Intercultural communication with texts:
a model for analysing reading practices
HILD HOFF
UNIVERSITY OF BERGEN, NORWAY
Contents
 Background
 The analytical model
 The data material and preliminary results
 Further plans
Background
 The need to integrate language, culture and literature in FL
education (Burwitz-Meltzer, 2007; Fenner, 2011; Greek,
2008; Lütge, 2012)
 The need to recognise conflict, ambiguity and complexity in
intercultural communication (Dervin & Gross, forth.; Hoff,
2014; Kramsch, 2009, 2011; Ros i Solé, 2013)
 Literary reading as a communicative experience (cf.
hermeneutic and reader reception theory, Gadamer,
1996; Iser, 1978)
 From ‘intercultural speaker’ (Byram, 1997) to
‘intercultural reader’ (Hoff, forth.)
 The reading of FL literature as a multifaceted form of
intercultural communication
 requires decentering to successfully fill ‘gaps’
 multivocality adds complexity
 narrative style and structure may enhance/obscure communication
 transcends notions of time and space
 requires recognition of how ‘each word tastes of the context and contexts
in which it has lived its socially charged life’ (Bakhtin, 2006, p. 293)
 How does the competent
‘intercultural reader’ interact with FL
literature?
Three levels of communication
OTHER
READERS
COGNITION
EMOTION
THE
INTERCULTURAL
READER
FL TEXT
OTHER TEXTS
CULTURAL / SOCIAL / HISTORICAL
SUBJECT POSITION
NARRATIVE STYLE AND
STRUCTURE
 To what extent do current reading
practices in FL classrooms take
place as intercultural
communication?
The data material
 Participants from four different EFL classes at the first year
of upper seconday school in Norway
 Four sets of tasks related to literary texts
 Learner responses prompted by the tasks
 focus group discussions
Preliminary findings
 Level 1 communication:
 Pronounced emphasis on accessible literary voices (protagonist and other
central characters) in the tasks
 The learner discussions indicate that their consideration of elusive voices
(narrator, implied author) is central in helping them recognise aspects of
conflict, complexity and ambiguity
 Level 2 communication:
 A wide range of level 2 ‘readers’ are included in the
tasks:
- alternate versions of level 1 text (film adaptations, cartoon summary)
- contemporary ‘expert’ readers (American)
- readers from another point in time (American)
- interpretative statements about the text
 Level 3 communication:
 generally not implied by the tasks
 the learners nevertheless frequently identify aspects of intertextuality as
they discuss the level 1 text
‘The lottery’  The Hunger Games, Divergent
- ‘Harrison Bergeron’  House of Cards, 1984, Brave New World, Star
Wars
-
 Types of reader response involved:
 the tasks primarily elicit the learners’ cognitive response to the text
 when their emotional response is involved, this appears to be brought
about by the text itself rather than the tasks
‘The lottery’ by Shirley Jackson
Harald: Like it’s perfectly normal to kill someone once a year. And the
children takes a part, and it’s a big feast…killing…‘ Yeah!’
Emma: But the children had to kill her…I don’t know, it’s just really messed
up. To kill your mother in front of everyone else, it’s just really//
Harald: //Yeah, that was quite shocking…The old lady gave her son a stone
for the stoning…that was…
Cecilie: That’s sick.
Harald: That was one of the most shocking parts.
Cecilie: And I don’t understand how the children…doesn’t get affected.
[…]
Emma: They don’t really know what normal is…because for them, it’s
normal.
Harald: It’s weird. We’d never kill someone just to keep the population
down…I don’t know.
[…]
Emma: But I mean, like, for them, it’s normal, but for us it would be very
dystopian, so…
 The cultural/social/historical subject positions of
literary voices/texts/readers tend to be an implicit
rather than an explicit concern in the tasks
Why do you think [the author] wrote this book?
- This story satirizes a number of social issues. What kind of traditions,
practices, laws etc. might it represent?
-
 Tendency among the learners to overlook issues of
context and to rely on their own ‘here and now’
perspectives as they attempt to fill such ‘gaps’ in the text
Implications
 The tasks prompt the learners to take into account a wide
range of literary voices, texts and readers from different
cultural/social/historical contexts as they engage with
English literature
 This does not in itself contribute to a development of their
abilites as ‘intercultural readers’
 The learners must be helped to contextualise literary voices, texts, and
readers
 The learners must be helped to recognise and explore how the narrative
style and structure of the text enhances or obscures their communication
with it
 The learners should be encouraged not only to express their emotional
response to the text, but to examine this response (or lack thereof) from a
critical distance
 The learners should be encouraged to reflect on the subjective nature of
literary reading
 The learners’ inclination to include level 3 communication should be
both acknowledged and further challenged
Plans for further analysis
 How does the teacher influence the learners’
communication with the voices, texts and readers implied
by the tasks?
 How do classroom procedures play a role in this equation?