Scope of this book

This book intends to examine cultural variation in discourse, to explore the role of verbal communication patterns in successful and unsuccessful inter-cultural communication, and to integrate and develop frameworks for a linguistics of inter-cultural communication incorporating cultural values systems. It should be seen as a small contribution to the ongoing research on the development of a typology of communication patterns across languages and cultures and their relation to cultural values systems. To facilitate this process, it will modify some categories and features of the theoretical frameworks of pragmatics and discourse/conversational analysis, particularly the interface between these areas. It is hoped that this monograph will be of some interest not only to linguists, but also to teachers of English, education policy planners, and to those practising inter-cultural communication in any context.

Immigration patterns, rapid international transport, new technologies of communication (fax, E-mail, satellites, cable TV, computers), and opportunities for working in international teams and networks are all contributing to the importance of inter-cultural communication in the developed world. That is not to say that inter-cultural communication is a new phenomenon, but that the above factors are requiring a different kind of understanding of it. The assumption is often made that all that is needed for inter-cultural communication to be successful is for one of the parties to learn the other's language or for both (or all) parties to adopt a lingua franca, a common language which is the first language of neither.