Cover not available
Part of
Dialogue in Multilingual and Multimodal Communities
Edited by Dale Koike and Carl S. Blyth
[Dialogue Studies 27] 2015
► pp. 139–165

Exploring the complex nature of language and culture through intercultural dialogue

The case of Cultura

 | University of Texas at Austin
This study examines how participants in Cultura, an online intercultural exchange between French and American students, explore the nature of language and culture in an asynchronous forum. The goal is to determine the influence of Cultura’s instructional design on the participants’ discursive perspectives on language and culture. An analysis of ten discussions on the same topic reveals that participants display an understanding of language and culture in terms of static codes through their frequent linguistic and cultural generalizations. However, on occasion, participants construe language and culture as dynamic and individual through personal anecdotes and explicit acts of identity that challenge monolithic and essentializing representations.
Published online: 10 July 2015
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ds.27.05bly
References (53)
References
Abdallah-Pretceille, Martine. 1986. Vers une pédagogie interculturelle. Paris: Anthropos.Google Scholar
. 2004. L’éducation interculturelle. Paris: Presses Universitaire de France.Google Scholar
. 2006. Les métamorphoses de l’identité. Paris: Anthropos.Google Scholar
Agar, Michael. 1994. Language Shock: Understanding the Culture of Conversation. New York: William Morrow.Google Scholar
Bakhtin, Mikhail M. 1981. The Dialogic Imagination. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
. 1986. Speech Genres and Other Late Essays. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Bayart, Jean-François. 2005. The Illusion of Cultural Identity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Belz, Julie. 2003. “Linguistic Perspectives on the Development of Intercultural Competence in Telecollaboration.” Language Learning and Technology 7(2): 68–99.Google Scholar
Belz, Julie, and Steven Thorne (eds). 2005. Internet-Mediated Intercultural Foreign Language Education. Boston, MA: Heinle Cengage.Google Scholar
Blyth, Carl. 2012. “Cross-Cultural Stances in Online Discussion: Pragmatic Variation in French and American Ways of Expressing Opinions.” In Pragmatic Variation in First and Second Language Contexts, ed. by César Felix-Brasdefer. and Dale Koike, 49–79. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1977. Outline of a Theory of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Byram, Michael. 1997. Teaching and Assessing Intercultural Communicative Competence. 
Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
. 2009. “The Intercultural Speaker and the Pedagogy of Foreign Language Education.” In The Sage Handbook of Intercultural Competence, ed. by Darla Deardorff, 321–332. Los Angeles, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Cole, Debbie, and Bryan Meadows. 2013. “Avoiding the Essentialist Trap in Intercultural Education: Using Critical Discourse Analysis to Read Nationalist Ideologies in the Language Classroom.” In Linguistics for Intercultural Education, ed. by Frank Dervin, and Anthony Liddicoat, 29–47. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chomsky, Noam. 1965. Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. Boston: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Chun, Dorothy. 2008. “Computer-Mediated Discourse in Instructed Environments.” In Mediating Discourse Online, ed. by Sally Magnan, 15–46. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(ed). 2014. Cultura-Inspired Intercultural Exchanges: Focus on Asian and Pacific Languages. Honolulu, HI: National Foreign Language Resource Center.Google Scholar
D’Andrade, Roy. 2005. “Some Methods for Studying Cultural Cognitive Structures. In Finding Culture in Talk, ed. by Naomi Quinn, 83–104. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
De Saussure, Ferdinand. 1993. Troisième cours de linguistique générale (1910–1911)/Third Course on General Linguistics. Oxford: Pergamon.Google Scholar
Dervin, Fred. 2009. “Approches dialogiques et énociatives de l’interculturel: Pour une didactique des langues et de l’identité mouvante des sujets.” Synergies Roumanie 4: 165–178.Google Scholar
Dervin, Fred, and Liddicoat, Anthony. 2013. “Introduction.” In Linguistics for Intercultural Education, ed. by Fred Dervin, and Anthony Liddicoat, 1–25. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
DuBois, John. 2007. “The Stance Triangle.” In Stancetaking in Discourse, ed. by Robert Englebretson, 139–182. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Friedrich, Paul. 1986. The Language Parallax: Linguistic Relativism and Poetic Indeterminacy. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
. 1989. “Language, Ideology, and Political Economy.” American Anthropologist 91: 295–312. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Furstenberg, Gilberte. 2003. “Reading Between the Cultural Lines.” In Reading Between the Lines: Perspectives on Foreign Language Literacy, ed. by Peter Patrikis, 74–98. New Haven CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Furstenberg, Gilberte, Sabine Levet, Kathryn English, and Katherine Maillet. 2001. “Giving a Virtual Voice to the Silent Language of Culture: The Cultura Project.” Language Learning and Technology 5(1): 55–102.Google Scholar
Furstenberg, Gilberte, and Sabine Levet. 2014. “Cultura: From Then to Now.” In Cultura-Inspired Intercultural Exchanges: Focus on Asian and Pacific Languages, ed. by Dorothy Chun, 1–31. Honolulu, HI: National Foreign Language Resource Center.Google Scholar
Haddington, Pentti. 2007. “Positioning and Alignment as Activities in Stancetaking in News Interviews.” In Stancetaking in Discourse, ed. by Robert Englebretson, 283–318. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Herring, Susan. 1999. “Interactional Coherence in CMC.” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 4(4): 1–13.Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel. 1929. Critique of Pure Reason. New York: St. Martin’s Press.Google Scholar
Kecskes, Istvan. 2014. Intercultural Pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kövecses, Zoltan. 2006. Language, Mind, and Culture: A Practical Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kramsch, Claire. 2012. “Theorizing Translingual/Transcultural Competence.” In Critical and Intercultural Theory and Language Pedagogy, ed. by Glenn Levine, and Alison Phipps, 15–31. Boston: Heinle Cengage.Google Scholar
Kramsch, Claire, and Anne Whiteside. 2008. “Language Ecology in Multilingual Settings: Towards a Theory of Symbolic Competence.” Applied Linguistics 29: 645–671. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lantolf, James. 2006. “Re(de)fining Language Proficiency in Light of the Concept ‘Languculture.” In Advanced Language Learning: The Contribution of Halliday and Vygotsky, ed. by Heidi Byrnes, 58–71. London: Continuum.Google Scholar
Marková, Ivana. 2003. Dialogicality and Social Representations: The Dynamics of Mind. 
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
O’Dowd, Robert (ed.). 2007. Online Intercultural Exchange: An Introduction to Foreign Language Teachers. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.Google Scholar
O’Dowd, Robert, and Markus Ritter. 2006. “Understanding and Working with ‘Failed Communication’ in Telecollaborative Exchanges.” CALICO Journal 23(3): 623–642.Google Scholar
Peeters, Bert. 2009. “Language and Cultural Values: The Ethnolinguistics Pathways Model.” Flinders University Languages Group Online Review 4(1): 1–15. [URL]Google Scholar
Qi, Donald. 2000. “Identifying and Bridging Cross-cultural Prototypes: Exploring the Role of Collaborative Dialogue in Second Language Lexical Meaning Acquisition.” The Canadian Modern Language Review/La revue canadienne des langues vivantes 58(2): 246–272. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Quinn, Naomi (ed.). 2005. Finding Culture in Talk. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Risager, Karen. 2013. “Linguaculture.” In The Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics, ed. by Carol Chapelle. London: Blackwell. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Strauss, Claudia. 2004. “Cultural Standing in Expression of Opinion.” Language in Society 33: 161–194. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Swales, John. 1990. Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Thibault, Paul. 2011. “First-Order Languaging Dynamics and Second-Order Language: The Distributed Language View.” Ecological Psychology 23(3): 210–245. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Thomas, Jenny. 1983. “Cross-Cultural Pragmatic Failure.” Applied Linguistics 4: 91–112. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 1984. “Cross-Cultural Discourse as ‘Unequal Encounter’: Towards a Pragmatic Analysis.” Applied Linguistics 5: 226–235. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Trémion, Virginie. 2013. “Constructing a Relationship to Otherness in Web-Based Exchanges for Language and Culture Learning.” In Linguistics for Intercultural Education, ed. by Frank Dervin, and Anthony Liddicoat, 161–174. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ware, Paige, and Kramsch, Claire. 2005. “Toward an Intercultural Stance: Teaching German and English Through Telecollaboration.” Modern Language Journal 89(2): 190–205. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Waugh, Linda. 1982. “Marked vs. Unmarked: A Choice Between Unequals in Semiotic Structure.” Semiotica 38: 299–318. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2010. “Pronominal Choice in French Conversational Interaction: Indices of National Identity in Identity Acts. In Discourses in Interaction, ed. by Sanna-Kaisa Tanskanen, Marja-Liisa Helasvuo, Marjut Johansson, and Mia Raitaniemi, 81–100. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Waugh, Linda, and Monville-Burston, Monique. 1990. “Introduction: The Life, Work, and Influence of Roman Jakobson.” In Language: Roman Jakobson, ed. by Linda Waugh, and 
Monique Monville-Burston, 1–45. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Wertsch, James. 2006. “Generalized Collective Dialogue and Advanced Foreign Language Capacities. In Advanced Language Learning: The Contribution of Halliday and Vygotsky, ed. by Heidi Byrnes, 58–71. London: Continuum.Google Scholar
Cited by (5)

Cited by five other publications

Cope, Bill, Mary Kalantzis & Anastasia Olga (Olnancy) Tzirides
2024. Meaning without borders. In Multifaceted Multilingualism [Studies in Bilingualism, 66], ► pp. 327 ff. DOI logo
Moll, Melanie
2023. Weakness? What Weakness? Self-Reflection in Business Communication in a Digital Context. Business and Professional Communication Quarterly DOI logo
Tochon, François Victor
2019. Educational Globalization and the Creation of Split Identities. In Multilingual Education Yearbook 2019 [Multilingual Education Yearbook, ], ► pp. 63 ff. DOI logo
Blattner, Geraldine & Amanda Dalola
2018. I Tweet, You Tweet, (S)He Tweets. International Journal of Computer-Assisted Language Learning and Teaching 8:2 ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Blattner, Geraldine & Amanda Dalola
2022. I Tweet, You Tweet, (S)He Tweets. In Research Anthology on Applying Social Networking Strategies to Classrooms and Libraries, ► pp. 794 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 4 january 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.