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Pragmatics 4:3.309-3 13 InternationalPragmatics Association PERSPECTIVBSON INTERCULTURALCOMMUNICATION: A CRITICAL READING1 Michael Meeuu'isand SrikantSarangi The 4th IPrA conference in Kobe last year shaped its theme, 'Cognition and communicationin an intercultura!context',around a number of panels which provided for unified forums of discussion.But in the margins of these arranged sessions, there were a number of individualspeakersaddressinginterculturalissues, who, in attendingeach others' presentations, came to see the need to establisha post-factum 'panel'. Indeed, exchangingimpressionsin the corridors of Shoin Women'sUniversityabout how clearlythey sawtheir presentationsoverlap in terms of a preferred approach to intercultural communication,they concluded that a valuableopportunity had been missedto voicetheseoverlappingsin a panel session. At the same time, however, the opportunify presented itself to continue the cross-fertilizationof ideas, extendingit to other like-minded Kobe lecturers who came to join the discussion.The presentvolume reports on the outcomesof these reflections. As a 'critical' reading of the Kobe lecturesbrought together in the present specialissue,this introductory article can actuallybe read as a postscript to the volume.Rather than merelyrewordingthe main theme and settingof each of the contributions,we prefer to engage in what Garfinkel would call a 'purposeful misreading'of the articles,raising issuesabout each of them which the individual contributorsmay or may not have intendedto addressexplicitly.It is our purpose to pick out some significanttrendsin order to demonstratehow we see this volume as a challengefor and confrontationwith the field of interculturalcommunication research.In doing so, we invite the contributorsand readersalike to evaluateour readingvis-d-vistheir own. A bassocontinuothat runs through the contributionsis a critical outlook on interculturalcommunication.zThis critical outlook manifestsitself at two levels:at the object level of the analysis of intercultural interactions and at the metatheoretical level of the discussionof current trends and models within t The ideas presented here have greatly benefited from discussions with Dennis Day, Thiru Kandiah, Tom Koole, David Shea, Shi-xu, and Jan ten Thije, as well as a number of other people. 'all the ideas remain our own Many of them will at least agree that the usual disclaimer responsibility',is this time not just a formal decorum. t There is, of course, no claim implietl that the present collection is the first attempt to adopt a critical approach to intercultural communication - its precedentedstatus will become apparent as severalarticles acknowledgethe foregoerswho have problematizedcurrent trends in intercultural communication research. 310 Michael Meeuwis and Sikant Sarangi interculturalcommunicationresearch.On the basisof reportedanalysesof empirical interactional data sets, the authors make an attempt to reveal the ideological processesat work in the communicativestructuresof interculturalencounters,or to present alternative viewpoints and methodologicalapparatusesmore suitable for such investigations.These critical data analysesthen lead each of them to 'interrogate' a selected range of existing models and theories of intercultural research, asking to what degree the analytic models are able to disclose the dimensions of social inequality and power relations present in intercultural encounters.The challengeis aimed at understanding and 'denaturalizing' some of the key analytic constructs and categoriesthat in intercultural communication research are glossed over or taken for granted as unproblematic explanatory resources. The first paper challengesthe way ethnicidentityhasin sometraditionsbeen viewed as an ingredientof individualidentityat the macro level of societalstructure. Drawing on the schoolof ethnomethodology, the questionas to'how Day addresses ethnic identity is constructedin on-goinginteraction,i.e.,how people make relevant the notion of cultural group membership in their discursivepractices. In the particular context of the multicultural workplace,these cultural classificationsof colleagues,superiors,and subordinatescan serve as functional strategiesin the development of the professionaland the socialhierarchicalrelationshipsbetween these different groups.Moreover, as the first voice in this volume,Day's casestudy has the 'sobering effect' of showing that 'culture' is already interculturalper se. Cultural identity is an accomplishmentof the 'work' interlocutorsdo in intercultural - or interculturallyconstructed- interaction.It appearsthat, as abstractionsthat are intersubjectivelyaccomplishedthrough talk, such categoriescan more sensibly be accountedfor in discursive,constructivistterms, than in terms of objectively identifiable attributesof people. If these categoriesare matters of intersubjectiveconstruction,what is the exactrelationshipof theseconstructsto conversational behavior?Shi-xuapproaches this question by way of criticizing a view of cultural attributions - i.e. the way informantsdescribeand explainpeople'sbehaviorin culturalterms- as pre-existing and stable cognitive structuresdetermining conversationalchoices.Referring to recent discourse-analytictrends within Social Psychology, he opts for an action-orientedapproach to attributions and stereotypicperceptions,in order to examine how they are constructedin talk and what interactive purposes these constructionsserve.Shi-xu arguesthat an action-orientedapproach to discursive attribution formation and its local functionscan circumventa reductionfrom social action to cognition dismissingindividual agency.As such, Shi-xu cautions against viewing attributions and related perceptionsas collective properties of cultural groups. This is of particular relevancefor studieswhich set out to reveal the role ethnic perceptionsand stereotypesplay in interculturalencounters. The two caveatsformulated in the articlesby Day and Shi-xu are targeted at the community of interculturalcommunicationresearchersin general as well as at the other articlesto come in this volume. Indeed,ethnic categories,discussedby Day, and group stereotypes,elaboratedupon by Shi-xu,recur as analyticresources in some of the other contributions,who in their turn go on to critically explore intercultural phenomenaof different kinds.We are convincedthat this polyphonic Perspectiveson intercultural comntunication 3lf 'contour'whichimplicitlyprofiles the contributionsagainsteachother,is consistent with, and can only be enrichingfor, a publicationwhich aims at critical insight. Sheaappliesthe criticalstrategyof denaturalizalingtaken-tor-granted analytic constructs to the notion of contextualization and inferencing conventions, problematizingthe way they have been used in some models for intercultural communicationas given resourcesfor explainingcommunicativeconflicts.Turning explarnns and explanandum around, he argues that contextualization and interpretationstrategiesshould first of all be examinedwith respectto the ways in whichthey are themselvesmediatedby the societalpositionsof the interactantsand the situationalstructure of the conversationalactivity.They should not simply be consideredas pre-givenand stable normative patternsthat just 'come along' with the speakersinto the interaction.This discussionof the underpinningsof such conventionsleads Shea to problematize the view that cases of intercultural miscommunication contextualization and interencing canbe tracedto culture-specific conventions. The next paper supports Shea's challengeof the analytic link between culturaldifferencesand communicativebreakdown,and alsosharesShi-xu'sconcern with the role of attributionsin interculturalencounters.Meeuwisdraws attention to the fact that the relationship between cultural differencesand communicative problemsis not at all straightforwardor invariable acrossdifferent intercultural contexts.Reporting both on casesof interculturalcommunicativesuccessin which discourseconventionsare realizedin a stronglydifferentiatedway and, conversely, on casesof communicativeconflict where this realizationis lessdifferentiated,he urges for a more refined and critical view of the relationship in question. He suggeststhat such a critical view should take into account the way in which historically institutionalized modes of ethnic prejudice tolerate technical and culture-specific deviationsfor one speechcommunity,but not for another. One issue that will have become clear by now is the already-mentioned reflexivitywhich is implicitly or explicitlypresentin all the articles:in each casethe implementationof a critical perspectiveis two-fold in that it is both directed at the processesat work in the very intercultural data under analysisand at the social relevanceof some selectedapproachesto interculturalcommunication.The final paper realizesthis reflexivityin a very concreteway. Contributionssuch as Day's, Shi-xu's, and Shea'slook at the way basiccategoriessuchas ethnic identity, cultural attributions,and cultural differencesare not so much pre-determinedstructuresbut are in fact themselvesconstructedin, and thus outcomesof, interculturaldiscourse. Sarangiaddressesexactly these questions,but he shifts 'addressees':while those other contributionsinvestigatesuchconstructionat the object-levelof intercultural talk, Sarangiscrutinizesthe ways in which these constructionsare deployed at the level of theory formation and researchpractice.He examines,among other things, how certainanalystsof interculturalmiscommunication play too much upon'cultural differences'at the expenseof other factors in accountingfor (mis)communication phenomena,to the point where they themselvescome to 'stereotype'intercultural communicationas more 'intercultural' than 'communicative'in nature. As an alternative,Sarangisuggests that one shouldsituatethe interculturalencounterboth in its societaland in its institutionalcontext.This allows him to trace the specific discursivepracticesof interactantsinto the broader societalforces. 312 Michael Meeuwis and Sikant Sarangi Amongst all the intercultural matters on which the articles in this volume 'culture' appearsas the most common offer critical perspectives,the concept of subject of interrogation'. At various levels of explicitness,a common trope underlyingall the contributionsis the denaturalizationof an opaqueuse of culture as the necessaryand sufficient explanationfor what is going on in intercultural 'culture' as the 'ultimate interactions.But apart from criticizinga view and use of explanator'of interactivephenomena,this publicationis, at the meta-analyticlevel, 'ultimate extenuotor'.It rejects the also critical of a view and use of culture as the mask of scientificneutrality and the essentiallyconformistcharacterof a discipline, which predominantly refers to 'involuntary' processessuch as interference from cultural or linguisticbackgroundas the causesof interactivetrouble, and, as such, slightsactivitiesof socialexclusionand other ideologicalstrategiesdeployedby the powerful in intercultural communication" Although many of the contributionsdo not directly draw on the framework of Critical Linguistics,we seea strongparallelbetweenwhat this volume as a whole strives for and the mainstayof that critical tradition (e.9.,Fairclough 1985, 1988, 1989;Fowler et al. 1979;Kress 1989a,1989b;Kress& Hodge 1990).There is, first of all, the issue of analyticreflexivity:in the developmentof its own model for a the Critical-Linguistics tradition comesto critical studyof communicativeprocesses, challengesome prevailingmodelsin the linguisticsciencesin a similarvein. It holds againstthese models their inability or reluctanceto addresslinguisticpracticesand strategiesorientedto societalinequality.Secondly,Critical Linguisticsholdsthe view that any critical endeavorin the realm of linguisticanalysisnecessarilyimplies the analyst's constant orientation to discourse as both being informed by and contributing to the (re)productionof the socialorder. This focus on the discursive manifestationof the structure-agency relationshipis also one of the fundamental ingredientsof the critical perspectiveson interculturalcommunicationpresentedin this volume. The contributionsdemonstratethat power relationscan impossiblybe revealed by limiting the intercultural study to descriptive- or at best locally explanatory- accountsof micro-levelor macro-levelphenomenaalone.In general, Kress (1989a: 446) writes that the goal of Critical Linguistics is "to move the disciplineof linguisticstowards socialand political relevance,and by the use of its insightsto provide a social critique by documentingstructuresof inequality".We believe that the present publication,together with the other critical voices heard before in the field of interculturalcommunicationresearch,can help to shapesuch a preferred destinyof the discipline. We would, finally, like to draw attention to the fact that in adopting critical perspectiveson intercultural matters, the present special issue also offers the possibilityof contributingto specifictheoreticaland methodologicalconcernsin the linguisticsciencesin general.Many interculturalencountersare located in several public and institutionaldomains- some of vrhich have provided the data setsfor the following articles.The critical analysisof such interculturalsettingsrevealsthe complexitiesinherent in the analyticcategoriesand dynamicprocessesinvolved in talk in institutions,and can, as such, offer an opportunity for challengingsome assumptions related to descriptive and explanatory constructs in the broader language sciences, such as native speaker, native-speaker competence, participants. conversationalcooperativity,and socialequalitybetweenconversational These notions can and do of course receivecritical treatment in communication Perspectiveson interculftiral communrcation 313 theoriesof a more generalscope;but, asthisvolumecan testify,criticalintercultural communicationstudiesare particularlywell equippedto bring them to the fore. References Fairclough, N. (1985) Critical and descriptive goals in discourseanalysis.Joumal of hagnntics 9: 739-',l93. Fairclough, N. (1988) Michel Foucault and the analysis of discourse.CLSL ResearchPaper lO. lancaster University. Fairclough, N. (1989) Language and power. [.ondon: Longman. Fowler, R., B. Hodge, G. Kress, & T. Trew (1979) Language and control. krndon: Routledge. Kress,G. (1989a) History and language:Towards a social account of linguistic change.Journal of hagnntics 13:445-466. Kress, G. (1989b) Linguistic processesin sociocultural practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kress, G., & B. Hodge (1990) Language as ideologt. lnndon: Routledgc.