Communication Across Cultures: Mutual Understanding in a Global World

Communication Across Cultures explores how cultural context affects the use and (mis)interpretation of language. It provides an accessible and interdisciplinary introduction to language and language variation in intercultural communication by drawing on both classic and cutting-edge research from pragmatics, discourse analysis, sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology and politeness studies. This new edition has been comprehensively updated to incorporate recent research, with an emphasis on the fluid and emergent practice of intercultural communication. It provides increased coverage of variation in language within and between cultures, drawing on real-world examples of spoken and written communication. The authors review classic concepts like 'face', 'politeness' and 'speech acts', but also critique these concepts and introduce more recent approaches. Each chapter provides a set of suggested readings, questions and exercises to enable the student to work through concepts and consolidate their understanding of intercultural communication. This is an excellent resource for students of linguistics and related disciplines.

Heather Bowe has studied, lived and worked in Australia, the USA and the Middle East. She earned her Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Southern California, where she also taught English to international students. Heather's major academic publications include two books on Australian Aboriginal languages, one on the Pitjantjatjara language of central Australia and the other, a language reclamation study of the Yorta Yorta Aboriginal language from north eastern Victoria. Heather's interest in intercultural communication was sparked by her personal and academic background and was also encouraged by students, who were eager to apply their linguistics knowledge to the global context. Heather was the Executive Director of the Monash Language and Society Centre for over ten years, working with its founder, Professor Michael Clyne, for much of that time. The first edition of Communication Across Cultures, which Heather co-authored with Ph.D. student Kylie Martin was sparked by her interaction with students and colleagues at Monash University, Melbourne, where she pursued her academic career in Linguistics for over twenty years until her retirement in 2010. Heather continues her involvement as a Monash University adjunct staff member.

Kylie Martin is currently an Associate Professor in the Research Faculty of Media and Communication at Hokkaido University, Japan. She has taught at a number of universities in Australia and Japan over the past ten years, including the University of Melbourne, Monash University, Deakin University, Hosei University and Hokkaido University. Her teaching has been based in the areas of Sociolinguistics and English for Academic Purposes with a focus on intercultural communication, World Englishes, second language acquisition, language and identity, and Indigenous language revitalisation. Kylie's research interests focus on the influences of globalisation processes on the functions and values of Indigenous languages within urban multilingual places. Her Ph.D. research examines the relationship between the Ainu language and identity maintenance within the Indigenous Ainu diaspora community in the Kanto region of Japan. She is currently researching the use of different multimodal resources in the performance art of Ainu artists to identify new and creative ways of Ainu language practice as part of the Ainu revitalisation movement.

Howard Manns is lecturer in Linguistics at Monash University where he serves on the Executive Committee of the Language and Society Centre. Before working at Monash, Howard worked as a specialist in Iranian languages and cultures for the US Navy, taught English in Indonesia and lived, travelled and/or worked in more than sixty countries on six of the world's seven continents. Howard wrote his Ph.D. (Monash University) on linguistic and social change on the island of Java. He has focused on Indonesia since 2003, but also works with other sociolinguistic communities, including the Deaf Blind community of Melbourne. Howard has a B.A. in linguistics (University of Pittsburgh) as well as a TESOL certification. He was the 2012 winner of the Michael Clyne Prize for Outstanding Research on Language and Society. Howard's contribution to this book emerges from his undergraduate units Managing Intercultural Communication and Sociolinguistics, his postgraduate units Language in Society and World Englishes, and various postgraduate supervisions.