In this paper I review three models of language that have dominated language learning and teaching in the last 40 years: the textual model, the information exchange model, and the multilingual model. I analyze each one and consider how it stacks up to instances of language use in a globalized world. I then propose moving beyond the metaphors of…

This article explores the way native language teachers translate their linguistic and cultural experience in order to make it understandable to their students in the classroom. It examines how they report on this translation to researchers in two research projects conducted with two Chinese teachers (Kramsch and Zhang 2018) and one Japanese…

In her recently published book "The Multilingual Subject: What foreign language learners say about their experience and why it matters", UC Berkeley applied-linguist Claire Kramsch approaches language learning from a new, visionary perspective. Foregrounding the interplay of cultural aspects in language learning, Kramsch understands…

In foreign language education, the teaching of culture remains a hotly debated issue. What is culture? What is its relation to language? Which and whose culture should be taught? What role should the learners' culture play in the acquisition of knowledge of the target culture? How can we avoid essentializing cultures and teaching stereotypes? And…

This paper surveys the research methods and approaches used in the multidisciplinary field of applied language studies or language education over the last fourty years. Drawing on insights gained in psycho- and sociolinguistics, educational linguistics and linguistic anthropology with regard to language and culture, it is organized around five…

Reviews three books on intercultural communication, including the following: "Intercultural Communication: An Introduction,""Becoming Intercultural: An Adaptive Theory of Communication and Cross-Cultural Adaptation," and "Communication and Culture: An Introduction." (Author/VWL)

This paper was addressed to an American audience in response to Mary Louise Pratt's Una Lecture, "English-only "vs." National Security: Language and contemporary geopolitics", at the University of California, Berkeley on March 16, 2004. It makes the point that it is not enough for Americans to learn foreign languages; they must also understand…

The authority of the monolingual native speaker, unchallenged until now, has been questioned recently because of postmodern and postcolonialist trends. It is now valid to view learners of German as border-crossers between cultures, as bilingual/bicultural individuals. Ownership of the German language is neither a birthright nor an acquired right,…

Examines the contribution that applied linguistics can make to the way we conceive of language, literature, and culture in foreign language departments from a social semiotic perspective. (Author/VWL)

This article presents the author's response to Alastair Pennycook and Azirah Hashim. In this article, the author contends that learning a foreign language should not lock learners in an imagined homogeneous target culture, despite the efforts of textbooks to reinforce stereotypes and some learners' desire to identify with an essentialised Other.…

Second language teaching is viewed from the perspective that its core objective is to teach the cultural context of discourse in the target language, rather than to teach the traditional four language skills and culture as a fifth component. The discussion begins with an examination of the context of communication within the classroom, suggesting…

Describes the phases of a research project in which the author moves from classroom to library, from empirical data to theoretical framework and back again. The methodology includes a comparative dimension through the collection of data from learners in three countries and demonstrates the development of insights from these three sources to gain…

Taking a sociocultural framework borrowed from Michel de Certeau, this paper suggests a pedagogy of reading as practice that makes readers of foreign literary texts aware of their own privileged foreign cultural position in contrast to that of native readers. (JL)

This article proposes a theoretical framework for teaching culture through language that suspends the traditional dichotomy between the universal and the particular in language teaching and embraces the particular as a platform for dialogue and as a common struggle to realign differences. (30 references) (Author/CK)

Analyzes the social and historical reasons for the pervasive resistance among foreign language teachers in three countries to go beyond linguistic training and the anecdotal transmission of cultural facts. The article sketches the principles of a discourse-based pedagogy that views culture as language and language as culture. (36 references)…