scholarly journals Intercultural communication: English dominance

2021 ◽  
Vol 125 ◽  
pp. 01001
Author(s):  
Natalya Vladimirovna Chernyishkova ◽  
Daria Valerievna Sukhorukova ◽  
Marina Vadimovna Aroshidze

The importance of intercultural communication in today’s globalised world is undeniable. Scholars from different countries have contributed to the development of this field and created educational materials – textbooks on intercultural communication devoted to classifications and features of different cultures – and textbooks on foreign languages that include exercises devoted to developing intercultural skills in everyday and professional contexts. Teachers of foreign languages are making an effort to use the available materials that provide a wide outlook on various cultures and help students prepare for being a part of intercultural community. However, there is an evident shortage of such materials in languages other than English. The article provides the results of the analysis of online sources that demonstrates that the majority of available resources that are in any way connected with intercultural communication are in English. The article dwells on the reasons for English dominance in intercultural communication study and suggests a global effort as a solution. Whether we are looking at textbooks purely on intercultural communication or foreign language learning resources, it is important to understand that the English language cannot be the only medium of intercultural competence formation – other languages can and should be a prism through which intercultural communication is studied.

2016 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-104
Author(s):  
Józef Jarosz

Abstract The contemporary teaching of foreign languages assumes the development of the ability to use a foreign language in different communication situations. Apart from language competence, also the cultural competence is developed as it is a necessary component of communication. A successful transfer of knowledge and language skills in the process of foreign language learning is determined by a textbook (in addition to other factors). The goal of this article is to analyze the content and assess three Danish textbooks, which were published in Germany in the years 2008-2010. The textbooks are examined in terms of knowledge about Danish life and institutions, the transfer of intercultural competence and the presence of stereotypes. The textbooks were studied based on the list of criteria and it resulted in stating that the textbooks fulfill the objective of providing the knowledge about the country to a great degree. The intercultural component and the issue of stereotypes are dealt with in a different manner.


Author(s):  
Szilvia Batyi

Some form of bi- and multilingualism means the naturallingual condition for more than the half of the population of the Earth. It is a substantial linguistic aim of the Transcarpathian Hungarian community that beside preservation of their mother tongue (the Hungarian), acquire the state language (the Ukrainian language) and the basis of at least one world language. But this aim is hindered by a lot of things in Transcarpathia. The goal of the study isto shed light on these problems and to find possible solutions based on two researches. The first research, which was carried out in the Tanscarpathian Hungarian schools, was to reveal the conditions and problems of foreign language education. The research threwlight on numerous problems that approve the low level of foreign language knowledge of the Tanscarpathian Hungarian youth. Attitudes and stereotypes influence the success of foreign language acquisition. For this reason in the second part of the study I would like to show, what kind of stereotypes and attitudes can be discovered in the parents (who are lay linguistically and language pedagogically) concerning foreign languages, and within this especially concerning the English language. It appears from the interviews, that nor the attitudes of the state towards foreign languages that was inherited from the soviet system, neither the impassiveness of the parents improves the positive attitudes in the Transcarpathian Hungarian students towards foreign languages, and nor the state, neither the parents approve the motivation of foreign language acquisition.


Author(s):  
Vadym Tynnyi

The article analyzes the essence and content of terms «intercultural communication», «intercultural competence», the ways of efficient foreign language learning through constructing communication knowledge and skills under conditions of intercultural communication through information and communication technology.


2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 271-280
Author(s):  
Irsal Amin

The problem of learning foreign languages has always been a barrier in the process of learning interaction that makes foreign languages a scourge for students. This also creates certain difficulties for teachers in carrying out the process of teaching foreign languages, not to mention talking about the egoism of teachers who fail to see and develop students' language interests. Previous research studies indicate that the problem of learning foreign languages is a psychological problem.This research is a mixed-method study that combines quantitative-qualitative approaches to explain the influence of language interest on students’ learning outcomes at Al-Abroor Modern Islamic Boarding School in South Tapanuli Regency. The data collection methods in this study used interview and questionnaires to determine language interest and students’ learning outcomes by carrying out written test.The sample in this study were 141 students from a population of 380 people. The data analysis technique in this study used descriptive statistics to find out students' language interest and learning outcomes both in Arabic and English. The findings of this study indicate that students’ language interest is greater in Arabicwith  thelanguage interest percentage at 80.60% and learning outcomes at 63.54%. Meanwhile, the English language interest is at 71.48% with learning outcomes at 28.36%. This finding, thus, shows that the difference in students' language interest in Arabic and English is 9.12% with a difference in learning outcomes of 34.87. This research also shows that language interest grows naturally and internally within students which is then strengthened by other supporting factors. In this case, the Arabic language interest in students grew stronger because of the use of Arabic in other subjects. Therefore, it can be concluded that developing language interest can be a factor that supports the successful implementation of language learning.


2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (7) ◽  
pp. 72
Author(s):  
Samia Azieb ◽  
Rajai AL-Khanji ◽  
Majid Tarawneh

The aim of the present study is two-fold in essence. First, it aims at finding out the extent to which cognates’ recognition aids Jordanian French-English bilinguals to translate from English into French. Second, it seeks to determine if such recognition can be a good strategy in learning foreign languages. Accordingly, a Translation Elicitation Task containing cognates and false cognates was devised and given to a sample of 31 students majoring in French at both the B.A and M.A levels at the University of Jordan. Findings of the study showed that most students did benefit from their English language background, and thus cognates facilitated their comprehension of French. However, some students participating in the translation test were not mindful of the lexical differences between English and French, thus producing an incorrect interpretation of the text. The study ends with a recommendation for foreign language instructors to teach cognate recognition strategies explicitly.


Author(s):  
Jimmy Saputra Nasution ◽  
Muhammad Rahmadeny ◽  
Ichsan Jazzawi

This article aims to provide a brief description and review of the research conducted by Yasemin Bayyurt entitled "Current Perspectives on Sociolinguistics and English Language Education" published in The Journal of Language Teaching and Learning, using descriptive qualitative analysis, and this paper tries to understand the importance of sociolinguistics in learning foreign languages from the perspective of the researcher. In this paper, the position and importance of sociolinguistics in foreign language education is the main topic in this article. This article is intended to provide a brief review of sociolinguistics and its importance in learning foreign languages. The findings in this study see that the research of Yasemin Bayyurt discusses and develops the definition of linguistic language and the relationship between sociolinguistics and foreign language education which will be explored in depth in 4 focuses. In it also mentioned the existence of several basic problems discussed in the sociolinguistic field, one example of which is variation and change language. The author examines this in three dimensions, namely the attitude towards foreign language learning, the inclusion of culture in foreign language learning, and the contribution of language planning to foreign language education. So with the findings in this study, hopefully it can be a reference for readers and hope that it can also be a replica in real life.


Author(s):  
Olena Ivashko

The article tackles the problem of teaching foreign languages to seniors. The general trends in FL education for the third-age learners are outlined. The institutions in which seniors can study foreign languages in Poland are enumerated. The psychological, physiological, methodological and social peculiarities of teaching a foreign language to the third agers are analyzed. Special emphasis is laid upon educational needs of the Third Age learners. Some language learning strategies which help seniors’ foreign language learning are suggested.


Relay Journal ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 228-235
Author(s):  
Paul J. Moore ◽  
Phil Murphy ◽  
Luann Pascucci ◽  
Scott Sustenance

This paper reports on an ongoing study into the affordances of free online machine translation for students learning English as a foreign language (EFL) at the tertiary level in Japan. The researchers are currently collecting data from a questionnaire, task performance, and interviews with 10-15 EFL learners in an English Language Institute in a university in Japan. The paper provides some background on the changing role of translation in language learning theory and pedagogy, before focusing literature related to technical developments in machine translation technology, and its application to foreign language learning. An overview of the research methodology is provided, along with some insights into potential findings. Findings will be presented in subsequent publications.


English Today ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Nasir A. Syed ◽  
Shah Bibi

English is used as a lingua franca in most parts of the world (Ozaki, 2011). However, problems and issues related to learning English are country specific (Nagamine, 2011), because most of the difficulties in foreign language learning arise from L1 interference (Flege, 1995). Since this study focuses on acoustic analysis of a phonological feature of Pakistan English (PakE), we outline the historical background of the issue very briefly. Pakistan is a linguistically rich country. More than 70 languages are spoken in Pakistan (Rahman, 1996). Saraiki, Balochi, Sindhi, Punjabi and Pashto are the major indigenous languages of the country. More than 90% of the total population speaks these languages. Pakistan came into being in 1947. It inherited English as a language of education, law, the judiciary and media from the British colonial masters. The British rulers also used the English language in India for official correspondence. Therefore, English became a very effective tool and symbol of power in the subcontinent. As a result, people of the subcontinent feel pride in learning English. Although the colonial period has ended and the English rulers have departed to their homeland, English still remains the language of ruling elite in Pakistan and India.


Author(s):  
Will Baker

AbstractEnglish as a lingua franca (ELF) research highlights the complexity and fluidity of culture in intercultural communication through English. ELF users draw on, construct, and move between global, national, and local orientations towards cultural characterisations. Thus, the relationship between language and culture is best approached as situated and emergent. However, this has challenged previous representations of culture, particularly those centred predominantly on nation states, which are prevalent in English language teaching (ELT) practices and the associated conceptions of communicative and intercultural communicative competence. Two key questions which are then brought to the fore are: how are we to best understand such multifarious characterisations of culture in intercultural communication through ELF and what implications, if any, does this have for ELT and the teaching of culture in language teaching? In relation to the first question, this paper will discuss how complexity theory offers a framework for understanding culture as a constantly changing but nonetheless meaningful category in ELF research, whilst avoiding essentialism and reductionism. This underpins the response to the second question, whereby any formulations of intercultural competence offered as an aim in language pedagogy must also eschew these simplistic and essentialist cultural characterisations. Furthermore, the manner of simplification prevalent in approaches to culture in the ELT language classroom will be critically questioned. It will be argued that such simplification easily leads into essentialist representations of language and culture in ELT and an over representation of “Anglophone cultures.” The paper will conclude with a number of suggestions and examples for how such complex understandings of culture and language through ELF can be meaningfully incorporated into pedagogic practice.


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