The Cambridge Open-Review Educational Research e-Journal (CORERJ)

The Nexus of Language and Culture – A Review of Literature on Intercultural Communicative Competence in Foreign Language Education

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July 12, 2019

¶ 1 Leave a comment on paragraph 1 1 The issue of intercultural communication has garnered more attention than ever as the world changes with increasing mobility both physical and virtual. Such change not only transforms how we communicate but also foregrounds cultural differences and the implications of intercultural understanding. Scholarly debate on the nexus of language and culture has ignited considerable research efforts to contextualise foreign language education to accommodate such changing landscape. This article reviews both this debate and empirical efforts with two aims. First, it aims to explore theoretical debates on the nature of the relationship between language and culture to identify the theoretical underpinnings of educational practice. Second, it scopes out relevant empirical research to reveal how the issue of language and culture has been addressed in foreign language classrooms. In the theoretical overview, three highlights in the language-culture nexus debate are summarised, followed by the proposed dual focus on language and culture in foreign language education. Particularly, a model of intercultural communicative competence (ICC) is reviewed in detail as the paradigmatic example of addressing both language and culture in foreign language education. In the empirical review, scholarly works inspired by the ICC model are synthesised into three different themes, namely “Developing ICC: The traditional classroom approach”, “Developing ICC: The telecollaboration approach” and “Assessing ICC”. Insights and limitations of previous studies are discussed and future research directions are proposed at the end.

¶ 2 Leave a comment on paragraph 2 0 Keywords: intercultural communication, intercultural communicative competence, foreign language education, telecollaboration, literature review

¶ 3 Leave a comment on paragraph 3 0 Introduction

¶ 4 Leave a comment on paragraph 4 0 The 21^st century has witnessed dramatic changes in the world landscape: Technological advancement makes available real-time global communication, crossing spatial and temporal borders, thereby transforming the way we use languages (Herring & Androutsopoulos, 2015; Norton & De Costa, 2018). Increasing mobility either virtual or physical not only brings forth changes to how we communicate but also foregrounds cultural differences and the implications of intercultural understanding (Byram & Wagner, 2018; Duff, 2015). In no other times are issues of intercultural communication more pronounced than the age we live in, thereby calling for educators, particularly foreign language educators, to reimagine and reconceptualise the goals and tasks of foreign language education (Henceforth FLE; Byram & Wagner, 2018). How should we as educators address the intricate relationship between language and culture? What competences should we cultivate in learners to prepare them for the increasingly pluralist and globalised world? Most importantly, how to translate these insights into pedagogical practices in language classrooms? Answers to these interrelated questions could potentially guide us to recontextualise FLE to accommodate this changing landscape.

¶ 5 Leave a comment on paragraph 5 0 Guided by these broad questions, this literature review unfolds in two parts. The first part is situated in the theoretical literature, scoping out the interrelation between language and culture and proposing intercultural communicative competence (henceforth ICC) as a conceptual middle ground. The second part concentrates on empirical research, summarising trends and themes in ICC literature and advancing directions for further research.

¶ 6 Leave a comment on paragraph 6 0 Theoretical Overview: The Language-Culture Nexus

¶ 7 Leave a comment on paragraph 7 0 Theoretical Debate on the Language-Culture Nexus

¶ 8 Leave a comment on paragraph 8 1 The discussion on language-culture nexus has its roots at least back in the 18^th century. The intertwined relationship between language, culture and thought appeals to prominent scholars from anthropology, linguistics and psychology, including Boas, Sapir and Whorf, to name just a few (See Sharifian, 2015 for a detailed introduction). The enduring and unsettled debate can be partly attributed to the contested conceptualisations of language and culture, with each school of thought viewing them differently. To quote Sharifian (2015a) in his summary of this debate, language on the one hand has been viewed “from language as a cognitive system/faculty of the mind, to language as action, language as social practice, language as a complex adaptive system, etc.”, whereas culture on the other hand “as a cognitive system, as a symbolic system, as social practice, or as a construct” (p.3).

¶ 9 Leave a comment on paragraph 9 1 Three highlights in the debate relevant to FLE are summarised here, from the earlier language-determines-reality view to the more recent debate over the separability and inseparability of language and culture. It should be noted that space does not permit a full review of each key figure’s theory, and readers are encouraged to consult the original works.

¶ 10 Leave a comment on paragraph 10 0 The earlier and most well-known voice among this debate would be the theory of linguistic relativity by Sapir and Whorf, according to which language has a powerful impact on thinking and our understanding of reality:

¶ 11 Leave a comment on paragraph 11 0 The ‘real world’ is to a large extent unconsciously built up on the language habits of the group. No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social reality. The world in which different societies live are distinct worlds, not merely the same world with different labels attached (Sapir 1949 as cited in Kramsch, 2015, p. 32).

¶ 12 Leave a comment on paragraph 12 1 Though the stronger version of the Sapir-Whorf-Hypothesis whereby language determines and limits the mind has been largely rejected, the weaker version as captured in the citation above has been generally accepted by linguists (Brown, 2006).

¶ 13 Leave a comment on paragraph 13 0 Another highlight in the debate is the conceptualisations of languaculture to accentuate the inseparability of language and culture, initiated by Michael Agar (1994). The coinage of language and culture into one word is to emphasise both the discourse level meanings and those that go beyond lexico-grammatical meanings, hence the culture embedded in language. To Agar the linguistic anthropologist, this intertwined relationship between language and culture can be best observed in conversations where miscommunication or misunderstanding takes place, a rich point in which cultural differences are foregrounded. Siding with Agar, Lantolf (2006) opposes the language culture divide proposed by Saussure, attributing his sole focus on linguistic rules to the dire need of establishing linguistics as a field of science at that time. To Lantolf the applied linguist, separating language and culture leaves language learners fragmented pieces of language and rules of thumb, without truly comprehending the conceptual thinking that’s shaping the form of language. If for Agar the miscommunication as rich point functions to unveil the cultures that are in play, then for Lantolf these rich points represent where pedagogical efforts should be exerted and where second language learners will need help to break the habitual thinking formed by first language and culture. Similarly, there is Byram (1988) who also views language and culture as inseparable and as early as 1980s stated that language should be taught with culture in an integrated manner.

¶ 14 Leave a comment on paragraph 14 0 On the other side of the debate are scholars who divert attention to the separability of language and culture. In contrast to Agar and Lantolf’s focus on the inseparability of language and culture, Risager (2006) examines the cases where language and culture are split and travel towards different directions. To Risager, it is important to take into account the global mobility of people and languages in conceptualising this language-culture nexus. Specific languages and cultural phenomena can be separated and spread along different routes. For instance, when an individual mobilises across the world, the first languaculture and/or any other languacultures go or “flow” with that person and interact with new languacultures, a view that is opposite to that of the nationalist paradigm, in which nation is equivalent to culture and remains stable and fixed. To compare notes with the sociolinguist Blommaert (2005):

¶ 15 Leave a comment on paragraph 15 0 Whenever discourses travel across the globe, what is carried with them is their shape, but their value, meaning, or function do not often travel along. Value, meaning, and function are a matter of uptake, they have to be granted by others on the basis of the prevailing orders of indexicality, and increasingly also on the basis of their real or potential ‘market value’ as a cultural commodity (p.72).

¶ 16 Leave a comment on paragraph 16 0 In this sense the “flow” of culture and language can be bifurcated.

¶ 17 Leave a comment on paragraph 17 0 Unfortunately, till now there seems to be no consensus as in whether or when are language and culture conflated or separated, demanding more theorisation in the future. Notwithstanding points of discordance, the on-going debate about the language-culture nexus confirms at least the significant role of culture in language and vise versa, which begs the question particularly from the field of FLE: How should teachers and learners address the languacultures, be it foreign or native in the classroom? A tentative answer could be found in studies on intercultural communicative competence (ICC), a middle ground proposed by Byram that strikes a dual emphasis on both language and culture in teaching (1997, 2012, 2014; Byram, Holmes, & Savvides, 2013; Byram & Wagner, 2018).

¶ 18 Leave a comment on paragraph 18 0 ICC as a Middle Ground

¶ 19 Leave a comment on paragraph 19 0 It should be acknowledged that Byram is not the only scholar who conceptualised theories on intercultural competence in the field of FLE. Other frameworks, though not explicitly labelled as ICC, touch upon the same essence. For instance, Kramsch’s symbolic competence model (e.g. 2006) and Canagarajah’s performative competence model (e.g. 2012) have been influential in this field.

¶ 20 Leave a comment on paragraph 20 0 The focus of this review is Byram’s ICC model for three reasons. First, it is a very comprehensive model of intercultural competence with a dual focus on both language and culture, which offers both teaching objectives and assessment guidelines that can be subject to empirical test and modification (Belz, 2007, p. 136). Second, proposed as early as 1997, Byram’s model has been widely adopted across traditional classroom settings and technology-mediated settings, with more empirical lessons to be learned from the past. Third, this model situates itself among the broader interdisciplinary field of intercultural competence research, ripe for interdisciplinary insights from fields such as international business management and psychology.  

¶ 21 Leave a comment on paragraph 21 0 Byram’s ICC Model

¶ 22 Leave a comment on paragraph 22 0 Simplistically, ICC can be viewed as an in-between of the two poles of a continuum, one being intercultural competence and the other communicative competence, whereas the former has been criticised for its exclusive focus on the linguistic aspect and the latter insufficiently so (Baker, 2015; Byram, 2012; Leung, 2005).

¶ 23 Leave a comment on paragraph 23 0 Figure 1 Byram’s model of ICC (1997, p.73)

¶ 24 Leave a comment on paragraph 24 0 Table 1 Factors in intercultural communication

¶ 25 Leave a comment on paragraph 25 0 (Byram, 1997, p.34)

¶ 26 Leave a comment on paragraph 26 1 Originally proposed as a replacement of and reaction against the pedagogically dominant native speaker model, Byram’s ICC model focuses on the characterisation of an “intercultural speaker” who is equipped with some or all of the five competences or “savoirs”, namely “savoir être”, “savoirs”, “savoir comprendre”, “savoir apprendre/faire”, “savoir s’engager”(Figure 1 & Table 1). Established upon and inspired by previous works on language and communication by van Ek(1986), these factors range from the communicative end, i.e. linguistic, sociolinguistic, discourse competence to the intercultural end, i.e. intercultural competence, therefore expanding the goal of FLE. One of the contributions of this model is therefore the act of resistance against the unequal power relation between the native speaker and the foreign language learner, echoing like-minded scholars such as Kramsch(1993, 1997). The guidelines provided by Byram for teachers to plan and structure their teaching according to the objectives and goals they wish their pupils to accomplish are a major step in progress and the past two decades have witnessed many researcher-practitioners’ efforts to implement such guidelines, with ICC evident from course syllabus to policy documents (Byram, 2014).

¶ 27 Leave a comment on paragraph 27 1 It should be noted that since its inception in 1990s, the model has received a few criticisms. It is argued that the conceptualisation of nation as the boundary of culture implies a clear-cut dichotomy between self and other, native and foreign, which is far from the reality of today’s world (Kramsch, 1999). Moreover, a perspective of culture dependent on the concept of nation inevitably runs the risk of downplaying the intracultural variance and complexity (Belz, 2007). Admittedly, as Byram himself has acknowledged, the understanding of culture underpinning the conceptualisation of the intercultural speaker is pragmatically simplistic (Byram, 2009). Yet in the context of two decades ago when Byram’s model was first brought forth, it is understandable the pragmatic decision to simplify culture as designated by nation and country in a geographical manner, which was in line with the widespread teaching practice back then and some might argue still the case nowadays. Pragmatically speaking, in classroom settings a simplified understanding of “national culture” could serve as a scaffolded starting point for learners to gradually develop a sophisticated understanding of cultures as multifaceted and relativist. What is overlooked by his critics is the explicit emphasis Byram repeatedly placed on the “savoir s’engager”, i.e. critical cultural awareness, in his model, which directly addresses the critical awareness of the complexity and hybridity of cultures required by the globalised world today.

¶ 28 Leave a comment on paragraph 28 0 Since 1997, many researchers have expanded the original model, including Byram himself. Focusing on the central “savoir s’engager”, Byram (2008) furthered the concept of “intercultural citizenship”, placing the political dimension of education under the spotlight.  The “intercultural competence of the world citizen” by Risager (2007) is along the same lineage but moves forward by adopting a “transnational paradigm”. Systematic operationalisations of this model have also been proposed which on the meso and micro level promote the application of ICC into language teaching (Baker, 2012, 2015; Houghton, 2012). To accommodate the increasing globalisation brought about by technology, Guth and Helm (2010) in what they term as “telecollaboration 2.0” stage added the digital literacy dimension to the ICC model. All these theoretical endeavours attest to the potential of the ICC model to accommodate the changing world landscape. Empirical development will be reviewed next to obtain a more comprehensive understanding.

¶ 29 Leave a comment on paragraph 29 0 Empirical Review: Themes in ICC Literature

¶ 30 Leave a comment on paragraph 30 1 To scope out a rough map of the field, a broad search was undertaken across education-related databases, including British Education Index, ERIC and Scopus. The search terms of ICC and FLE (thesaurus included) were input in title, abstract and keywords across these databases and returned over 250 articles. After duplication elimination, the number is down to circa 180. Abstracts were then read by the researcher and coded with different themes. Two broad categories emerged, namely “Developing ICC” and “Assessing ICC”. The former refers to studies with an intervention[1] or pedagogic focus, mostly with classrooms as the setting. The latter covers studies on obtaining baseline data of ICC through assessment, aiming either at discovering the status quo or at developing an ICC inventory. It should be noted that two subthemes were differentiated under the “Developing ICC” theme, one labelled “The traditional classroom approach” and the other “The telecollaboration approach”. The subthemes are categorised based on their contexts, with the former in traditional classrooms either in local or study abroad context and the latter in online context.

¶ 31 Leave a comment on paragraph 31 0 Considering the sheer volume, only a limited number of studies are included in this review, based on the criteria below:

0. ¶ 32 Leave a comment on paragraph 32 0
1. Explicit focus on ICC: ICC as the main focus of the study and discussed at length;
2. Timing and impact: Influential (cited) or recent (within the past five years) studies are prioritised;
3. Accessibility: Whether it can be accessed from local libraries and written in English or Chinese (researcher’s L1).

¶ 33 Leave a comment on paragraph 33 0 Particularly, more attention is dedicated to one subcategory of the above-mentioned themes, “Developing ICC: The telecollaboration approach”, as it not only addresses the language-culture nexus but also incorporates technology which is more in line with the reality educators and learners face today.    

¶ 34 Leave a comment on paragraph 34 0 Developing ICC: The Traditional Classroom Approach

¶ 35 Leave a comment on paragraph 35 1 In this strand, ICC has been approached in the traditional classroom settings, either through literary reading or study abroad programs. The revival of literature and literary texts in foreign language teaching, and the underutilised potential of literature for cultural development are coming to the fore (Hoff, 2016; Kramsch & Kramsch, 2000; Paesani, 2011; Piasecka, 2013). Resources such as American short stories have been utilised to afford learners’ the opportunity to engage in meaning making and relate to personal experience to enhance understanding (Rezaei & Naghibian, 2018; Rodríguez, 2012, 2015). Compared with the earlier approach to culture in classrooms using fact sheets of nations and countries, the majority of research in this line have moved forward in fostering interactive and multimodal understanding of culture (e.g. Kusumaningputri & Widodo, 2018). Nevertheless, most of these studies still implied or assumed an understanding of culture as nation-bound, without accentuating the dynamic and situated nature of cultural representation and value judgement, and in the meantime failed to realise the maximum potential of contemporary technology, such as telecommunication techniques.

¶ 36 Leave a comment on paragraph 36 1 This line of ICC studies also intersects with study abroad research (Kinginger, 2009), usually involving short-term international exchange programs such as Erasmus and the like (Almarza, Martínez, & Llavador, 2017; Czerwionka, Artamonova, & Barbosa, 2015; Gutiérrez Almarza, Durán Martínez, & Beltrán Llavador, 2015; Houghton, 2014; Jackson, 2011; Martínez, Gutiérrez, Llavador, & Abad, 2016; Shiri, 2015). Findings converge in the overall positive remark of the experiential benefit of living and studying in another country. Learners to a varying degree exhibit ICC growth, ranging from heightened curiosity to increased deliberation of one’s own identity and intercultural citizenship. Valuable and impactful as study abroad is, the economic and time commitment required by such programs may deny the learning opportunity of the great majority of students, rendering it a privileged experience for an elite group.          

¶ 37 Leave a comment on paragraph 37 0 Developing ICC: The Telecollaboration Approach

¶ 38 Leave a comment on paragraph 38 1 Compared with the traditional classroom approach, networked technologies with the affordance to bring learners from different cultural backgrounds together at a much smaller cost both economically and temporally harbour huge potential. Particularly this approach is unique and promising in its entanglement with modern technologies, which may gradually become the default learning context for future generations. In fact, empirical studies on ICC with technology seem to outnumber the above-mentioned strand and have been reported to have an overall positive effect on ICC development (Lewis & O’Dowd, 2016; Liddicoat & Scarino, 2013). A screening process of articles with an explicit focus on ICC and telecollaboration results in 21 articles from 2003 to 2018 (see Appendix A)[2]. A broad sketch of this strand will be offered first, followed by a few discoveries worthy of highlighting. 

¶ 39 Leave a comment on paragraph 39 1 In terms of geographical distribution, most of the studies investigating ICC development via telecollaboration are located in North America and some European countries, with the United States involved in 16 out of the 21 studies, Germany in 8, followed by Spain in 4. The majority of the studies involve parallel classes of language learners, and/or student-teachers, collaborating on assignments or communicating on assigned or self-selected issues. All but two studies conducted transcript analysis of some sort, though with varying granularity ranging from linguistically oriented discourse analysis to thematic coding. Interviews and questionnaires are widely adopted to obtain data on learners’ reaction to such intercultural exchange and/or cultural awareness. In terms of findings, most studies express to varying degrees the promise telecollaboration holds for developing ICC, though there are equally strong caveats that such communication could reinforce stereotype and misunderstanding (Kramsch & Thorne, 2002; Ware & Kramsch, 2005), all of which confirms the robustness of this field and the value of continuing research.

¶ 40 Leave a comment on paragraph 40 0 In the meantime, there are quite a few issues worth highlighting. First is the lack of research in Asia and less commonly taught languages, with only 4 out of 21 involving Asian learners, echoing what Lewis and O’Dowd (2016) described as “disappointingly small” number of research in this strand in their review of studies on telecollaboration (p.25). The second issue is the unclear prescription of the specific language as the medium of communication in specific tasks in many studies, with only less than half clearly stated the specific choice or requirement of language, despite the significant space devoted to project and task description. It is acknowledged that language prescription is a significant matter, as shown in Furstenberg and Levet’s study (2001) where students were asked to complete the word association task in their native languages to allow for a better elicitation of the cultural schema. Whether the absence of such prescription is intentional, as is the case with some studies where a naturalistic stance is taken to map out the actual use of languages by learners (Pasfield-Neofitou, 2011), or perhaps more problematically, a neglect of the full linguistic repertoire of the language learners, remains unclear. It appears that many researchers are unconscious of whether or not there are more common languages available among the learners in addition to the target and native languages, which in turn overlooks the possibility that learners are not deploying their full repertoire that could better facilitate learning. It is a pity that in an early study by Belz (2003), the phenomenon of linguistic hybridity was mentioned in the discussion but no further investigation was taken up along this line. With reference to more recent literature, a bolder move would be to encourage the use of any linguistic repertoire even if it is not shared by the interlocutor and some curiosity of such “foreignness” might be piqued to open up new possibilities for learning to happen (Canagarajah, 2011). Yet none of these cases could be confirmed or denied given the lack of attention being placed on this issue. Even though most articles adopt the term ICC, the linguistic connotation that distinguishes ICC from IC seems to be insufficiently explored.

¶ 41 Leave a comment on paragraph 41 0 Another related issue is the paucity of studies that systematically operationalise the construct of ICC. Across this strand, ICC has been approached from different perspectives, from the most common “compare and contrast” ability, to perspective transformation, awareness of current affairs and decentring and relativist perspectives (Basharina, 2007; Furstenberg et al., 2001; Itakura, 2004; Meagher & Castaños, 1996; Stickler & Emke, 2011; Zeiss & Isabelli-García, 2005), all with valuable insights to offer. In many studies across different strands, however, the term ICC has been dealt with rather loosely, resorting to broad stroke general statements more often than it should be. Interestingly, there are a few studies where the link between cultural competence and language seems to be clearer, through the lens of linguistic theories and discursive analysis (Belz, 2003, 2005; Chun, 2011; Liaw & Bunn-Le Master, 2010; Menard-Warwick, 2009). Yet it is slightly surprising that only three studies in this strand explicitly utilise Byram’s model (Liaw & Bunn-Le Master, 2010; O’Dowd, 2003; Ryshina-Pankova, 2018), which is in contrast with the wide popularity this model has received in other strands. Perhaps this is related to the unique nature of the internet as a third space culture (Dooly, 2011), being distinct from the face to face reality that Byram’s model was arguably originally designed for (Guth & Helm, 2010). Or this could reflect the difficulty and challenge in systematically operationalising ICC into teaching practice and task design. Either case, Byram’s model deserves further attention.

¶ 42 Leave a comment on paragraph 42 0 A final issue is the scarcity of studies in this line that highlights identity, with only 3 out of 21 taking into account the role and influence of identity explicitly (Dooly, 2011; Kohn & Hoffstaedter, 2017; Pasfield-Neofitou, 2011). As identity is intricately intertwined with both language and culture, it stands to reason that identity should be looked at with greater attention. Particularly in the case of online intercultural exchange, a speaker’s multiple linguistic identities are interconnected intricately, and how a speaker identifies with, or endeavours to maintain a balance in this identity ecology, will very likely influence that speaker’s communication and language learning. Another relevant point would be to address the “genre” issue raised by Kramsch and Thorne (2002) from the perspective of linguistic identities, to call on the learners to reflect on and deliberate what and how the linguistic identities are expressed by themselves and identified and understood by their partners (Fisher, Evans, Forbes, Gayton, & Liu, 2018).   

¶ 43 Leave a comment on paragraph 43 0 Assessing ICC

¶ 44 Leave a comment on paragraph 44 0 Another area of research in previous literature that could benefit FLE focuses on the issue of assessment. Different theoretical models guide the construction of instruments to measure ICC. Particularly, the thorny issues of assessing ICC has been deliberated by many researchers from a variety of fields such as international business and management, communication studies, psychology and education, leading to the construction of a number of standardised tests with psychometric validity. One of the earlier and most influential works of intercultural competence in these broader fields include Bennett’s developmental model of intercultural sensitivity (1986), which was later developed into the Intercultural Development Inventory (Hammer, Bennett, & Wiseman, 2003). Other theories originated from the field of business management and psychology have also contributed to assessment of ICC, such as Cultural Intelligence Theory and the Cultural Intelligence Scale (Van Dyne, Ang, & Koh, 2008; Van Dyne et al., 2012) and Intercultural Adjustment Potential Scale (Matsumoto et al., 2001), to name just a few. A potential challenge uncovered in these different models is the gap between ICC theories and the assessment: Even though in theory ICC is usually defined as an ability or skill, the measurement usually focuses on attitudes or awareness. Therefore, more behaviour oriented assessment research is needed to measure directly the ICC “in action” or examine to what extent such attitudes or awareness translate into abilities or skills.     

¶ 45 Leave a comment on paragraph 45 0 Conclusion

¶ 46 Leave a comment on paragraph 46 0 To sum up, this review first explores the theoretical literature with regards to the on-going debate of the language-culture nexus. Particularly, different scholars dedicate attention to either the nature of the languaculture or the divergent routes the two can take. The jury is still out on the separability or inseparability of culture and language yet it is acknowledged that the intertwined relationship between the two should be addressed and taken into account in the practice of foreign language education. More theorisation is needed to delineate for instance what and when aspects of language and culture are conflated or divergent and how these insights could be translated into classroom practice. A potential solution to this thorny issue resides in the field of ICC research, the conceptualisation of which serves as a middle ground with dual focus on both language and culture in the education of foreign languages. The particularly influential ICC model proposed by Byram has elicited promising endeavours by scholars from a variety of strands in FLE to pin down the pedagogical contribution to the language-culture nexus, the empirical focus of this review.    

¶ 47 Leave a comment on paragraph 47 0 Looking back at the past decades’ research in ICC and FLE, great progress has been made. To begin with, the significance of ICC has been widely acknowledged, both by academics and practitioners. The unrealistic model of Native Speaker competence has been largely deconstructed and the intercultural model has been recognised as in line with the present world as globalised and multilingual. The overall positive findings from a variety of approaches to ICC attest to the value ICC brings to FLE in cultivating in learners intercultural competence. Within the traditional classroom approach, there has been a promising move towards the more complex multimodal and cultural studies direction away from the simplistic fact sheet and nationalist route. Furthermore, there have been some exciting collaborations between ICC development and communicative technology, making intercultural experience more widely available to foreign language learners and representing a new trend for approaching ICC via telecollaboration.

¶ 48 Leave a comment on paragraph 48 0 Nevertheless, several issues remain unresolved. The abstract nature of ICC presents the challenge of systematic operationalisation, not to mention the varied approaches to conceptualise ICC. Such variation also lends to the difficulty of comparing literature as a whole which could potentially hinder the progress. Future research is needed to systematically review the operationalisation of ICC, particularly in intervention-focused studies to better compare the results across studies. Moreover, the intricate entanglement of language and culture remains underexplored, rendering language as being overshadowed in the backstage in many of the studies. For instance, it remains unclear whether students are fully utilising their linguistic repertoire and whether target language only or translanguaging would be optimal for ICC development. Pedagogically, whether target language only or translanguaging is better remains unclear. Further research focused on comparing approaches with different prescriptions of languages as medium of communication could potentially shed light on the issue and tease out for instance the value of L1 in foreign language and culture learning. Lastly, the element of identity seems to be overlooked which could potentially shed light on individual differences in the learning of language and culture. Also, findings suggest the internet offers a third space where learners are afforded the agency to deploy a range of semiotic resources to construct and perform identities but how this insight feeds back to language learning and teaching practice remains unexplored. More research is needed to investigate the effectiveness of online space as a site for learners’ multi/intercultural identity development and to explore the relationship between identity, language and cultural learning.          

¶ 49 Leave a comment on paragraph 49 0 References

¶ 50 Leave a comment on paragraph 50 0 Agar, M. (1994). Language shock: Understanding the culture of conversation. New York, NY: William Morrow & Company.

¶ 51 Leave a comment on paragraph 51 0 Almarza, G. G., Martínez, R. D., & Llavador, F. B. (2017). Approaching Erasmus students’ intercultural communicative competence through their socialisation patterns. Journal of English Studies, 15, 89–106. https://doi.org/10.18172/jes.3291

¶ 52 Leave a comment on paragraph 52 0 Baker, W. (2012). From cultural awareness to intercultural awareness: Culture in ELT. ELT Journal, 66(1), 62–70. https://doi.org/10.1093/elt/ccr017

¶ 53 Leave a comment on paragraph 53 0 Baker, W. (2015). Culture and identity through English as a Lingua Franca: Rethinking concepts and goals in intercultural communication. Boston, MA: De Gruyter Mouton.

¶ 54 Leave a comment on paragraph 54 0 Basharina, O. K. (2007). An activity theory perspective on student-reported contradictions in international telecollaboration. Language Learning, 11(2), 36–58.

¶ 55 Leave a comment on paragraph 55 0 Belz, J. A. (2003). Linguistic perspectives on the development of intercultural competence in telecollaboration. Language Learning & Technology, 7(2), 68–117.

¶ 56 Leave a comment on paragraph 56 0 Belz, J. A. (2005). Intercultural questioning, discovery and tension in internet-mediated language learning partnerships. Language and Intercultural Communication, 5(1), 3–39. https://doi.org/10.1080/14708470508668881

¶ 57 Leave a comment on paragraph 57 0 Belz, J. A. (2007). The development of intercultural communicative competence in telecollaborative partnerships. In R. O’Dowd (Ed.), Online intercultural exchange: An introduction for foreign language teachers (pp. 127–166). Clevedon, England: Multilingual Matters.

¶ 58 Leave a comment on paragraph 58 0 Bennett, M. J. (1986). A developmental approach to training for intercultural sensitivity. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 10(2), 179–196.

¶ 59 Leave a comment on paragraph 59 0 Blommaert, J. (2005). Discourse: A critical introduction. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

¶ 60 Leave a comment on paragraph 60 0 Brown, P. (2006). Cognitive anthropology. In C. Jourdan & K. Tuite (Eds.), Language, culture and society: Key topics in linguistic anthropology (pp. 96–114). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

¶ 61 Leave a comment on paragraph 61 0 Byram, M. (1997). Teaching and assessing intercultural communicative competence. Clevedon, England: Multilingual Matters.

¶ 62 Leave a comment on paragraph 62 0 Byram, M. (2008). From foreign language education to education for intercultural citizenship: Essays and reflections. Bristol, England: Multilingual Matters.

¶ 63 Leave a comment on paragraph 63 0 Byram, M. (2009). Intercultural competence in foreign languages: The intercultural speaker and the pedagogy of foreign language education. In D. Deardoff (Ed.), The SAGE handbook of intercultural competence (pp. 321–332). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.

¶ 64 Leave a comment on paragraph 64 0 Byram, M. (2012). Conceptualizing intercultural (communicative) competence and intercultural citizenship. In J. Jackson (Ed.), The Routledge handbook of language and intercultural communication (pp. 103–115). London, England: Routledge.

¶ 65 Leave a comment on paragraph 65 0 Byram, M. (2014). Twenty-five years on – From cultural studies to intercultural citizenship. Language, Culture and Curriculum, 27(3), 209–225. https://doi.org/10.1080/07908318.2014.974329

¶ 66 Leave a comment on paragraph 66 0 Byram, M., Holmes, P., & Savvides, N. (2013). Intercultural communicative competence in foreign language education: Questions of theory, practice and research. Language Learning Journal, 41(3), 251–253.

¶ 67 Leave a comment on paragraph 67 0 Byram, M., & Wagner, M. (2018). Making a difference: Language teaching for intercultural and international dialogue. Foreign Language Annals, 51(1), 140–151. https://doi.org/10.1111/flan.12319

¶ 68 Leave a comment on paragraph 68 0 Canagarajah, S. (2011). Codemeshing in academic writing: Identifying teachable strategies of translanguaging. The Modern Language Journal, 95(3), 401–417.

¶ 69 Leave a comment on paragraph 69 0 Canagarajah, S. (2012). Translingual practice: Global Englishes and cosmopolitan relations. London, England: Routledge.

¶ 70 Leave a comment on paragraph 70 0 Chun, D. M. (2011). Developing intercultural communicative competence through online exchanges. CALICO Journal, 28(2), 392–419.

¶ 71 Leave a comment on paragraph 71 0 Czerwionka, L., Artamonova, T., & Barbosa, M. (2015). Intercultural knowledge development: Evidence from student interviews during short-term study abroad. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 49, 80–99. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijintrel.2015.06.012

¶ 72 Leave a comment on paragraph 72 0 Dooly, M. A. (2011). Crossing the intercultural borders into 3rd space culture(s): implications for teacher education in the twenty-first century. Language and Intercultural Communication, 11(4), 319–337. https://doi.org/10.1080/14708477.2011.599390

¶ 73 Leave a comment on paragraph 73 0 Duff, P. (2015). Transnationalism, multilingualism, and identity. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 35, 57–80.

¶ 74 Leave a comment on paragraph 74 0 Fisher, L., Evans, M., Forbes, K., Gayton, A., & Liu, Y. (2018). Participative multilingual identity construction in the languages classroom: a multi-theoretical conceptualisation. International Journal of Multilingualism, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/14790718.2018.1524896

¶ 75 Leave a comment on paragraph 75 0 Furstenberg, G., Levet, S., English, K., & Maillet, K. (2001). Giving a virtual voice to the silent language of culture: The CULTURA project. Language Learning & Technology, 5(1), 55–102.

¶ 76 Leave a comment on paragraph 76 0 Guth, S., & Helm, F. (2010). Telecollaboration 2.0: Language, literacies and intercultural learning in the 21st century. London, England: Peter Lang.

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¶ 81 Leave a comment on paragraph 81 0 Houghton, S. A. (2012). Intercultural dialogue in practice: Managing value judgment through foreign language education. Bristol, England: Multilingual matters.

¶ 82 Leave a comment on paragraph 82 0 Houghton, S. A. (2014). Exploring manifestations of curiosity in study abroad as part of intercultural  communicative competence. System, 42, 368–382.

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¶ 84 Leave a comment on paragraph 84 0 Jackson, J. (2011). Cultivating cosmopolitan, intercultural citizenship through critical reflection and international, experiential learning. Language & Intercultural Communication, 11(2), 80–96.

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¶ 89 Leave a comment on paragraph 89 0 Kramsch, C. (1999). Thirdness: The intercultural stance. Language, Culture and Identity, 41–58.

¶ 90 Leave a comment on paragraph 90 0 Kramsch, C. (2006). From communicative competence to symbolic competence. The Modern Language Journal, 90(2), 249–252.

¶ 91 Leave a comment on paragraph 91 0 Kramsch, C. (2015). Language and culture. AILA Review, 27, 30–55. https://doi.org/10.1075/aila.27.02kra

¶ 92 Leave a comment on paragraph 92 0 Kramsch, C., & Kramsch, O. (2000). The avatars of literature in language study. The Modern Language Journal, 84(4), 553–573.

¶ 93 Leave a comment on paragraph 93 0 Kramsch, C., & Thorne, S. L. (2002). Foreign language learning as global communicative practice. In D. Block & D. Cameron (Eds.), Globalization and language teaching (pp. 83–100). London, England: Routledge.

¶ 94 Leave a comment on paragraph 94 0 Kusumaningputri, R., & Widodo, H. P. (2018). Promoting Indonesian university students’ critical intercultural awareness in tertiary EAL classrooms: The use of digital photograph-mediated intercultural tasks. System, 72, 49–61. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2017.10.003

¶ 95 Leave a comment on paragraph 95 0 Lantolf, J. P. (2006). Re (de) fining language proficiency in light of the concept of “languaculture.” In H. Byrnes (Ed.), Advanced language learning: The contribution of Halliday and Vygotsky (pp. 72–91). London, England: Continuum.

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¶ 97 Leave a comment on paragraph 97 0 Lewis, T., & O’Dowd, R. (2016). Online intercultural exchange and foreign language learning: A systematic review. In T. Lewis & R. O’Dowd (Eds.), Online Intercultural Exchange: Policy, pedagogy, practice (pp. 35–80). New York, NY: Routledge.

¶ 98 Leave a comment on paragraph 98 0 Liaw, M.-L., & Bunn-Le Master, S. (2010). Understanding telecollaboration through an analysis of intercultural discourse. Computer Assisted Language Learning, 23(1), 21–40. https://doi.org/10.1080/09588220903467301

¶ 99 Leave a comment on paragraph 99 0 Liddicoat, A., & Scarino, A. (2013). Intercultural language teaching and learning. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.

¶ 100 Leave a comment on paragraph 100 0 Martínez, R. D., Gutiérrez, G., Llavador, F. B., & Abad, F. M. (2016). The impact of an Erasmus placement in students’ perception of their intercultural communicative competence. Journal of Intercultural Communication Research, 45(4), 338–354. https://doi.org/10.1080/17475759.2016.1186721

¶ 101 Leave a comment on paragraph 101 0 Matsumoto, D., LeRoux, J., Ratzlaff, C., Tatani, H., Uchida, H., Kim, C., & Araki, S. (2001). Development and validation of a measure of intercultural adjustment potential in Japanese sojourners: The Intercultural Adjustment Potential Scale (ICAPS). International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 25(5), 483–510.

¶ 102 Leave a comment on paragraph 102 0 Meagher, M. E., & Castaños, F. (1996). Perceptions of American culture. In S. Herring (Ed.), Computer-mediated communication: Linguistic, social, and cross-cultural perspectives (Vol. 39, pp. 187–201). Amsterdam, Netherlands: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

¶ 103 Leave a comment on paragraph 103 0 Menard-Warwick, J. (2009). Comparing protest movements in Chile and California: Interculturality in an Internet chat exchange. Language and Intercultural Communication, 9(2), 105–119. https://doi.org/10.1080/14708470802450487

¶ 104 Leave a comment on paragraph 104 0 Norton, B., & De Costa, P. I. (2018). Research tasks on identity in language learning and teaching. Language Teaching, 51(1), 90–112.

¶ 105 Leave a comment on paragraph 105 0 O’Dowd, R. (2003). Understanding the ‘Other Side’: Intercultural learning in a Spanish-English e-mail exchange. Language Learning & Technology, 7(2), 118–144.

¶ 106 Leave a comment on paragraph 106 0 Paesani, K. (2011). Research in language-literature instruction: Meeting the call for change? Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 31, 161–181. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0267190511000043

¶ 107 Leave a comment on paragraph 107 0 Pasfield-Neofitou, S. (2011). Online domains of language use: Second language learners’ experiences of virtual community and foreignness. Language Learning & Technology, 15(2), 92–108.

¶ 108 Leave a comment on paragraph 108 0 Piasecka, L. (2013). Blending literature and foreign language learning: Current approaches. In D. Gabryś-Barker, E. Piechurska-Kuciel, & J. Zybert (Eds.), Investigations in teaching and learning languages (pp. 217–232). New York, NY: Springer.

¶ 109 Leave a comment on paragraph 109 0 Rezaei, S., & Naghibian, M. (2018). Developing Intercultural Communicative Competence through Short Stories: A Qualitative Inquiry. Iranian Journal of Language Teaching Research, 6(2), 77–96.

¶ 110 Leave a comment on paragraph 110 0 Risager, K. (2006). Languaculture as a key concept in language and culture teaching. In B. Preisler, A. Fabricius, H. Haberland, S. Kjaerbeck, & K. Risager (Eds.), The consequences of mobility: Linguistic and sociocultural contact zones (pp. 185–196). Roskilde, Denmark: Roskilde Universitet.

¶ 111 Leave a comment on paragraph 111 0 Risager, K. (2007). Language and culture pedagogy: From a national to a transnational paradigm (Vol. 14). Bristol, England: Multilingual Matters.

¶ 112 Leave a comment on paragraph 112 0 Rodríguez, L. F. G. (2012). Fostering intercultural communicative competence through reading authentic literary texts in an advanced colombian EFL classroom: A constructivist perspective. Profile: Issues in Teachers’ Professional Development, 14(1), 49–66.

¶ 113 Leave a comment on paragraph 113 0 Rodríguez, L. F. G. (2015). Critical intercultural learning through topics of deep culture in an EFL classroom. Ikala, 20(1), 43–59. https://doi.org/10.17533/udea.ikala.v20n1a03

¶ 114 Leave a comment on paragraph 114 0 Ryshina-Pankova, M. (2018). Discourse moves and intercultural communicative competence in telecollaborative chats. Language Learning & Technology, 22(1), 218–239. Retrieved from Scopus.

¶ 115 Leave a comment on paragraph 115 0 Sharifian, F. (2015a). Language and culture: Overview. In F. Sharifian (Ed.), The Routledge handbook of language and culture (pp. 19–33). London, England: Routledge.

¶ 116 Leave a comment on paragraph 116 0 Sharifian, F. (Ed.). (2015b). The Routledge handbook of language and culture. London, England: Routledge.

¶ 117 Leave a comment on paragraph 117 0 Shiri, S. (2015). Intercultural communicative competence development during and after language study abroad: Insights from Arabic. Foreign Language Annals, 48(4), 541–569.

¶ 118 Leave a comment on paragraph 118 0 Stickler, U., & Emke, M. (2011). Literalia: Towards developing intercultural maturity online. Language Learning & Technology, 15(1), 147–168.

¶ 119 Leave a comment on paragraph 119 0 Van Dyne, L., Ang, S., & Koh, C. (2008). Development and validation of the CQS. In S. Ang & L. Van Dyne (Eds.), Handbook of cultural intelligence (pp. 16–40). London, England: Routledge.

¶ 120 Leave a comment on paragraph 120 0 Van Dyne, L., Ang, S., Ng, K. Y., Rockstuhl, T., Tan, M. L., & Koh, C. (2012). Sub-dimensions of the four factor model of cultural intelligence: Expanding the conceptualization and measurement of cultural intelligence. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 6(4), 295–313. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2012.00429.x

¶ 121 Leave a comment on paragraph 121 0 Van Ek, J. A. (1986). Objectives for foreign language learning. Croton, NY: Manhattan Publishing Company.

¶ 122 Leave a comment on paragraph 122 0 Ware, P. D., & Kramsch, C. (2005). Toward an intercultural stance: Teaching German and English through telecollaboration. The Modern Language Journal, 89(2), 190–205. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4781.2005.00274.x

¶ 123 Leave a comment on paragraph 123 0 Zeiss, E., & Isabelli-García, C. L. (2005). The role of asynchronous computer mediated communication on enhancing cultural awareness. Computer Assisted Language Learning, 18(3), 151–169. https://doi.org/10.1080/09588220500173310

¶ 124 Leave a comment on paragraph 124 0 Appendix A: List of Studies