Abstract

Many language teachers recognise the importance of integrating intercultural learning into language learning, but how this can be best achieved is not always apparent. This is particularly the case in foreign language learning contexts where teachers are working with a prescribed textbook and opportunities to use the language outside the classroom are limited. This book argues that teachers can work creatively with conventional resources and utilise classroom experiences in order to help learners interpret aspects of communication in insightful ways and develop awareness of the influence of cultural assumptions and values on language use. The book provides extensive analysis of a range of classroom interactions to demonstrate how teachers and learners can work together to construct opportunities for intercultural learning through reflection on pragmatics.

Troy McConachy is Assistant Professor in Applied Linguistics, University of Warwick, UK. His research interests include intercultural pragmatics and intercultural language teaching and learning.

In this timely book Troy McConachy offers a theoretically engaging and deeply insightful argument for developing in learners an ‘intercultural perspective on language use’. It highlights, through rich exemplification, the way in which even the most ordinary discussions in the foreign language learning classroom become an opportunity to explore, in reflective and analytic ways, the intricacies entailed in exchanging meanings in interaction across languages and cultures.
It has been a long time since I have read a book as important as this in the ‘jungle’ of language and intercultural education. Troy McConachy has done a great job in tying together the thorny issues of interculturality and language use. His approach is novel, bold and illuminating in a number of ways. No doubt this book will have a profound impact on the field!