Abstract
Cultures, discours, langues – authored by the members of the Centre de recherche sur les discours ordinaires et spécialisés (Cediscor), a research group interested in contrastive approaches to analysing the discursive production of culture across different languages – explores a range of theoretical and methodological orientations to investigating cross/intercultural dimensions in discourse and language.
The book’s eight chapters are divided into three parts. Part 1 reviews theoretical and methodological considerations informing comparisons of ‘discursive cultures’ across different ethnolinguistic settings. Chapter 1 introduces the reader to ‘contrastive discourse analysis’, an approach that draws on genre studies to compare the discursive production of (mainly written) texts across distinct ethnolinguistic communities. The chapter provides an overview of the research undertaken by members of the Cediscor group from varied approaches and summarily glosses their findings, but does not engage with specific examples of data analysis.
In Chapter 2, d’Iribarne examines workplace culture through two lenses: first, in the view of idealized notions of good or bad behaviour in society, and second, by taking into account the presence of an overarching concern that defines how individuals are driven to act. References to examples of workplace situations (a Chinese factory, a French engineer, a Mexican operator, etc.) seem to emphasize an ethnolinguistic orientation, though a definition of culture is not explicitly provided, nor is a clear methodological description of how the transcription and analysis of participants’ interviews and company documents were conducted.
In Chapter 3, Béal considers cultural phenomena as manifested in the discourse of different ethnolinguistic groups, specifically within the context of intercultural communication. Rather than prioritizing one particular analytic method, the author argues for multiple complementary approaches in order to arrive at a more comprehensive understanding of intercultural communication. Her review focuses in particular on analytic approaches that examine cultural values and social representations as embodied in and inferred through linguistic exchanges. Noteworthy here is that participant-relevant analysis of bilingual interactions frames interactants’ misunderstandings mostly in terms of language deficiency on the part of the non-native interlocutors. Then again, the ethnolinguistic conception of culture also evident here inevitably intersects with notions of linguistic authenticity and standardization that commonly get articulated in native speaker ideologies.
The second section of the volume includes two concrete case studies. In Chapter 4, Traverso analyses two extracts from multilingual meetings, focusing on interactional strategies that bring to light cultural differentiations in instances of linguistic instability. Although the author’s micro-analytic focus would suggest that ‘cultural differences’ should include participants’ distinct discursive strategies – evident in the structuring of lexical items and meanings – ‘cultural characteristics’ are ultimately tied to participants’ self-identifications as ‘occidentals’ or to having specific cultural knowledge, while the varying use of French, English and Arabic only serves to underline the categorization of the interactants along ethnolinguistic lines.
In Chapter 5, Peeters presents an ethnopragmatic analysis of the French notion of râler, ‘to complain’, to show how this communicative practice, commonly associated with French-speaking society, is made evident in discourse genres and language use. The analysis covers media discourses and lexical râler-derivatives, as well as commenting on the appropriateness of a ‘complaints-discourse’. Despite its potentially essentialist orientation, the emphasis on discourse norms highlights the socially constructed nature of cultural values in general, offering a useful example of how one might engage second language (L2) learners in an investigation of discourse and linguistic components for insights into the intercultural dimension of the language they are learning.
The volume’s final section includes two chapters that concentrate specifically on the cultural dimension in L2 teaching. In Chapter 6, Kramsch compares two intermediate level German language textbooks for developing students’ historical and political consciousness, in both the United States and Germany. Kramsch approaches the L2 textbook genre from a post-structuralist perspective by considering not only content but also the authors’ discourse choices in the textbook design. Drawing on Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), Kramsch’s comparison of the textbooks successfully highlights two distinct approaches to teaching history in the L2 classroom: history as a cohesive ordering of factual information versus history as a collection of subjective memories and differing viewpoints. Most interesting is the documented uptake of these approaches, first by the instructor who, frustrated with the conflated presentation of historical facts, decided to engage her students in a discourse analysis of the textbook itself, and second, by the students who saw historical issues as inappropriate content for a language class. The chapter speaks not only as to how language can be taught as culture, but also to how pedagogical practices conflict with learners’ assumptions about the culture of L2 learning.
Chapter 7 considers the development of intercultural competence in L2 education in connection with the Common European Framework of Reference. Beacco provides a thorough review of current understandings of culture, ultimately favouring a social practice perspective. For Beacco, developing intercultural competence places the individual as social actor at the centre of the learning process and requires concrete teaching objectives for the L2 classroom. Much of the chapter focuses on creating reference-level descriptors for intercultural competence based on existing models that extend beyond mere language knowledge and ethnolinguistic identity to include interactional, interpretative and critical engagement with L2 discourses.
In the final chapter, Von Münchow summarizes the volume’s main themes, focusing on the contributors’ competing conceptions of culture. In a sense, the concluding discussion reiterates a tension evident across the entire collection, with one group insisting on an essentialist notion of culture that emphasizes the collective in favour of the individual, and the other group foregrounding a subjective understanding of culture that problematizes the notion of cultural affiliation as defined by a single language, ethnicity or political entity.
Although guidelines were provided to the volume’s contributors for setting out their particular approaches, the discussion format of each chapter is as varied as the methods of analysis and perspectives on culture and discourse presented by the authors, turning the reading of the volume itself into a form of ‘contrastive analysis’. Key theoretical concepts are not always explicitly defined and methodological approaches not always clearly illuminated in connection with findings. Although recognizing the potential pitfalls of contrastive linguistics (Kubota and Lehner, 2004), some of the chapters may leave readers who are mainly acquainted with the English-language literature on discourse analysis wondering how to interpret a particular author’s conceptual orientation. Ultimately, however, the volume offers an informative discussion which underscores the need for an explicitly stated rationale that links theoretical understanding with a particular analytical approach.