408 Book reviews / English for Specific Purposes 21 (2002) 405–416

Lingard, B., & Rizvi, F. (1997). Series Editors’ Foreword. In S. Muspratt, A. Luke, & P. Freebody, (Eds.)
Constructing critical literacies: teaching and learning textual practice. Studies in education series. St.
Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin.
Swales, J. (1990). Genre analysis. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.

Kate Cadman
Adelaide University
South Australia
Australia
E-mail address: [email protected]

PII: S0889-4906(01)00014-X

Culture in Second Language Teaching and Learning

This volume adds to the fast growing literature on the influence of culture on second
language teaching and learning. The strength of the book lies in that it not only draws
readers’ awareness to the role of cultural factors in language learning and teaching, but
also suggests and demonstrates appropriate pedagogy to address the cultural issues
raised. Proposals are made about materials development and teaching methodology
which involve students and teachers in exploring the relationship between language and
culture. While suggestions are made about activities and methodology, the volume also
encourages teachers to be innovative in their classes and to draw from their own cul-
tural environments appropriate and accessible activities, materials and methods. The
volume also provides a summary of literature relevant to these issues. Overall, the book
is very well organized and includes helpful section introductions and a main introduc-
tion which draws together all the chapters in the volume.
The book is divided into three parts, each consisting of chapters addressing a
specific aspect of the role of culture in second language teaching and learning. Part I
focuses on the role of culture in second language learning in general; Part II focuses
on the place of culture in second language writing; and Part III considers the impli-
cations of culture in teaching materials and methods.
In her introduction entitled ‘‘Culture in research and second language pedagogy’’,
Eli Hinkel emphasises the complexity of the concept of culture, pointing to the
diversity in definitions of culture, and how this impacts on the nonnative language
user. The introduction also provides a valuable and comprehensive summary of
some of the main studies on the relationship between culture and language con-
ducted over the last century.
Chapters in Part I focus on the influence of culture on second language classroom
interaction as well as on teaching and learning a second language. Suzanne Scollon,
in her chapter ‘‘Not to waste words or students’’ examines and characterises Chinese
and Western students’ classroom behaviour and second language teachers expecta-
tions. The writer shows how the teachings of Confucius and Socrates can influence
the classroom behaviour of Chinese and Western students, respectively. In the next
 Book reviews / English for Specific Purposes 21 (2002) 405–416 409

chapter, James Lantolf extends work on second culture acquisition, bringing a cog-
nitive perspective to an area which has previously focused on social and attitudinal
considerations. He argues that culture acquisition should not seek to replicate the
socialization process but should aim to develop intercultural understanding. Of
value is the author’s suggestion that further cognitive study of related concepts like
gestures, image schemata, sound images, scripts, checklists, rituals and so on be
carried out with regard to their cognitive consequences for second language culture.
Lawrence Bouton then looks at implicature as a conversational strategy in cross-
cultural interaction. He notes that cultural background plays a central role in the
messages that one draws from an implicature, and that people from different cul-
tural backgrounds interpret at least some implicatures differently. Bouton discusses
a study that shows that implicatures can pose an obstacle to cross-cultural commu-
nication and argues that the more common or routine implicatures be made part of
the English as a second language curriculum.
Part II focuses on ‘‘Culture and second language writing’’. The chapters here are
generally valuable in demonstrating the now widely accepted notion that language
and rhetorical styles are intimately bound with cultural identity to the extent that
native-like proficiency in writing is unlikely. Yamuna Kachru’s chapter ‘‘Culture,
context and writing’’ is particularly insightful in that it proposes a ‘widening of
rhetoric horizons of writers’. The writer advocates using contrastive rhetoric (CR) as
a way of searching for a set of universals of rhetorical patterns rather than seeing the
goal of CR as changing the behavior of nonnative users of English. Eli Hinkel also
shows in her chapter that not all rhetorical traditions and cultures share the rheto-
rical conventions of academic writing. Like Kachru, she notes that nonnative
speakers of English may never acquire native-like writing proficiency in English.
Linda Harklau’s chapter ‘‘Representing culture in the ESL writing Classroom’’
considers how culture is dealt with in USA ESL classes. She argues that these pro-
grammes are often unsuccessful because of their failure to address students’ differing
cultural backgrounds and their varying levels of experience with the US culture. The
writer argues for culture-related discussions in language classes and that these
should be motivated by, and have their origin in, students’ perceptions and needs.
Chapters in Part III focus on ‘‘culture and second language materials’’. The writers
examine the implications of culture on teaching materials and methods drawing on
the works of Hymes (communicative competence), and Austin and Searle (speech act
theory). All the chapters argue that teaching of a second or foreign language cannot
be divorced from teaching the culture of its speakers. In chapter 7, Joan Kelly Hall
presents an impressive array of research related to interactive practices, exploring
methods by which second language learners can become interactively competent.
Elliot Judd, in her chapter ‘‘Some issues in the teaching of pragmatic competence’’,
presents examples of pragmatic failure and proposes a step by step model for teach-
ing pragmatic competence to second language learners while leaving room for tea-
chers to develop their own culturally appropriate pragmatics material. Kenneth
Rose, in ‘‘Teachers and students learning about requests in Hong Kong’’, focuses on
the application of pragmatics research to EFL teaching. He suggests some techniques
for pragmatic consciousness raising, drawing examples from Cantonese.
410 Book reviews / English for Specific Purposes 21 (2002) 405–416

In the next chapter Ron Scollon examines the extent to which television can be used
to analyse and illustrate culture differences in patterns of conversational openings and
recommends the use of television as a source of teaching materials. Martin Cortazzi
and Lixian Jin, in ‘‘Cultural mirrors: materials and methods in the EFL classroom’’,
consider how culture is reflected in textbooks used for teaching English as a foreign
language and English as a second language. A variety of English language teaching
materials from around the world are analyzed to show ways in which culture figures
in textbooks. What emerges from the analyses is that a cultural focus on inter-
cultural competence leads to communicative competence.
While this volume has many strengths, one glaring weakness is in its bias towards
the learning of English, despite the fact that the title of the volume suggests a more
general approach to the influence of culture on language. Many other languages are
being learned as second and/or languages than English, particularly in European,
Asian and African contexts (Connor, 1996; Thondhlana, 2000; Valdes, 1986), and
while the insights drawn in this volume can be applied to other linguistic contexts, it
would be fruitful to bring on board the experiences of second language researchers,
teachers and learners of these other languages. Despite this unfortunate omission,
however, this volume will be invaluable to second language researchers, teachers and
learners in a variety of contexts.

References

Connor, U. (1996). Contrastive rhetoric: cross-cultural aspects of second-language writing. Cambridge:

Juliet Thondhlana
Department of Linguistics
University of Zimbabwe
Harare
Zimbabwe

PII: S0889-4906(01)00013-8

The Cultural Context in Business Communication

The Cultural Context in Business Communication is a collection of readings drawn