Appunti Intercultural Communication: English

Exam topics and questions

Open questions

• One on the slide shows (comment on dialogue with graph annexed looking at: high vs low positive and negative politeness, Hofstede’s model) context.
• 200 words argumentative text with TOPIC SENTENCE, INTRO and BODY, CONCLUSION.

Example topic sentence: People from different cultures tend to have different perspectives on what is considered ‘normal’ and this can cause communication issues in intercultural interactions.

Final chapters of Poppi’s book

One on Monolingual dictionary 1 ELF = English as a lingua franca. Models of GCC = Global Communicative Competence. Competence in BELF = Business English as Lingua Franca.

Two possible explanations of BELF

1. Business English Lingua Franca (only refers to Business English, so too restricted, almost like a jargon) - original.
2. English as business lingua franca (focus on: only in business) new.

The modern workplace

Increasingly globalized and competitive. Deep to communicate with people from other countries. Employers are looking for employees who are not only proficient but also able to:

• Be culturally aware (! Culture cannot be taught)
• Do well in a global work environment
• Understand different cultural contexts or viewpoints
• Demonstrate respect for others
• Master a foreign language
• Master communication skills

Relationship between culture and language

Culture is enacted through language. Usually language has 4 skills (grammar, listening, speaking, reading). Culture/cultural awareness is the fifth language skill.

EFL in global interactions needs intelligibility: speakers have to decide which kind of English to use on the basis of their interlocutors (importance of language awareness).

In today’s world you are needed to communicate with people across borders who speak other languages and have other cultures. Need to be flexible and tolerant of ways of doing things which might be different from yours.

"Language matters" – we should phrase our message in a way which is appropriate to the context and culture.

"If culture was a house, then language was the key to the front door, to all the rooms inside." Nowadays there are many professionals giving courses on how to communicate properly, and companies hire them as well.

The big 6 of professional communication

• Meetings
• Presentations
• Negotiations
• Telephoning
• Emailing
• Socializing/Networking

Business English is a mixture of language, culture, and communication. Nowadays we have technological proximity, not necessary to be all in the same place. EFL is one of the consequences of globalization.

Nowadays globalization is the buzz word of our century, but it actually is a phenomenon that started long ago. The following model is by Friedman:

• Globalization 1.0: 1492 discovery of America, opening of new trade routes and products= only experts knew foreign languages, because not many people traveled.
• Globalization 2.0: 1800-2000 industrial revolution but also colonization and many parts of the world began speaking English (British Empire and Commonwealth) – Internationalization need to communicate in English arises.
• Globalization 3.0: 2000 onward individuals going global, technological innovations and new means of communication, intensification of worldwide communication, the world has become considerably smaller (technological proximity) – need of a lingua franca.

Friedman (2005) also said that the world has become "flat" – a flat world is a metaphor. And he mentioned 10 reasons that led to the flattening of the world:

• Fall of Berlin Wall 1989
• Netscape developed a mainstream Web browser 1995
• Work-flow software, creation of a new global platform (links and unites)
• Open-sourcing: opening to public participation and contribution (ex. sharing info, Wikipedia)
• Outsourcing: one or more phases of the productive cycle are carried out outside of the company, ex. you produce the clothes in China and then do the finishing touches in Italy
• Offshoring: basing some of a company’s processes or services overseas
• Supply-chaining: organization of the various phases structured with different suppliers
• Insourcing: one or more phases of the productive cycle is carried out by one specific unit inside the company
• Google
• New technologies

Marshall McLuhan's global village is a metaphor that is also an oxymoron; the world has become a village but it is global.

Language and globalization

The intensification of worldwide relations inevitably calls into question language, the primary medium of human interaction, and the means through which social relations are constructed and maintained (electronic proximity).

The concept of lingua franca is not new, before English there were 2 types of lingua francae:

• Fully developed languages: Sanskrit, Greek, Latin
• Fairly stable combination of first languages: pidgin vs creole (doesn’t have native speakers)

English as a lingua franca is not stable at all. In ELT (English Language Teaching), the widespread belief is that “the acquisition of an idealized rendition of a prestigious L1 variety is the given goal of institutionalized foreign-language education” BUT this is not enough because we don’t only need to master the language but also how to use it in context.

Beat around the bush = comes from Australia, meaning: not going straight to the point.

To do an about-face = fare dietro-front.

What kind of English should we use? The chosen means of communication in international conferences is not the English spoken by native speakers but ELF, because each participant, by adopting English also adapts the language.

When using English as the present LINGUA FRANCA we are NOT using British or American English, BUT we are using a fairly stable combination of first languages. Monolithic vs plurilithic approach:

Conference held in London 1982 on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the formation of the British Council; it was called “English in the World: teaching and learning the language and literature” – only in the 80s they started talking about other literature other than British and what’s interesting is that they consider the language ONE but America (post-colonial literatures), then different literatures this is a monolithic approach/attitude.

Randall Quirk acknowledged an obvious degree of variety within the English spoken worldwide but was concerned that English could diversify and fragment into many unintelligible local forms. He was in favor of the World English paradigm that is understood and respected everywhere in the globe, he thought there was only one language; it’s a condescending attitude.

Kachru (Indian) sustained totality and variety rather than standard usage. Proposed an alternative by devising the ENL/ESL/EFL model. He underlined the fact that the situation is actually less homogeneous than that described by Quirk. Quirk vs Kachru is a clash between a monolithic and a pluralistic model.

Monolithic view: expresses fear of an eventual fragmentation of English which would inevitably obstruct the role of English as the ‘World language’.

Pluralistic view: promoted the multiplicity of several “New World Englishes” through which individuality or nationality can be expressed. There are new forms of localized English (for example words born in another country). Conflict between the acceptance of the new forms of localized English and all the anxieties created by the increase in diversity of English.

Kachru’s model (1985) inner circle is norm providing, outer circle is norm developing, expanding circle is norm dependent.

Positive features of Kachru’s model

At first, this model proved to be extremely useful. It helped promote varieties of English by drawing attention to their systematicity, robustness, creativity, communicative potential, and relative prestige. Then it was critiqued because it creates problems and discriminations, as it gives the idea that people in the outer circle speak a lower type of English and that English belongs to the native speakers who own it as their mother tongue. Among non-native users, there seems to be the perception that Inner Circle norms are superior, and their own varieties consequently defective.

Modiano was one of Kachru’s critics. He reproached Kachru for the fact that he was perpetuating the idea that there are differences linked to the place where you were born and that native-speakerism is the only option. So he devised two models (which no one really remembers).

Modiano’s model (1999) In order to be proficient you don’t need to be a native speaker AND not all native speakers are necessarily proficient. The problem is that he never explained what it means proficiency in international English.

Modiano’s model n.2 (1999) Less famous. He introduced the idea of a common core (EIL Eng as international language). BUT still wrong attitude because English as an international language is impossible to define.

Kachru’s model n.2 Native speakers are at the bottom. He tried to represent reality in a closer way – the size of the ellipses depends on the number of speakers. More dynamic (implies that it can change, especially the three empty circles at the bottom). To explain this he used the metaphor of ‘ripples in a pond’: where the stone is the English language, the pond is the world, the ripples are the varieties of English.

Berns (1995) She implies that in countries like Netherlands or Luxembourg English is spoken better than in others like Spain or Italy.

Cramer (2007) - Conceptualization of European Englishes. While Berns’s model is static, this is more dynamic, thanks to the transition circles. Transition circle #1 is for the countries that used to be in the outer circle in Berns’s model BUT the outer circle is empty because in Europe there are no countries that used to be colonized or similar by the UK or where ENG is second language

ELF vs EFL

EFL has the idea that we should imitate native speakers. Is the one taught in schools and universities.

ELF is: "a 'medium of communication' among people who neither share a common mother tongue nor a common (national) culture and for whom English is the chosen foreign language". (Firth, 1996) according to this ELF is only used between NON-native speakers, it is implied that native speakers belong to a better category BUT it’s not correct because if the native speaker doesn’t use ELF, he runs the risk of not being understood.

"any use of English among speakers of different first languages for whom English is the communicative medium of choice, and often the only option" (Seidlhofer 2011: 7) better and more inclusive a different (meaning that you adapt it to the context) way to use the English language Foreign Language Lingua Franca (ELF) (EFL). Linguacultural norms Pre-existing, re- ad hoc, negotiated. Objectives Integration, intelligibility, membership in NS communication in a community NNS or mixed NNS-NS interaction. Processes Imitation, adoption accommodation, adaptation.

ELF is accepted as a means of communication, is necessary in the era of globalization, is a different way of using English and intelligibility cultural awareness.

Jenkins (2006) The critical question to ask is, with whom do L2 speakers of English (want to) interact? […] It seems that it is just taken for granted that learning activities will simulate face to face interaction with a native speaker standing opposite, or at the other end of the line. Non-native speakers have to be intelligible to native speakers and to other non-native speakers as most of them will never communicate with a native speaker of English.

The role of English needs rethinking in the English language classroom. Re-evaluation of one basic and widely accepted tenet of the ELT curriculum development:

• The goal of English learning is ONLY native-speaker competence
• Also the European Commission in 2017 advocated the rethinking of the role of the English language in education

Need to learn NOT a variety of English, but ABOUT ENGLISHES, their similarities and differences, issues involved in intelligibility, the strong link between language and identity (Jenkins 2006, p. 173). IN FACT what learners are required to do is to make use of their institutional language training to carry out prospective future language activities in the outside “international” world where they will be confronted with the Englishes employed by other non-native speakers of English from other nations.

International communication skills

• Relationship building
• Trust and influencing
• Collaboration
• Working styles (organizational and individual culture)
• Dealing with conflict

Language and culture

Language is “the key to the heart of culture” (Ting-Toomey, 1999). Ting-Toomey contends that culture and communication affect each other, and she distinguishes between cultural and intercultural communication. Cultural communication designates a process that makes people join together as a community by means of shared linguistic codes, norms and patterns of interaction. Negotiate meaning When communication occurs among people coming from different cultures, the cultural membership of each interactant affects the process, thus giving rise to intercultural communication, i.e. “the symbolic exchange process whereby individuals from two (or more) different cultural communities negotiate shared meanings in an interactive situation” (Ting-Toomey 1999, 16-17).

A grammatically and lexically ‘correct’ message doesn’t necessarily do the job, but a message with many mistakes may do so.

Welcome to Lombardia

The official Region site. A Region to act. In the files here attached, you can find figures of our Region; economic and territorial data, history, political guidelines divided into themes, Presidentship's activities, useful addresses, values and the mission of Regione Lombardia.

Comment:

• Very Italian, for non-Italian speakers it's hard to understand.
• Sentences correct but mean nothing. Ex. a region to act.
• On a website you would have a link and not files attached.
• Punctuation is random and wrong and not ok for a webpage.
• Region is not understood by foreigners. Also coherence wrong because first it says Region twice, and then Regione activities.
• Themes: presidentship’s - Divided INTO themes. Wrong because it doesn’t respect the genre.

Features of English as a lingua franca in written texts

It’s not British nor American English, but English used in a different way depending on the countries of origin of the people who use it.

Cybergenres

Extant: based on the replication of conventional genres. Novel: with no similar exemplar in any other medium, since they are completely dependent on the new medium. They are personalized and strikingly different from the original genres, since they are web-based and enable the user to link to other pages, thanks to the affordances of the web.

• Replicated: Based on existing genres in other media, such as the early electronic newspapers, that were replications of the printed ones.
• Variant: That represent a stage in the evolution of replicated genres, e.g. hyperlinked documents with images.
• Emergent: have reached this stage from simple replication through variants, with the key evolutionary force being the progressive exploitation of the new functionalities afforded by the new medium.
• Spontaneous: that have never existed in other media, like the home page or FAQs.

The purpose of cybergenres is that they are accessible to a much wider audience so the language should also be intelligible for everybody. E-Newspapers are electronic versions of newspapers that are the exact replications of the printed ones.

The English language's contrasting forces

The English language, like any other widely spoken language, is subject to two contrasting forces:

• Cooperative imperative: speakers accommodate to each other strategies that enhance the comprehension of the message. Makes interactants accommodate to each other, this makes them deploy a series of strategies.