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Understanding Intercultural Communication: Negotiating a Grammar of Culture
Understanding Intercultural Communication provides a practical framework to help readers to understand intercultural communication and to solve intercultural problems. Each chapter exemplifies the everyday intercultural through ethnographic narratives in which people make sense of each other in home, work and study locations. Underpinned by a grammar of culture developed by the author, this book addresses key issues in intercultural communication, Written by a leading researcher in the field, the new edition of this important text has been revised to invite the reader to reflect and develop their own intercultural and research strategies, and updated to include new ideas that have emerged in Holliday’s own work and elsewhere. This book is a key resource for academics, students and practitioners in intercultural communication and related fields.
194 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2013
3 people are currently reading
12 people want to read
About the author
Adrian Holliday
23 books2 followersAdrian began his career as a teacher of English, History, Economics and Sociology at North Romford Comprehensive School in London, where, in 1972, he wrote a course in sociology. He then went to Iran in 1973 as a teacher of English at the British Council Centre in Tehran, and then managed a small British Council curriculum unit in Ahwaz and designed technical English programmes for oil company technicians and engineers.
After his masters degree at Lancaster University, between 1980 and 85 he was instrumental in setting up the English for Special Purposes Centre at Damascus University. This is now the successful Higher Languages Institute.
Between 1985 and 90 he was involved in a national university curriculum project in Egypt. Located at the Centre for Developing English Language Teaching (CDELT), Ain Shams University, this took in 18 universities across the country. This project provided the experience of the global politics of English and the ethnographic material which informed his PhD thesis at Lancaster University in 1990.
While at Canterbury Christ Church University, between 2002 and 2017 he was the Head of The Graduate School, where he provided academic management for research degrees across the University. In the late 1990s he was involved in regulating and accrediting British English language teaching qualifications across the university and private sectors. As Chair of the British Association of TESOL Qualifying Institutions, he was instrumental in setting up the then British Institute of English Language Teaching.
Throughout his career, with a clear trajectory from his undergraduate days as a student of sociology, he has been developing his thinking and writing around the relationship between the individual, culture and social structures. His long-standing relationship with Iran and the Middle East more generally has provided him with an acute awareness of the global politics which surround these relationships, and of the profound lack of Western understanding of non-Western realities despite the massive proliferation of global information and communication.
After his masters degree at Lancaster University, between 1980 and 85 he was instrumental in setting up the English for Special Purposes Centre at Damascus University. This is now the successful Higher Languages Institute.
Between 1985 and 90 he was involved in a national university curriculum project in Egypt. Located at the Centre for Developing English Language Teaching (CDELT), Ain Shams University, this took in 18 universities across the country. This project provided the experience of the global politics of English and the ethnographic material which informed his PhD thesis at Lancaster University in 1990.
While at Canterbury Christ Church University, between 2002 and 2017 he was the Head of The Graduate School, where he provided academic management for research degrees across the University. In the late 1990s he was involved in regulating and accrediting British English language teaching qualifications across the university and private sectors. As Chair of the British Association of TESOL Qualifying Institutions, he was instrumental in setting up the then British Institute of English Language Teaching.
Throughout his career, with a clear trajectory from his undergraduate days as a student of sociology, he has been developing his thinking and writing around the relationship between the individual, culture and social structures. His long-standing relationship with Iran and the Middle East more generally has provided him with an acute awareness of the global politics which surround these relationships, and of the profound lack of Western understanding of non-Western realities despite the massive proliferation of global information and communication.
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October 24, 2019
This is one of the best books that I have read on intercultural communication. It presents a non-essentialist position of culture. A key aspect of the non-essentialist position is that individuals can have membership in multiple cultures. These cultures are not limited to national or ethnic cultures, but can be derived from any social group. This allows individuals to look for connections when communicating across cultures rather than focusing on the differences between cultures, which is a key aspect of the essentialist position. One of the key ideas presented in this book is the concept of 'small culture formation on the go'. This concept introduces the idea that we are constantly participating in intercultural interactions even within our own national or ethic groups, and that this process is the same when interacting with people from other nations. This is a powerful idea that deserves more attention.
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