Languages for intercultural communication and education

Ethnographic Approaches to Culture
and Language
This chapter turns from a ‘skills-based’ focus on intercultural language
education, to consider in more depth insights from ethnography. The
topics addressed in this chapter are:
•
What is ethnography?
•
The role of ethnography in different research disciplines.
•
The role of ethnography in language education.
•
Ethnographic activities in the language classroom.
•
Devising larger-scale ethnographic projects for intercultural language
development.
What is Ethnography?
English language teaching has long drawn on the discipline of lin-
guistics, to the point where English language teaching theory has
practically become synonymous with the expression ‘applied linguis-
tics’. However, as we saw in Chapter 1, ELT can benefit from the
application of other disciplines. Over the past few decades the term ‘eth-
nography’ has gained currency in the literature of both cultural studies
and language learning (e.g. Byram
et al.
, 1994; Byram & Fleming, 1998;
Damen, 1987; Holliday, 1994; Nightingale, 1989; Radway, 1988; Roberts
et
al
., 1992; Roberts
et al
., 2001). Ethnographic practices, in a variety of forms,
are becoming increasingly central to intercultural approaches to language
teaching and learning. This chapter looks first at how ethnography is
understood as a research methodology in different disciplines (anthropol-
ogy, sociolinguistics, cultural studies and media research) and then
considers more specifically what the practice of ethnography across these
disciplines can offer the English language teacher and learner. In EFL
contexts, direct contact with anglophone cultures is usually more limited –
comparatively few learners can take advantage of overseas trips, or even a
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Intercultural Approaches to ELT
Ethnographic Approaches to Culture and Language
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study year abroad – however, many of the techniques used to stimulate the
‘ethnographic imagination’ are still valid and applicable.