Anthony J. Liddicoat

Internationalising Japan: Nihonjinron and the Intercultural in Japanese Language-in-education Policy

Language learning is frequently justified as a vehicle for promoting intercultural communication and understanding and language-in-education policies have increasingly come to reflect this preoccupation in their rhetoric. This paper examines the ways in which concepts relating to interculturality are constructed in Japanese language policy documents. It will explore in particular the ways in which ideologies of nationalism and Japanese identity have an impact on understandings of the nature and purpose of interculturality and how these are developed discursively in Japanese language-in-education policy. Japanese language policies construct a discourse of interculturality that focuses on the development of a nationalistic adherence to a particular conceptualisation of Japanese identity, which is unique, homogenous and monolithic. A multiculturalist perspective is taken in re-examining these themes in the contexts of Japanese policy documents relating to foreign language teaching, minority languages and Japanese language spread.

Language-in-Education Policies: The Discursive Construction of Intercultural Relations.

Chapter 1: Introduction: Language-in-education policy, discourse and the intercultural Chapter 2: Policies for foreign language learning Chapter 3: Languages in the education of immigrants Chapter 4: Languages in the education of indigenous people Chapter 5: External language spread policies Chapter 6: Language-in-education policies and intercultural relationships

Communication as Culturally Contexted Practice: A View from Intercultural Communication

This paper explores the interrelationship between culture, language and communication and examines dimensions of the impact of culture on the act and process of communication. It will argue that instances of language use in communication (linguistic acts) are inseparable from the cultural context in which they are created and in which they are received. Culture impacts on communication at a number of levels. It constitutes a frame in which utterances are conveyed and interpreted: what is communicated depends as much on the cultural context in which the communication occurs as it does on the elements from which the linguistic act is constructed. Culture also influences how the linguistic act itself is constructed, affecting text types and the properties and purposes of textual structures. Aspects of communication such as sequencing, recipient design and impact are read within a framework of cultural understandings about valued and appropriate language use. In addition, culture has an impact on understanding the purpose of a linguistic act in instances of communication. It influences perceptions of the communicative purpose associated with particular types of linguistic acts at particular moments of interaction and also of the interactional and interpersonal value of linguistic acts. Finally culture is a feature of the form of the language which is used to construct linguistic acts. Languages are, at least in part, culturally constructed artefacts which encode conceptual understandings of the world at various levels of embeddedness. The culturally contexted nature of communication therefore imposes a problem of inter-translatability for actual instances of communication across languages and cultures and necessitates a level of particularity for each actual instance of communication.

Pedagogical Practice for Integrating the Intercultural in Language Teaching and Learning

Languages education is increasingly emphasising the place of the development of intercultural abilities in the teaching and learning of languages, and such requirements are now common in curriculum documents around the world. This change in emphasis has posed some challenges for the ways in which language teachers work. For some teachers, language and culture have been seen as separate areas of teaching and learning and the focus on the intercultural is seen as a movement away from language. For others, however, language and culture are fundamentally integrated and the focus on the intercultural represents a way of refocusing language teaching and learning to reflect this integration. Such an integrated approach means that the intercultural can be included in the languages curriculum, without a movement away from a language focus. This paper will examine ways in which language curriculum and practice can be understood from an intercultural perspective focusing on the intercultural while maintaining language learning at the heart of the curriculum.

The Conceptualisation of the Cultural Component of Language Teaching in Australian Language-in-education Policy

Culture is recognised as an important part of languages teaching in Australia and has been increasingly integrated into policy and curriculum documents and the general rhetoric of languages education. The result is that policies include statements about aspects of cultural competence. However, the nature and scope of the cultural component in languages education has not been clearly articulated in these documents and a variety of competing and conflicting approaches to cultural knowledge are to be found. In particular, there is a key conflict in policy and curriculum documents between the expressed outcomes for the teaching of cultural knowledge as a part of language education and the ways in which this knowledge is conceptualised in the same documents.

Evolving Ideologies of the Intercultural in Australian Multicultural and Language Education Policy.

Abstract Australias language and multicultural policies have constructed the intercultural dimension of Australian identity and practice in a number of different ways relating to different community groups. This paper traces the evolution of multicultural policy from the 1970s until the present through the main national policy documents in order to examine how understandings of multiculturalism and the participation of various cultural groups within a multicultural society has changed over time. It demonstrates that although the ways in which multiculturalism and the interrelationship of ethnic groups within Australian identity has evolved over time, the positioning of the monocultural majority and ethnic minorities within the overall multicultural framework has consistently been understood in different ways. The result is a policy context in which there are multiple ideologies of multiculturalism at play and the existence of tensions between the forces of diversity and integration within the same policy context.

The effect of the institution: Openings in talkback radio

This paper explores the opening routines oftelephone converbations in talkback radio. Given their accessibility to the researcher and the fact that anybody can potentially become a participant, talkback events are particularly well suited to examining the claim that people modify their normal behaviour in institutional contexts. The opening strategies in talkback radio are analyzed in terms of Scheglqffs (1968, 1986) description oftelephone opening sequences. Similarities to and variations front this description are discussed in terms of the necessities of establishing on-air interaction. This paper also considers ways in which the effectiveness of talkback opening sequences may be evaluated.

Micro Language Planning for Multilingual Education: Agency in Local Contexts.

This paper overviews some of the domains of application of micro-level language planning approaches to foster multilingual education. It examines the language planning of local agents and the contexts in which their work contributes to multilingual education, either to expand or limit educational possibilities. It identifies four broad contexts of language planning activity in which local agents work: the local implementation of macro-level policy, contestation of macro-level policy, addressing local needs in the absence of macro-level policy and opening new possibilities for developing multilingualism. These contexts provide a way of framing the contribution that micro language planning work and local agents can make to multilingual education.

Presenting a point of view: Caller's contributions to talkback radio in Australia

Abstract This paper examines publicly available forms of oral argumentation in the form of talkback radio events in which callers present a point of view on a particular issue. Argumentation is examined as a structured phenomenon whose structuring is evident in conversational activity and which is influenced in talkback radio by its institutional context. The paper describes the complexes of speech acts used by callers to substantiate points of view and identifies the complexes of argumentation, complexes of evidence and complexes of concession, used by callers. The sequencing of these complexes of speech acts within the contribution is then examined and the placing and function of hosts challenges to points of view and their relationship to other components of the callers contribution is discussed.

Engaging with diversity: the construction of policy for intercultural education in Italy

Italy has become a destination for immigration, and this has had an impact on the linguistic and cultural diversity of school populations. In response to this changing profile, Italy has developed a series of language‐in‐education policies for meeting the needs of immigrant children. This paper traces the development of these policies and examines the ways in which the linguistic and cultural education of immigrants has been conceptualized. It traces a movement from policies relating to language and integration to intercultural education with a focus on developing the intercultural abilities of the entire population. At the same time, Italy’s language‐in‐education policies, while responding to the changed social profile resulting from immigration, have marginalized some aspects of immigrant children’s educational needs. L’Italia è diventata una destinazione per l’immigrazione e questo ha avuto un impatto sulla diversità linguistico‐culturale della popolazione scolastica. In risposta a questo cambiamento, l’Italia ha sviluppato una serie di politiche linguistico‐educative per soddisfare le necessità dei bambini immigrati. Quest’articolo traccia lo sviluppo di queste politiche ed esamina il modo in cui l’inserimento linguistico‐culturale dei bambini immigrati è stato concettualizzato nell’ambito scolastico. Inoltre, traccia la loro evoluzione partendo da politiche riguardanti gli aspetti linguistici e l’integrazione scolastica all’educazione interculturale, focalizzata nello sviluppo delle abilità interculturali della popolazione intera. Le politiche linguistiche italiane in materia di istruzione hanno cercato in questo modo di rispondere al nuovo profilo sociale risultato dall’immigrazione, ma hanno, allo stesso tempo, emarginato degli aspetti riguardanti i bisogni educativi dei bambini immigrati.