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Intercultural Language Use and Language Learning Intercultural Language Use and Language Learning Edited by Eva Alcón Soler Universitat Jaume I, Spain and Maria Pilar Safont Jordà Universitat Jaume I, Spain AC.I.P.CataloguerecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheLibraryofCongress. 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Contents Acknowledgements vii Introduction 1 Eva Alcón Soler and Maria Pilar Safont Jordà 1. What Is an ‘Intercultural Speaker’? 7 Juliane House 2. Linguistic Unity and Cultural Diversity in Europe: Implications for Research on English Language and Learning 23 Eva Alcón Soler 3. Rethinking the Role of Communicative Competence in Language Teaching 41 Marianne Celce-Murcia 4. Dealing with Intercultural Communicative Competence in the Foreign Language Classroom 59 Maria José Coperías Aguilar 5. A Role for English as Lingua Franca in the Foreign Language Classroom? 79 Anne Ife 6. Writing-to-learn in Instructed Language Learning Contexts 101 Rosa M. Manchón and Julio Roca de Larios 7. The Acquisition of Pragmatic Competence and Multilingualism in Foreign Language Contexts 123 Jasone Cenoz 8. Interindividual Variation in Self-perceived Oral Proficiency of English L2 Users 141 Jean Marc Dewaele v vi Contents 9. Pragmatic Production of Third Language Learners: A Focus on Request External Modification Items 167 Maria Pilar Safont Jordà 10. North Korean Schools in Japan: An Observation of Quasi-Native Heritage Language Use in Teaching English as a Third Language 191 Robert J. Fouser 11. Examining Mitigation in Requests: A Focus on Transcripts in ELT Coursebooks 207 Patricia Salazar Campillo 12. The Presentation and Practice of the Communicative Act of Requesting in Textbooks: Focusing on Modifiers 223 Esther Usó-Juan 13. Analysing Request Modification Devices in Films: Implications for Pragmatic Learning in Instructed Foreign Language Contexts 245 Alicia Martínez-Flor Index 281 Acknowledgements First and foremost, we would like to thank all contributors in the volume for accepting to take part in this project. We are also very grateful to the reviewers of preliminary versions of some chapters for their comments and thoughtful suggestions. Special thanks to Elina Vilar, and also particularly to Otilia Martí, for their help regarding the format and layout of the volume. Our gratitude to the members of the LAELA (Lingüística Aplicada a l’Ensenyament de la Llengua Anglesa) research group at Universitat Jaume I for their involve- ment in this project. We would like to state that parts of the volume and some studies included in it have been conducted within the framework of a research project funded by (a) the Spanish Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia (HUM2004-04435/FILO), co-funded by FEDER, and by (b) Fundació Universitat Jaume I and Caixa Castelló-Bancaixa. vii Introduction Eva Alcón Soler Maria Pilar Safont Jordà Universitat Jaume I, Spain The main purpose of the present book is to broaden the scope of research on the development of intercultural communicative competence. Bearing this purpose in mind, English learners are considered as intercultural speakers who share their interest for engaging in real life communication. According to Byram and Fleming (1998), the intercultural speaker is someone with knowledge of one or more cultures and social identities, and who enjoys discovering and maintaining relationships with people from other cultural backgrounds, although s/he has not been formally trained for that purpose. Besides, possessing knowledge of at least two cultures is the case of many learners in bilingual or multilingual communities. In these contexts, the objective of language learning should then focus on developing intercultural competence, which in turn may involve promoting language diversity while encouraging English as both a means and an end of instruction (see Alcón, this volume). This is the idea underlying the volume, which further sustains Kramsch’s argument (1998) against the native/ non-native dichotomy. Following that author, we also believe that in a multilingual world where learners may belong to more than one speech community, their main goal is not to become a native speaker of English, but to use this language as a tool for interaction among many other languages and cultures. Hence, pedagogical norms should adjust to that reality (Kramsch 2002) by accounting for diversity and variation in the English classroom (Valdman 1992). In this respect the establishment of such norms should be research-based (Bardovi-Harlig and Gass 2002), and it should also account for existing and ongoing studies in applied linguistics. From this perspective, the present book deals with research on English acquisition and use with a special focus on the development of communicative competence by intercultural speakers. Proposals deriving from the theoretical accounts and studies presented here may help cover the need for establishing variable pedagogical norms in English language teaching and learning. Furthermore, we believe that revisions of key notions 1 E. Alcón Soler and M.P. Safont Jordà (eds.), Intercultural Language Use and Language Learning, 1–6. © 2007 Springer. 2 Alcón Soler and Safont Jordà like those of communicative competence and intercultural speakers (see chapters 1 and 3) may facilitate the adoption of a more realistic perspective in the study of language learning and teaching, that of multilingualism. As the title suggests, our focus will be that of the intercultural language use and language learning. In so doing, the volume may be subdivided into three main parts. First, we deal with the theoretical tenets that support our view of the intercultural speaker. This first part includes chapters 1 to 3 with references to the notion of the intercultural speaker, an account of the multilingual reality in European countries, and an updated revision of the construct of communicative competence. Drawing on these ideas, the second part of the volume includes the issue of English as lingua franca (henceforth ELF) as described in chapter 4 to 7 by referring to particular learning settings. Within the global context of ELF, each chapter includes a state-of-the-art revision of the following aspects: (i) materials for the teaching of English as a lingua franca, (ii) benefits deriving from such teaching, (iii) the issue of text creation, and (iv) pragmatic development in the classroom. Finally, the third part of the book comprises empirical research conducted in instructed settings where English is the target language. These studies may be distributed into two subgroups: those dealing with multilingual and multicultural issues, and those focusing on pragmatic input in EFL settings. On the one hand, chapters 8 to 10 focus on individual variation in oral production of language learners, the role of bilingualism in the use of request acts, and identity in the teaching of English. On the other hand, chapters 11 to 13 focus on the presence of request mitigation devices in three different sources of pragmatic input that are available to language learners, namely those of oral transcripts, EFL textbooks and films. Pragmatic competence is regarded in these studies as a key issue when dealing with the development of communicative competence in English language learning contexts. Although the whole volume is devoted to the issue of communication in intercultural encounters, the concepts of intercultural language use and language learning are tackled from different perspectives in each chapter. As has been previously mentioned, the first three chapters (see House, Alcón and Celce-Murcia, this volume) provide the theoretical framework for the volume. They present and develop the three main notions that arise in subsequent chapters, and that also constitute our proposal for the study of English acquisition and use in intercultural settings. These are the notions of the intercultural speaker, the construct of intercultural communicative competence, and the use of English as a lingua franca. House argues for a description of the term intercultural speaker which may differ from the notion adopted in publications following an educational perspective. In this first chapter, the author provides us with an in-depth Introduction 3 analysis of the term intercultural and its use in education and in applied linguistics literature. Her analysis involves deconstructing the term intercultural by pointing to the notion of culture and the meaning of inter. In so doing, the author sets the basis for the idea of intercultural speaker that underlies the whole volume, and suggests that one of the various languages of that intercultural speaker will be English, given its international scope as means of communication. In the second chapter, Alcón discusses the spread of English in continental Europe as a controversial issue that needs to be clarified if a language policy towards plurilingualism is to be accomplished. The author also proposes a research agenda on English in Europe, taking into account that the notion of communicative competence is the objective of language learning. In this line, Celce-Murcia revises previous models of communicative competence and justifies her new proposal of the construct of communicative competence on the basis of previous research in the third chapter. Chapters 4 to 6 (see Coperías, Ife and Machón and Roca, this volume) specifically deal with the idea of English as a lingua franca by pointing to various language learning settings. In chapter 4 Coperías presents an overview of existing foreign language teaching material by raising the need to consider intercultural competence as a teaching goal. The author also points to recent proposals that include intercultural communicative competence as part of the foreign language teaching and learning process. In chapter 5 Ife focuses on the benefits of the lingua franca in language learning. The author particularly refers to added L2 benefits in a context where both first (henceforth L1) and second language (henceforth L2) speakers find themselves on neutral territory. Written communication is the focus of chapter 6. Manchón and Roca refer to the process of text creation by users of English as a lingua franca in an instructed context. The authors present an extensive overview of research dealing with the writing process. They also include a research agenda and some pedagogical implications deriving from existing studies. One aspect that has traditionally received less attention in language learning contexts has been that of pragmatic development. Chapter 7 focuses on one particular aspect of pragmatic development, that of pragmatic acquisition from a multilingual perspective. Cenoz deals with the multicompetence model in describing pragmatic competence of foreign language learners. In so doing, we are provided with a different view of pragmatic development to that presented by other scholars (Kasper and Rose 2002; Barron 2003), who have mainly considered second language learning contexts or who have not paid much attention to individual variables, like those of the learners’ mother tongue or bilingualism. Some of these variables like the typological distance between the learners’ L1