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Introduction

Educational exchange can turn nations into people, contributing as no other form of communication can to the humanizing of international relations.—J. William Fulbright, 1983

As the quote from William Fulbright demonstrates, there is a general consensus on the value of educational exchanges in international and intercultural relations. However, as other authors in this volume note, the value and results of such educational exchanges are far from certain. This chapter will focus on the role of language in educational exchanges and in particular the English language, due to its current position as the predominant lingua franca, with an estimated two billion or more speakers (Crystal 2008). The use of a shared lingua franca on such a huge scale can be viewed as providing an unprecedented opportunity for intercultural exchange and hence aiding educational exchanges. However, there have been concerns that the dominance of English may result in linguistic and cultural ‘imperialism’ by the Anglophone settings from which the language originates; the ‘lingua frankensteinia’ (Phillipson 2008) of the title. This chapter will provide a brief overview of the empirical evidence which demonstrates a de-centering of English and a shift in ownership of the language away from its Anglophone origins toward the majority of additional or second language (L2) users. Studies in Global Englishes, World Englishes and English as a lingua franca (ELF) in particular, demonstrate adaptable and fluid uses of English, enabling it to function as a powerful medium for intercultural interaction. The diverse and dynamic uses of English or Englishes lead to a reconsideration of what successful communication entails and this will be addressed through a discussion of the notions of intercultural communicative competence and awareness. The varied and variable use of Englishes and the importance of intercultural communicative competence and awareness have major implications for language education and preparation for educational exchanges, which will be discussed in the final section of this chapter. However, at the same time there are ideological issues related to use of English and its links to the Anglophone world, especially in education, that cannot be dismissed. Nonetheless, it will be argued that in order for educational exchanges to fulfill their role in the development of intercultural connections and understanding, alternative approaches to language education in general and particularly in relation to English need to be adopted.

Educational Exchanges and Language Education

For many, a significant part of educational exchanges will be the language that is used in these exchanges, particularly if it is not the participant’s mother tongue or first language (L1). Indeed, in language education there is a long history of educational exchanges as a medium for learning both the language and the culture of other peoples. Yet, studies within language education have provided very mixed results as to the benefits of educational exchanges that involve a sojourn in another country (see e.g. the collection of studies in Byram and Feng 2006). Such exchanges may lead to greater understanding of another people and culture, and positive attitudes toward them with long-term benefits in terms of international connections and networks. Conversely, they may just as easily result in increased anxiety and stress for participants, leading to a reinforcement of stereotypes of others and unwillingness to engage in further exchanges or intercultural interactions.

A key aspect in avoiding this later scenario and enabling the former is adequate preparation before exchanges. This preparation goes beyond just proficiency in the language but must also include an understanding of the setting in which the exchange will take place, and the ability to engage with and reflect on new cultural experiences brought about through use of another language. Indeed, the links between language learning and learning about culture and the intercultural are now well established (e.g. Byram 1997, 2008; Risager 2007; Roberts et al. 2001). This may on the surface appear relatively straightforward; sojourners are given information about the language, people, culture and country of the setting in which the exchange will take place. Yet, a short reflection will reveal a great deal more complexity than this. Many of these exchanges take place at universities which are increasingly international in their orientations. In Anglophone settings, universities have positioned themselves in the vanguard of internationalization, with significant numbers of nondomestic students, particularly at postgraduate level. Data from the three countries at the forefront of this shows that in 2013, 966,333 international students chose the USA (SEVP 2014), 435,230 selected the UK for their higher education (ukcisa.org) and 253,046 student visas were granted for Australia (www.immi.gov.au/media/statistics/study). Therefore, it may well be that participants on exchanges in Anglophone countries will be interacting with people from many different countries and cultures, not only local students. In such a case, sojourners could never be prepared with knowledge of all the different cultural backgrounds they are likely to encounter. This would suggest that what is needed is not just knowledge of a particular culture and people but also knowledge of the processes of intercultural communication; that is, how to cope with cultural diversity. In other words, some kind of intercultural competence is needed for successful intercultural and educational exchanges. How this intercultural competence might be conceived will be one strand of the discussion in this chapter.

The second strand of the discussion here will focus on the language of education exchanges as the medium through which these intercultural interactions take place. While sojourners are likely to encounter an increasing diversity of cultural backgrounds in educational exchanges, the same degree of diversity does not, at least initially, appear to be true as regards language. The increasing spread of English as a global lingua franca has resulted in extensive use of the language in settings which are not traditionally associated with English. This has been particularly true of education, where English has become the medium of many academic practices including instruction in non-Anglophone settings (Mauranen 2012; Jenkins 2014). The widespread use of a single language has led to the concerns suggested in the title of this chapter that English is becoming, as Phillipson describes it, ‘a lingua frankensteinia’ (2008, p. 250). In this scenario, English is viewed as replacing and destroying other languages and the associated cultures, resulting in a loss of linguistic and cultural diversity and the promotion of Americanization and Europeanization, what Phillipson terms as ‘linguistic imperialism’ (1992). Yet, an alternative scenario is that the existence of a shared language of communication for so much of the world could potentially offer an unprecedented opportunity for intercultural exchange, leading to a greater understanding of cultural diversity rather than a destruction of it. It may also be that the widespread use of English by many different peoples will result in an increasing diversity in the way English is used, leading to many Englishes rather than a single monolithic English. In this chapter, it will be argued that this second scenario is the one that is supported by current research into the use of English as a global language, but that there are still concerns associated with the first scenario which need addressing.

Global Englishes: World Englishes and English as a Lingua Franca

In order to better contextualize the discussion in this chapter, a brief outline of the role of English globally is needed. For better or worse, English is currently the predominant global lingua franca, with an estimated 2 billion L2 users of the language (Crystal 2008) alongside the over 300 million L1 or mother tongue users ( www.ethnologue.com ). However, this is not to suggest that English is the only global language. There are considerably more L1 speakers of Chinese than English, over 1213 million, roughly the same number of L1 speakers of Spanish as English and, furthermore, both Chinese and Spanish have considerable numbers of L2 speakers ( www.ethnologue.com ). Other languages such as Arabic and Hindi also have large numbers of both L1 and L2 speakers in a range of geographical locations. Significantly, mass communication and particularly the Internet have eroded the relevance of physical geographical space in language use, and while English is the most used language on the Internet at 28.6 %, Chinese is not far behind with 23.2 % of Internet use ( http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats7.htm ). These statistics offer a rather different picture of global language use to the worst predictions of Phillipson’s ‘lingua frankensteinia’ (2008). While English is predominant, it is not completely dominant. Other languages also have global roles, especially Chinese, which indicates a multilingual global linguistic landscape. 1 Most importantly, Crystal’s (2008) estimates for L2 users of English greatly outnumber the L1 users and this has far-reaching implications for how we understand English. As Brumfit notes, ‘statistically, native speakers are in a minority for [English] language use, and thus for language change, for language maintenance, and for the ideologies and beliefs associated with the language’ (2001, p. 116). In other words, the ‘ownership’ of English is shifting from its traditional base in the Anglophone world to the non-native, L2 speakers of the language (Widdowson 2003). This has resulted in a number of alternative approaches to understanding the global role and uses of English.

One of the best established approaches to understanding the spread of English globally has been the World Englishes paradigm and in particular the characterization presented by Braj Kachru (1990). Kachru delineates three circles of English: the inner circle, which is the traditional Anglophone world such as the USA, UK and Australia, where English functions as the L1 for the majority of the population; the outer circle which contains indigenized officially codified and recognized varieties of English such as Indian English, Singaporean English and Nigerian English, where English functions as both L1 and L2 alongside other languages; and the expanding circle, containing countries which use English as a ‘foreign language’ to communicate with the rest of the world but where English does not have an internal function and where there is no officially recognized indigenous variety of English, for example, many European countries such as Spain and Germany, much of South America, Russia and East Asia.

This model of the global spread of English has been very influential; however, there are some substantial limitations. Although it is not the purpose of this discussion to address all these in detail, a number of the limitations are relevant to the current discussion. First, according to Kachru’s characterization of expanding circle settings, they are ‘norm dependent’, meaning that the English used follows the norms established by the inner-circle countries. Ignoring the considerable variety of norms within inner-circle countries, it is questionable to what extent English use in the expanding circle follows these norms, as the research into ELF, described below, will show. Second, the model is geographically based and still centered on the role of the nation state in language. Yet, with the contemporary spread of English, the situation is considerably more complex. Putting aside the use of English online and on the Internet, which obviously transcends many of the geographical restrictions languages were previously bound by, English is used in a myriad of ways both within and across such geographical spaces. Within the expanding circle, English may well have an internal role, for example, in multinational corporations such as Uniqulo, which, although is based in Japan, uses English as its working language. Most relevant to the concerns of this chapter, the growing number of branches of Anglophone universities in other countries, such as Nottingham Ningbo in China, and the rapid increase in English-medium instruction (EMI 2 ) programs in non-Anglophone settings, means that English is taking on an increasing role in the internal educational practices of expanding circle higher education institutes. Moreover, within Anglophone settings, the internationalization of universities has resulted in large numbers of international students, described above, meaning that in many cases English will not be the L1 for the majority of students (see Jenkins 2014). Furthermore, as many of these institutes, in all three of Kachru’s circles, become more international in their outlook, restricting characterizations to the national scale alone is missing much of how such institutions currently function in relation to networks of international connections.

An alternative characterization of English that is perhaps better able to account for the contemporary diversity and complexity of English use is ELF. ELF has been defined most simply as ‘English as it is used as a contact language among speakers from different first languages’ (Jenkins 2014, p. 44). Similarly, a functional definition is provided by Seidlhofer as, ‘any use of English among speakers of different first languages for whom English is the communicative medium of choice (and often only option)’ (2011, p. 7). While the focus of these definitions, and much of the associated research, is on non-native or L2 users of English, both definitions include native English speakers (L1) but they are the minority and are ‘less likely to constitute the linguistic reference norm’ (Seidlhofer 2011, p. 7). Unlike World Englishes, where the focus has been on describing new varieties of English, ELF is not a variety of English. Again to quote from Seidlhofer, ‘it is not a variety of English but a variable way of using it: English that functions as a lingua franca’ (2011, p. 77). Thus, continuous variation in linguistic form and other communicative norms is a key feature of ELF. Importantly, communication through ELF is not geographically bounded but rather can take place in any setting where English functions as a contact language. While this often involves expanding circle settings, researchers are increasingly turning their attention to multilingual settings in the inner circle, such as higher education institutions where L1 speakers of the language do not necessarily ‘constitute the linguistic reference norm’ (see e.g. Jenkins 2014).

Two examples will be briefly discussed to illustrate the type of variation typically documented in ELF research. The first example highlights the degree of linguistic diversity and also creativity which can be found in ELF communication. Pitzl (2009) presents an instance drawn from the one-million-word Vienna–Oxford International Corpus of English (VOICE) corpus of EFL communication (https://www.univie.ac.at/voice/). In her example the participants, none of whom are native speakers of English, seem to invent an ad hoc metaphor to describe the situation they find themselves in. One of the participants uses the phrase ‘we should not wake up any dogs’ (Pitzl 2009, p. 308) which is roughly analogous to the British English idiom ‘let sleeping dogs lie’ to refer to leaving a situation as it is rather than causing further problems. From a traditional perspective, this could be interpreted as an ‘error’ or failure on the part of the speaker to produce the ‘correct’ idiom. However, as Pitzl argues, it did not appear to be the speaker’s intention to reproduce the English idiom, and it was understood by the other participants in the interaction, seemingly successful therefore in conveying the intended meaning. This leads Pitzl to conclude that such variation in English use should be interpreted as a sign of creative adaptation of the language in situ and, furthermore, that such adaptation is essential for successful communication given the diverse settings and participants in ELF communication.

The second example demonstrates the extent of cultural variation in ELF communication. Baker (2009) presents data from an ethnographic study of L2 users of English in Thailand, illustrating the negotiation between two participants of the cultural practices referred to by the term ‘petanque’. While one participant views it as a game traditionally associated with old men in the south of France, the other participant sees it as referring to a game played by young university students in Thailand. Most obviously, English is being used in a setting removed from the traditional Anglophone world by participants who are using it as an L2 and to refer to cultural practices unrelated to the Anglophone world. But perhaps more interestingly, neither participant’s interpretation is authoritative with both participants appearing to accept that the same term can refer to a game which has a variety of possibly contradictory cultural references and meanings. Baker (2009) concludes that such instances illustrate the manner in which ELF can be used to represent and create cultural references and practices that cut across local, national and global scales. Both the above examples underscore the degree of variation of linguistic and cultural practices we can expect in ELF communication. Moreover, like the earlier World Englishes paradigm, ELF research provides further evidence of the de-centering of English from the original inner circle or Anglophone world and its adaptation and adoption in wide variety of settings, by a huge range of different L1 speakers, for a diverse range of purposes.

English as a Lingua Franca and Intercultural Competence/Awareness

Multifarious uses of English globally and, of particular relevance to this discussion, in higher education have significant implications for how we understand intercultural exchanges and communication through English. Given the diversity of linguistic and cultural practices which English encompasses, how is such variety managed by participants in communication or rather intercultural communication? Successful intercultural communication through ELF, as the examples previously presented show, clearly involves more than knowledge of a fixed and predefined code (i.e. a set of grammatical, lexical and phonological features). This offers a different perspective on language learning and teaching to the traditional conception and suggests a wider range of knowledge, skills and attitudes is needed. Instead, L2 language learning and use involves knowledge of pragmatics, multilingual communication strategies, linguistic and intercultural awareness (ICA), together with the appropriate attitudes and behavior to be able to make use of this knowledge. This entails a rethinking of communication competence, which has been at the core of language education (Hymes 1972; Canale and Swain 1980), and a move toward an expanded version of intercultural communicative competence and awareness to better account for the intercultural dimensions of communication.

To briefly recap an argument that has been presented in detail in many places (e.g. Brumfit 2001; Widdowson 2003), Hymes’ (1972) notion of communicative competence represented an important step away from the linguistic and grammatical competence envisaged in Chomsky’s (1965) conception and brought the role of language as a social tool to the fore. Canale and Swain (1980) then adapted this to L2 use, adding features such as strategic competence and communication strategies. Communicative competence has subsequently served as the predominant model of successful communication, and hence learning goal, in L2 teaching and learning. However, both Hymes’ and Canale and Swain’s models assumed a group of L1 or native speakers of the language in a well-established social community, with a coherent set of communicative practices that the L1 or L2 learner has to become familiar with. The increasing questioning of the relevance, attainability and desirability of native speakers of a language as models for L2 speakers of that language led to alternative conceptions of communicative competence. These were no longer based on native speaker models and intracultural communication as the goal but rather took intercultural communication as the aim, and the intercultural speaker with intercultural communicative competence as the model and goal.

The most influential model of intercultural communicative competence, at least in language education in Europe, has been Byram’s model (1997, 2008) which has been integrated into the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). There is no space here to describe Byram’s model in detail but, in brief, it contains five ‘savoirs’ that outline the knowledge, skills and attitudes necessary for intercultural communication through an L2. In particular, the model focuses on an understanding of the relative nature of cultural norms in communicative practices, which leads to the ability to compare and mediate between different cultural norms present in intercultural communication. At the center of the model is critical cultural awareness, which Byram defines as ‘an ability to evaluate, critically and on the basis of explicit criteria, perspectives, practices and products in one’s own and other cultures and countries’ (1997, p. 101). Another prominent conception which attempts to synthesize the findings and insights from a number of earlier models is Deardorff’s (2009) Process Model of Intercultural Competence. Like Byram’s model, it involves knowledge, skills and attitudes, but Deardorff (2010) also adds the notions of internal and external outcomes. Internal outcomes consist of ‘flexibility, adaptability, an ethnorelative perspective and empathy’ (2010, p. 1) and external outcomes are ‘the behavior and communication of the individual, which become the visible outcomes of intercultural competence experienced by others’ (2010, p. 1). Intercultural competence here is understood as ‘effective and appropriate behavior and communication in intercultural situations’ (2010, p. 1). This is not the place to discuss the similarities and differences between these two influential models but for the present purposes they can both be viewed as offering an important expansion of communicative competence that is more relevant to the types of intercultural communication experienced in educational exchanges.

While conceptions of intercultural competence such as Byram’s and Deardorff’s have been very important in moving forward our understanding of what successful intercultural communication entails, there are still some significant limitations as regards their approach to the complex linguistic and cultural diversity often found in Global Englishes and ELF communication. In the case of Byram’s model, the focus is very much on the national level, with countries and cultures equated in the above definition of cultural awareness. Although Deardorff’s model is not so explicitly centered on the national level of culture, it is still a US-centric perspective (Deardorff 2010). Furthermore, neither of these models contains references to the use of English as a global lingua franca, 3 nor considers the implications that this may have for our understanding of the relationships between language, culture and communication. As such, this can be viewed as an important ‘blind spot’ in current thinking about intercultural competence. If we only view English language use as tied to Anglophone settings and the associated communicative and cultural practices, then we risk associating intercultural competence through English with a narrow set of communicative norms. This would represent the linguistic and cultural homogenization that Phillipson (2008) argued against when describing English as a lingua frankensteinia. However, as research into ELF has demonstrated, this has not been the case in many of the uses of ELF for intercultural communication. Therefore, it is essential that our models of intercultural competence reflect this.

Baker (2011) offers a model of ICA that while building on Byram’s intercultural communicative competence 4 extends it to better account for the complexity and diversity of ELF communication. ICA is specifically focused on intercultural communication through ELF where there is no clear language, culture and nation correlation. This is crucial since it entails a move away from a priori assumptions about cultural difference, especially based at the national level, for example, ‘Chinese people do this … but American people do this …’ Instead, it emphasizes the need to employ intercultural competence and awareness in a flexible and situational-specific manner in which national cultural groupings are just one of many possible cultural orientations. It is thus defined as:

ICA is a conscious understanding of the role culturally based forms, practices and frames of reference can have in intercultural communication, and an ability to put these conceptions into practice in a flexible and context specific manner in communication.

The adaptability of ICA is crucial since it is not possible to specify in advance exactly what knowledge, skills or strategies are needed by participants in intercultural communication. Without this adaptability and flexibility, interlocutors could easily become ‘stuck’ in fixed communicative practices which, through not being responsive to the situation and other participants, are more likely to hinder successful intercultural communication than aid it.

A brief example may again help to illustrate this point. Xu and Dinh (2013) in a study of an understanding of word meanings in English show how a range of English speakers from different settings have considerable variation in their interpretations of the same lexical items. Most importantly, those with experience of intercultural communication through ELF, or World Englishes as Xu and Dinh term it, were able to articulate multiple interpretations of the same item simultaneously as the extract below from an L1 Cantonese, Hong Kong resident shows:

A tower to me means a ‘light tower’, for guiding ships. In Western countries, church towers usually have bells. I can also think of the Eiffel tower in Paris. In Hong Kong, there are also towers. The most well-known one is the one at Tsim Sha Tsui. (Xu and Dinh 2013, p. 375)

As can be seen in this example, local references as well as more global references are included simultaneously and the participant is aware of the multiple meanings and interpretations.

Furthermore, and significantly, many participants demonstrated an awareness of both multiple interpretations of words and multiple cultural schemas associated with those words, such as the differing cultural practices associated with a wedding. This leads Xu and Dinh to propose that ‘It can be understood that WE [World Englishes] speakers are by nature English-knowing bilinguals or multilinguals, so they have multiple cultural perspectives in ELF communication’ (2013, p. 375). It is this ability to simultaneously negotiate ‘multiple cultural perspectives’ that is key to ICA.

In sum, the use of a language for intercultural communication, as is the case of English, as well as other languages, in educational exchanges underscores the importance of intercultural competence in language learning and use. However, while current conceptions of intercultural competence represent an important expansion of the original notion of communicative competence, they do not go far enough in recognizing the fluid and complex nature of the relationships between language, culture and communication in global lingua francas such as English. ICA has been put forward as an expansion of, rather than replacement for, previous models, which recognizes the need to move beyond a focus on national cultures and emphasizes the importance of flexibility and adaptability of knowledge, skills and attitudes in instances of intercultural communication.

Implications for Language Education and Educational Exchanges

It may be argued that the dynamic conceptions of intercultural competence, such as ICA presented in the previous section, are less relevant to education exchanges where students are typically moving between countries and so have a defined culture and community in which they will be residing. However, as the statistics on international universities in the Anglophone world, including the USA, indicated, this is a simplistic view of higher education institutes. Internationally orientated higher education institutes are made up of very diverse populations, and English will frequently be functioning as a lingua franca with both staff and students from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds (Jenkins 2014). Furthermore, the aim of such educational exchanges is often to establish networks of individuals who will be able to function internationally in whatever career they peruse. This international emphasis again would suggest that the most likely use of English will be in lingua franca scenarios. Equally importantly, this does not just apply to L2 speakers of English. Native speakers of English on exchanges will find themselves using English, hopefully alongside rather than instead of the local L1, in international environments, often in EMI programs, and need to be able to use English appropriately in such settings. The communicative and cultural practices they are familiar with from their L1 settings are unlikely to be relevant in their exchange contexts. Thus, intercultural competence and ICA are equally relevant for English native speakers when using English for intercultural communication.

Furthermore, from a social justice perspective, if the ownership of English is moving away from the Anglophone world, all users of English should be expected to adapt and adjust their communicative practices to ensure successful intercultural communication. The burden should not be on L2 users to make themselves understood to native English speakers due to the supposed superiority of native English. If the goal of intercultural competence becomes the cultural competence of native English speakers, then Phillipson’s (2008) fears of linguistic and cultural imperialism will be realized. Rather, as repeatedly stressed throughout this discussion, the goal of intercultural competence and awareness should be mutual accommodation and adaptation. If English is to provide a medium for intercultural communication for all, then the burden of successful communication must fall equally on all. Moreover, if international universities are truly to be international in their outlook then it seems illogical and discriminatory to insist on local communicative and linguistic practices and to marginalize other ‘international’ communicative practices (Jenkins 2014).

Such a conclusion clearly has major implications for pedagogy, and indeed, much intercultural communicative competence research has been closely tied to language education (e.g. Byram 1997, 2008; Risager 2006). Given the importance of viewing L2 communication as intercultural communication, this would indicate a more central role for the knowledge, skills and attitudes of successful intercultural communication as viewed through intercultural communicative competence and ICA. This also entails a shift in language education from the current predominant focus on linguistic forms to one that includes areas such as pragmatics, communication strategies, linguistic and ICA. It also suggests the importance of bringing intercultural encounters in various forms into the curriculum through exchanges either in person or increasingly through virtual exchanges as envisaged in teletandem/telecollaboration (O’Dowd 2011). Baker (2012) outlines a variety of approaches through which the intercultural can be brought into the classroom including exploring local cultures; exploring language learning materials; exploring the media and arts both online and through more ‘traditional’ mediums; making use of cultural informants; and engaging in intercultural communication both face to face and electronically. Alongside a more prominent role for an intercultural approach to language teaching, there is a need for recognition of the variety of Englishes used, as documented in World Englishes and ELF research, in terms of both linguistic forms and communicative practices. Indeed, many ELF researchers have advocated a more intercultural perspective to English language teaching, including many of the features documented above. In particular, a more prominent role for communication strategies and pragmatics in the classroom has been advocated as an approach to manage diversity in intercultural communication (see e.g. the collection of studies in Bayyurt and Akcan 2015). Equally important is introducing learners to the many different forms and the inherent variation of Englishes. This can be done through providing examples of World Englishes and ELF use as an alternative to the current predominance of native speaker like English in English language teaching (ELT).

Yet, we should not expect such changes to come easily or quickly. De-centering of Englishes and recognition of the shared ‘ownership’ represent a major challenge to the current status quo. English is the most highly commodified language at present and the English language teaching and testing industry is a multibillion-dollar global enterprise. This industry has to a large extent been based around the centrality of Anglophone, mainly UK and US, versions of ‘standard’ English. Corresponding with this is an idealized model of the native speaker as an embodiment of this standard which is viewed as the benchmark for all language learners. Furthermore, given that much of the industry, including publishing houses and testing organizations, is based in the Anglophone world, we should expect resistance to changes that lessen their status. However, there is no reason why the status quo has to remain as it is, and publishing houses may have to adapt their approaches to presenting English, or Englishes, as more L2 users and teachers of the language become aware of its global reach and the legitimacy of their own voices. Testing may be harder to change given the normative tendencies of the testing process, but tests that recognize the importance of variation in linguistic and communicative practices are possible, if challenging (McNamara 2012).

Additional resistance to accepting the inherent variation in ELF communication and the subsequent implications of language teaching come from the standard language ideology that is frequently part of how first languages are understood (Milroy and Milroy 2012). If we have been brought up to believe that there is a ‘correct’ way to use our L1, as is often the case in formal education, then it should not come as a surprise that the same ideology is applied to an L2. Furthermore, notions of intercultural competence and awareness that question the value and uniqueness of our cultural values in favor of cultural relativism, or at least partial relativism, may be unsettling and disturbing for both learners and teachers. Such questioning of accepted values is often coupled with critiques of the correlation between the nation state and languages, cultures and identities. As such, it may be seen as threatening and disruptive by nationally organized teaching institutions such as ministries of education. Nonetheless, difficult as it may be, it is the role of education to provide alternatives to accepted ideologies and to offer learners new perspectives and horizons which also coincides with the stated aims of many educational exchanges.

Conclusion

Intercultural communication research often creates the impression that if we just knew how to overcome our linguistic and cultural differences, we would get on just fine with each other and the world would be transformed into a paradise on earth. (Piller 2011, p. 155)

This quotation above brings together a number of the issues discussed in this chapter in relation to educational exchanges. First, it questions the assumption that simply by organizing intercultural educational exchanges we will overcome differences. The research on the outcomes of educational exchanges is far from conclusive. We cannot just put diverse people together and expect the ‘magic’ to happen (Deardorff, this volume). Second, it questions whether a shared language and an awareness of cultural difference is enough to bring about change. In particular, the focus of this chapter has been on the role of English as the shared lingua franca of educational exchanges and the implications this has for our understanding of intercultural communication. The links between language learning/use and the development of intercultural communicative competence and ICA were placed as central in developing successful communicative practices for the intercultural communication that occurs in educational exchanges. Connected to this was a recognition of the global role of English generally, and especially in higher education, both in international universities in Anglophone settings and in non-Anglophone settings through EMI programs.

At the same time, in order to avoid the concerns of linguistic and cultural homogeneity implied by the title of this chapter, and as argued by Phillipson (1992, 2008), the diverse uses, users and roles of Englishes need to be recognized. Without this, English is likely to represent an imposition and restriction on intercultural communication rather than an intercultural opportunity. This is because users will feel forced to conform to a narrow set of communicative and cultural practices, often Anglophone, rather than being able to construct and represent their own communicative and cultural practices. World Englishes and ELF research has demonstrated a great deal of adaptation and creativity in English uses and this needs to be recognized in preparation for educational exchanges. It is not enough to simply provide language lessons and information about the host country. Given the diversity of international university campuses and the hope that educational exchanges will lead to future international collaboration, participants in exchange programs should be prepared for intercultural exchanges, rather than just national exchanges, with all the cultural and linguistic diversity that implies. Importantly, this includes all participants in educational exchanges, both native users of English and L2 users of English, since mutual adaptation and accommodation are crucial to successful intercultural communication. While such preparation is unlikely to lead to a ‘paradise on earth’, it will go some way to better equipping participants in educational exchanges for the complex reality of intercultural interactions and to fulfilling the aims of educational exchange programs to promote and enhance intercultural connections and understanding.

Notes

  1. 1.

    However, the loss of linguistic diversity is a genuine concern with language death, languages which cease to have any speakers, resulting in a reduction of linguistic diversity globally. The role English plays in this process is controversial but in many instances it is national, rather than global, languages that are displacing local and minority languages (Edwards 2011).

  2. 2.

    English-medium instruction (EMI) is defined by Costa and Coleman as ‘Teaching content through a language other than that normally used by the students’ (2013, p. 4) and typically refers to programs in non-Anglophone settings but has recently been applied to Anglophone settings where international universities have many students for whom English is not an L1 (Jenkins 2014).

  3. 3.

    Byram (1997, 2012) does briefly mention the use of ELF but does not draw on current research or discuss it in detail (see Baker 2011).

  4. 4.

    Indeed, given the huge number of models of intercultural competence (see Deardorff 2009), it is important not to simply reinvent the wheel. While this chapter is arguing that changes or additions are needed to the current models, it is not suggesting an outright rejection of them.