A Thematic Linguistic Analysis of Tesol Students’ Commitment to Intercultural Communication Values

Bibliographic Data

ID10817347
AuthorsJoan Cutting (University of Edinburgh Edinburgh Scotland, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume54
Issue4
Pages846-869
Publication date2020-12-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueTESOL Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0039-8322 • E-ISSN: 1545-7249
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1002/tesq.559
OpenAlexW2997159661
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited18

This article describes a study of TESOL preservice teacher journals that used a thematic linguistic framework of analysis aimed at revealing the extent of their commitment to intercultural communication values, as evidenced by their attitude to cultural differences and stereotyping, and their stance markers. Nearly all entries showed the students’ ability to decenter, question the values of their own culture, and accept the values of the other culture. A minority of students took a nonessentialist view of culture and preferred to look at the influence of social variables such as age on language. On the other hand, a third of all entries contained polarization of overgeneralized cultural differences, juxtaposed negative words, critical intensifiers, negative hyperboles, and triple repetitions of critical hyperboles, all unconvincingly softened by expressions of weak epistemic stance. The article ends with a suggestion of how teacher educators can carry out a similar study of their preservice teachers’ discourse to understand their beliefs and help them become aware of how their attitudes can be revealed by destructive culturalist language

Intercultural communication · Linguistics · Pedagogy · Qualitative research · Social science · Sociology · Thematic analysis · Discourse Analysis in Language Studies · EFL/ESL Teaching and Learning · Multilingual Education and Policy · Psychology · Social Psychology

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