Reviewed by Eric A. Anchimbe, University of Bayreuth, Germany

This volume is the seventh of nine in the series Handbooks of applied linguistics. One of the aims of this series is to ‘show that applied linguistics can provide or develop instruments for solving new, still unpredictable problems’ (xii). Without purporting to provide only solutions to problems in intercultural communication, the volume uses multidisciplinary perspectives to explore intercultural communication, communication practices and processes, and intercultural competence in different sectors of life and in different discourses. Discourses from multicultural sectors, such as the workplace, healthcare system, legal contexts, schools, media, and business and social relationships, are succinctly investigated with the help of frameworks from linguistic anthropology, cognitive pragmatics, social psychology, cultural theory, and sociolinguistic theory.

The volume adopts a pragmatic approach to explaining intercultural communication, based on the premise that ‘people regard themselves as belonging to different social groups’ and only end up forming communities through contact and socialisation processes. Interaction is at the center of these processes since it is the ‘dynamic process through which people jointly construct (consciously and/or unconsciously) their multiple identities’ (2). The twenty-four chapters of this volume (grouped into five parts) are held together by this stance. Each part is introduced by an informative editors’ introduction.

Part 1, ‘Multidisciplinary perspectives on intercultural communication’, contains six papers that focus primarily on cultural influences in communication (John Gumperz and  Jenny Cook-Gumperz), cognitively-based cultural impacts on communication (Vladimir Žegarac), psychology and intercultural communication (Madeleine Brabant, Bernadette Watson, and Cindy Gallois), emotions and intercultural adjustments (David Matsumoto, Seung Hee Yoo,  and Jeffrey A. LeRoux), and intercultural conflict (Nathalie van Meurs and Helen Spencer-Oatey).

Part 2, ‘Intercultural perspectives on communicative practices and processes’, describes the interconnectivity of cultures through communicative genres (Susanne Günthner), workplace humour (Meredith Marra and Janet Holmes), rituals and style (Helga Kotthoff), meaning negotiation in lingua franca (Christiane Meierkord), and culture and interpreter behaviour (Helen Spencer-Oatey and Jianyu Xing).

Some of the theoretical perspectives described in Parts 1 and 2 are applied to real life situations in the six papers in Part 3, ‘Intercultural communication in different sectors of life’, especially, healthcare settings (Celia Roberts), international business and management (Peter Franklin), Aboriginal legal contexts (Diana Eades), schools (Albert Scherr), media (Perry Hinton), and intimate relationships (Ingrid Piller).

Part 4, ‘Issues and debates’, makes a general appraisal of discrimination in discourse (Martin Reisigl), power and dominance (Winfried Thielmann), communicating identity (Janet Spreckels and Helga Kotthoff), and communities of practice (Saskia Corder and Miriam Meyerhoff).

In the final section, Part 5, ‘Assessing and developing intercultural competence’, the focus is on the intercultural competence and its assessment (Elisabeth Prechtl and Anne Davidson Lund), intercultural training (Martina Rost-Roth), and workplace communication training (Jonathan Newton).

In all, this volume accomplishes the major objective of demonstrating that  applied linguistics uses linguistic knowledge for the purposes of solving real world problems. The multidisciplinary perspectives and the varied sectors of life in which they are applied bring the professional and non-professional, the researcher and student, and the linguist and non-linguist closer to determining the function of communication, interaction, and diversity in intercultural and multicultural contexts. Lastly, the inclusion of articles that focus on many countries indicates that monolingual national boundaries are giving way to multicultural structures. We must continue to adopt these types of interdisciplinary approaches in order to understand the changing realities.