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Intercultural Communication & Ideology
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Intercultural Communication & Ideology



December 2010 | 240 pages | SAGE Publications Ltd
Taking on issues normally left in the margins, Intercultural Communication and Ideology revises the way we think of intercultural communication by insisting that we consider its ideological component. In this brilliant and engaging book about culture and the interstices that comprise the grounds for our interactions, Adrian Holliday shows us the necessity for a cosmopolitan process that expands the basis of our intercultural work.
- Molefi Kete Asante, Temple University

"Adrian Holliday’s highly readable and thought provoking volume is a welcome addition to the existing body of work on intercultural communication and ideology... With its comprehensive coverage of studies in the field and critical discussion of dominant theoretical paradigms, this refreshing book provides a valuable resource for both students and experienced researchers but also everyone interested in intercultural communication. An authoritative and open minded book the field will embrace."
- Jo Angouri, University of the West of England

Although communication is central to the humanities and social sciences, the inter-cultural level is often, peculiarly, left out of accounts. So what is intercultural communication? How does it relate to global processes and questions of identity?   This comprehensive book examines the main features of intercultural communication. It critically examines the main positions in the field. It addresses intercultural communication within the context of global politics, both addressing the specific problems that derive from Western ideology and setting out an agenda for research.

The book investigates categories of cultural action and itemizes the machinery for the illumination of inter-cultural processes. Holliday shows how a dialogue between national structures and creative universal cultural skills can be carried on in new locations, relating intercultural communication to theories of multiculturalism, cosmopolitanism and globalization, while also exploring how ideology permeates inter-cultural processes and develops an alternative 'grammar' of culture.

 
Preface and methodology
 
Chapter 1: Key Discussions
Essentialism

 
Neo-Essentialism

 
Cosmopolitanism

 
Imagined Certainty versus Acknowledged Complexity

 
 
Chapter 2: Critical Cultural Awareness
Models of Awareness

 
A Reconstructed Narrative

 
Critical Interpretivism

 
A Decentred Reading

 
Opening up Cultural Possibilities

 
 
Chapter 3: Cultural Complexity
Informants

 
An Emergent Methodology

 
Statements of Cultural Identity

 
Competing Social Theories

 
Complexity and Politics

 
Thinking about China

 
 
Chapter 4: The Indelible Politics of Self and Other
Othering

 
The Morality of 'Helping'

 
Struggling with Identity Recognition

 
Understanding the Discourse Politics of Othering

 
 
Chapter 5: Un-Noticed Periphery Identities
Claiming the World

 
'Westernization' and Modernity

 
 
Chapter 6: A Grammar of Culture
Negotiating Culture

 
Particular Content and Universal Process

 
Particular Social and Political Structures

 
Particular Cultural Products

 
Underlying Universal Cultural Processes

 
 
Chapter 7: Discourses of Cultural Disbelief
Penetrating Professional Discourses

 
Sustained Disbelief

 
The Intercultural Line and the Third Space

 
 
Chapter 8: Creative Cultural Engagement
Qing and the Seminar

 
Learning from the Margins

 
 
Chapter 9: Culture, Real or Imagined?
The Centrality of Ideology

 
The Fact of Ideology

 
Cultural Realism

 
Conclusion

 
 
Glossary

Taking on issues normally left in the margins, the author of Intercultural Communication and Ideology has revised the way we think of intercultural communication by insisting that we consider its ideological component. In this brilliant and engaging book about culture and the interstices that comprise the grounds for our interactions, Adrian Holliday shows us the necessity for a cosmopolitan process that expands the basis of our intercultural work. This is a compelling book that should be read by scholars and the general public alike. It is accessible, factual, and clear
Molefi Kete Asante
Professor, Department of African American Studies at Temple University and author of 'Erasing Racism: The Survival of the American Nation'


Adrian Holliday’s highly readable and thought provoking volume is a welcome addition to the existing body of work on Intercultural Communication and Ideology. The rich dataset and analysis of well selected excerpts challenge essentialistic understandings of the notion of culture and linguistic behaviour. With its comprehensive coverage of studies in the field and critical discussion of dominant theoretical paradigms, this refreshing book provides a valuable resource for both students and experienced researchers but also everyone interested in Intercultural Communication. An authoritative and open minded book the field will embrace
Jo Angouri
Senior Lecturer in Linguistics and Intercultural Communication, University of the West of England, Bristol


For interculturalists who feel limited by the essentialistic constraints of the individualismllectivism divide and by the West's propensity to define culture as nationality, Intercultural Communication and Ideology offers a refreshing and more complex frame for analyzing and theorizing intercultural communication. Advocating a critical cosmopolitan approach as analytical frame, Holliday attends to the influence of ideology and the marginalization of non-Western cultural realities typical within traditional schools of thought in intercultural communication studies. A must read for those interested in understanding and analyzing intercultural interactions in more complex ways than offered by traditional Western perspectives
Dreama G. Moon
Professor, California State University, San Marcos, CA, USA



It's a valuable guide for graduate students.

Dr Sermin Tag Kalafatoglu
Department of Cinema and Television, Ordu University
October 5, 2015

It engages with theoretical issues not central to the course. It will however be recommended for library purchase to benefit research students in the broader field.

Dr Juliet Thondhlana
School of Education, Nottingham University
March 12, 2015

This book is going to be adopted as recommended reading on a year-long course on intercultural communication where it fits in well with the other reading and aims of the module. Some of the content is relatively advanced for lower undergraduate level, but more able students could benefit greatly from some of chapters, especially the discussion of critical cultural awareness.

Dr Helen Ringrow
School of Languages and Area Studies, Portsmouth University
January 6, 2015

This text does an excellent job of covering the selected material, but unfortunately does not cover enough of the course objectives to warrant adoption as a text. An option I continue to consider is incorporation of key chapters in a bundle of readings.

Professor Melvin Hall
College Of Education, Northern Arizona University
March 2, 2014

Excellent publication for advanced students in intercultural communication and education, great source for developing critical awareness and general reflexivity on how to cope with otherness, preferably recommended to students at master level and above.

Professor Juergen Henze
Department of Education, Humboldt University of Berlin
February 27, 2014

Students use this book to explore diverse communications

Ms Sharon Yearwood
Academy, Havering College of Further and Higher Education
March 12, 2013

Engaging book with a challenging understanding of the ideological component of communication. However, it is perhaps too critical in emphasis for the course I had considered it for. As an extension reader or to help with dissertations excellent.

Mr Geoff Bath
Business School, Oxford Brookes University
February 14, 2013

This is an excellent resource for students studying intercultural communication and wanting to acquire and/or teaching intercultural competence

Professor Heinz Antor
English Literature , University of Cologne
November 30, 2011

I appreciated this text's contents and clarity in exposition, and I will be adopting it for use. On a theoretical level, I'm not completely convinced by Holliday's use of Geertz's "thick description" as a methodology: as an anthropologist, it seems to me to be a bit too formulaic, but for the rest I am very much in agreement with his epistemological stance. The book is quite thought-provoking and appears to be user-friendly. We'll see how it goes in actual use.

Professor Dorothy Zinn
Education , Free University of Bozen-Bolzano
August 24, 2011

Sample Materials & Chapters

Chapter 1: Key Discussions


For instructors

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