JoLIE 9:2/2016
‘MULTICULTURAL AND MULTILINGUISTIC PERSPECTIVES AS ORIGINS OF GLOTTODIDACTIC IMPLICATIONS’. FOREWORD
Stanisław Puppel
Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland
Marlena Iwona Bielak
Stanisław Staszic University of Applied Sciences in Piła, Poland
Marcin Krawczak
Stanisław Staszic University of Applied Sciences in Piła, Poland
The leading theme of the present special edition of JoLIE, ‘Multicultural and multilinguistic perspectives as origins of glottodidactic implications’, encompasses a wide variety of cultural and linguistic issues that may constitute a rich source of inspiration for glottodidacticians (the term ‘glottodidactics’, which may be used interchangeably with the term ‘foreign language pedagogy’, was introduced to the field of applied linguistics by Prof. Ludwik Zabrocki (1907-1977), Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań, Poland). The collection of papers included in this volume, in consequence, have been devoted to a variety of ideas originating from diverse branches of the field of philology, the knowledge of which may enrich the process of foreign language teaching and learning.
The present linguistic frameworks strongly emphasize the need of conducting research into multiculturalism, intercultural communication and cultural-linguistic diversity aimed at preventing unnecessary misunderstandings or even cultural collisions and conflicts. In other words, it is intercultural competence that should constitute the objective of non-native (i.e. foreign) language teaching and learning. In the present edition of JoLIE, there occur five papers propagating ideas which may provide inspiration for language teachers willing to introduce cultural issues to their classes.
The intercultural approach has been presented by Viktoriia Gorbaneva who postulates raising the awareness of cultural differences among students of a non-native language by the analysis of poetry, its translation and the application of the emic approach. The article by Małgorzata Rydelek delves into the concept of the theatre approached as one of the most significant forms of culture and, at the same time, a space of intercultural communication. Nadezhda Chubko demonstrates the impact of gender on the discourse of both native and non-native speakers of the English language. The paper by Maciej Laskowski examines a single cultural aspect solely with reference to one nationality, i.e. it presents the concept of Polish hospitality in terms of its role in the past and at present, whereas the paper by Edyta Krajewska focuses on the Canadian view of the concept of otherness in the works of Margaret Atwood and André Alexis.
Among the approaches emphasizing the role of culture in linguistic research, one can clearly differentiate between the ecolinguistic perspective which analyzes any natural language with reference to interdependencies and interrelations of the surrounding environment and the dynamism of manifold cultural-linguistic-communicative processes, encapsulated in the idea of the hybrid transcommunicator, being the concept combining all the phenomena in question. The aforementioned communicator, being strongly culturally and socially determined, is characterized by the communicative competence (encompassing both verbal and non-verbal communicative resources) which allows him/her to move across various local cultures and ethnicities, languages, communities and, significantly, all the communicative orders.
A selection of the above problems have been discussed in three papers included in this volume. The role of communicative competence in political communication determined by different types of media is described in the paper by Artur Urbaniak. In turn, Marcin Krawczak concentrates on communication implemented by means of background music with regard to the influence it has on the communicative behaviors of people, whereas Marlena Iwona Bielak focuses on the idea of developing students’ communicative skills in the closed public space of the classroom by the application of the space navigation category of the theatre. It must be highlighted that multifarious ecolinguistic aspects presented in these articles carry broad glottodidactic implications, out of which the most general one might be the idea of the hybrid transcommunicator as the goal of non-native language teaching and learning.
The collection of articles included in this volume also comprises six papers devoted directly to the process of non-native language teaching and learning. The influence of project work on the process of developing autonomy in a school milieu is presented in the article by Marek Krawiec. The work by Magdalena Pospieszyńska-Wojtkowiak concentrates on the impact of individual variation on the process of learning foreign language pronunciation and simultaneously depicts the place of pronunciation teaching in English language pedagogy. Robert Pritchard in his paper sheds light on selected strategies for providing feedback to errors made by students in compositions. Ewa Rogozińska describes the development and basic assumptions of Neuro-Linguistic Programming and presents the possible applications of the framework under analysis to the field of foreign language education. The paper by Tomasz Róg focuses on the role of self-transcriptions in the development of the interactional skills of English language learners. Finally, Teodora Popescu’s paper on cultural conceptualisations of TIME in English and Romanian provides a glimpse into the modern business journalese, contributing to a deeper understanding of the two cultures in terms of metaphorical universality and variation.
The authors of this foreword express a heartfelt wish that the articles assembled in this collection will mainly provide a helpful and reliable source of information both to theoreticians and practitioners dealing with glottodidactics. It must also be highlighted that the present edition of JoLIE, ‘Multicultural and multilinguistic perspectives as origins of glottodidactic implications’, comprises ideas originating from a number of philological disciplines, inter alia, foreign language pedagogy, cultural and literary studies, ecolinguistics, communicology, and translation studies. Subsequently, it is the underlying motivation of the authors of this foreword to emphasize the idea that glottodidactics is a profoundly interdisciplinary area that draws its inspiration from various linguistic fields.
How to cite this article: Puppel, S., Bielak, M.I., Krawczak, M. (2016). ‘Multicultural and multilinguistic perspectives as origins of glottodidactic implications’. Foreword. Journal of Linguistic and Intercultural Education – JoLIE, 9(2), 7-10. DOI: https://doi.org/10.29302/jolie.2016.9.2.1
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