A dialogic approach to
transcultural communication
pedagogy
Dr Celia Thompson
School of Languages & Linguistics
University of Melbourne
Australia
Email: celiat@unimelb.edu.au
Aims & Outline
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Why transcultural communication?
Pedagogical context
Theoretical framework
Personal narratives: transcultural shuttling
Musical examples of transcultural communication
Why transcultural
communication?
Features of language and communication:
• Movement between and within cultures
• Identity formation through self and others in
continual process of change, transition and
becoming
• Effects of globalisation on development of
transnational hybrid cultural forms
Pedagogical context
• Teaching ‘Intercultural Communication’
subject to 200 first year undergraduates
• Different study backgrounds and majors
• Transdiciplinary make-up of the target
learners
• Multilingual cohort: 80% of students spoke
a language in addition to English & 15%
international students with English as an
additional language
Bakhtin + Dialogism
• ‘Dialogue’ occurs not only between
different individuals (‘external’ dialogue),
but also within the individual in what
Bakhtin terms ‘interior’ or ‘internal’
dialogue (Bakhtin 1981, p. 427): a
“dialogue with the self” (1984, p. 213)
Communication as double-voiced
reflections
• Words are ‘double-voiced’; within each of
these double-voicings, a conflict between
voices occurs as each strives to
communicate with the other:
“These voices are not self-enclosed or deaf to
one another. They hear each other
constantly, call back and forth to each other,
and are reflected in one another”
(Bakhtin 1984, pp. 74-75).
The subject-in-process-and-ontrial
• Sociohistorical nature of subjectivity: individuals
as subjects-in-process-and-on-trial (Kristeva 1986;
1996)
• Subjectivity as a heterogeneous ongoing process
of (trans)formation and becoming (Kristeva 1986, p. 30):
“identities” engage with one another to produce
meanings; these meanings are not fixed but are in
a constant state of flux and may change over time
(Kristeva 1996, pp. 190-191)
Cultural consequences of
globalisation
• Holton’s (2000) account of homogenizing,
polarizing and hybridising reactions to
globalisation provides an additional
dimension to theorising this process of
transcultural identity formation
Homogenising and polarising
forces
• Homogenisation = emphasis on dominance,
uniformity and standardisation: Cultural
assimilation and integration
• Polarisation = rejection of cultural
difference; fear of ‘the Other’; clash of
cultures: Promotion of cultural dichotomies
Hybridisation of cultures
• A hybridisation position = a dynamic
process of cultural mixing and borrowing
• Hybridisation may co-occur with the forces
of homogenisation and polarisation
Transformation of learning
• Hybridisation leads to transformational
learning environments in which new
cultural forms and practices can emerge
• Engaging pedagogically with such hybrid
forms of text/knowledge production poses
challenges - hence the need for a
transcultural communication approach to
curricula design
Push-pull-mixing
(Singh & Doherty 2004, p. 21)
• Dialogism adds dynamic element
• Bakhtin conceptualises this ‘push-pull-mix’
as the ‘centripetal’ (centralising,
homogenising and hierarchicising) and
‘centrifugal’ (decentralising, de-normatising
and decrowning) forces that are constantly
at play in all communicative interactions
(1981, p. 425)
Dialogism as transtextual
accenting
• All texts (both spoken and written) have
historical, current and possible future
contexts
• Construction of meanings across past,
present and future planes
• Individual contributions to textual creation
occur by accenting and articulating the
words and ideas of myriad others
(Bakhtin 1981, p. 346)
Transcultural communication
pedagogy
• Dialogic framework offers exciting ways
forward in the development of new
pedagogical understandings about the
complex and dynamic interrelationships
between
language,
text/knowledge
production and identity, which form the
basis of all transcultural communication
study
Personal narratives and
transcultural shuttling
Jeannie Bell (adapted from 2001, pp. 45-52)
• Both parents lived on government
settlements
• People were forced to speak English and
forget their traditional languages and culture
Jeannie Bell
• We weren’t taught our language, we were
deliberately denied access
• We had to learn to speak and write English,
so we could be assimilated
• There was this deliberate cultural and
linguistic genocide going on
• Language is an essential part of our being
(adapted from Jeannie Bell 2001, pp. 45-52)
Personal narratives: Edward Said
• I was by inheritance American and
Palestinian at the same time
• I was living in Egypt and I wasn’t an
Egyptian
• I was this strange composite
• My strongest memory as a child was one of
being a misfit; I always had this sense of not
being quite right
(adapted from Said 2001b, pp. 223-245)
Edward Said
• Most European countries today are not pure
countries made up entirely of white people
• There’s a very large Indian community in
England; there’s a very large Muslim and
North African community in France, in
Germany, Sweden, and in Italy
• The world is a mixed world
(adapted from Said 2001b, pp. 223-245)
Musical examples of transcultural
communication
• Mitchell, T. & Penycook, A. (2007). ‘HipHop and Language’.‘Hip-Hop, SelfExpression and Identity’. Available from
Local Noise at:
http://www.localnoise.net.au/video/hip-hopand-self-expression/
• Smaczny, P. (2005). The Ramallah Concert:
Knowledge is the Beginning