ‘successful’ communication and the competencies needed to achieve this. While all three fields have recognised the importance of language and culture in understanding communication, little agreement has been reached on how to characterise the relationship between language and culture or how this relates to ‘competent’ communication. This chapter will therefore investigate the convergences and conflicts among the fields of ELF studies, applied linguistics research in intercultural communication and ELT in their perspectives on language and culture. These issues are explored, firstly, through a discussion of how culture has been conceived of in ELT and a critique of the often essentialist manner in which this has been done. This is followed by an examination of intercultural communication studies as related to language teaching. A distinction is drawn between essentialist approaches and more recent dynamic characterisation of intercultural communication. How culture and intercultural communication have been conceptualised in ELF is then presented, highlighting features of the intercultural communication literature which have been drawn on, but also a number of points of difference. It is argued here that ELF studies add to the growing body of post-modernist thinking and research in applied linguistics that can inform intercultural communication research through underscoring the dynamic and fluid manner in which form, function and context are constructed in intercultural communication through English as a lingua franca. At the same time intercultural communication research can be of use to ELF studies through the extensive body of work exploring conceptions of intercultural communicative competence (ICC). Crucially, it is this focus on ICC and communicative competence that ELT, intercultural communication studies and ELF share. However, ELF research emphasises the importance of a conceptualisation of ICC in which language and culture are seen as emergent resources in intercultural communication which need to be approached critically. To this end the notion of intercultural awareness is proposed as a dynamic framework for intercultural competence. Such critical perspectives in understanding intercultural communication through ELF and associated notions of competencies have fundamental implications for ELT which have yet to be adequately taken up in theory or practice.

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ORCID for Will Baker: orcid.org/0000-0003-0533-2795

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