Reviewed by Carol Myers-Scotton, Michigan State University

This edited volume contains sixteen chapters that discuss how cultural differences can affect the management of social relations in conversation. Five chapters are authored or coauthored by the editor, Helen Spencer-Oatey. Most chapters deal with what she calls intercultural communication—that is, ‘data obtained when members of two different cultural groups interact with each other’ (6); however, some authors refer to cross-cultural data, or ‘data obtained independently from two different cultural groups’ (6). Five of the chapters provide different theoretical frameworks.

In Ch. 2, ‘Face, (im)politeness and rapport’ (11–47), Spencer-Oatey outlines her revision of politeness theory (Brown & Levinson 1987) to emphasize that rapport management should involve not only face sensitivities but also ‘fundamental social entitlements that a person claims […] in his/her interactions with others’ (13).

In Ch. 3, ‘Culture and communication’ (48–72), Vladimir Žegarac stresses the cognitive aspects of communication that figure into ‘the systematic dependence of meaning on context (where the context is the set of assumptions used in interpreting a communicative act)’ (56). Among other approaches, Žegarac discusses relevance theory (Sperber & Wilson 1986/1995) and ‘the orientation of human cognition and communication towards relevant information’ (48).

In Ch. 7, ‘Pragmatic transfer’ (141–63), Vladimir Žegarac and Martha Pennington present another cognitive-based framework relevant to intercultural communication. They suggest that misunderstandings may arise in intercultural communication because of pragmatic transfer; in other words, the tendency to apply to new situations an existing mental set that has been determined by culture-specific knowledge. The problem is that ‘if interactants from different cultural backgrounds are unaware of the differences in their respective mental sets, misunderstandings are likely to occur’ (142).

In Ch. 8, ‘Communication accommodation theory’ (164–86), Virpi Ylänne suggests that communication accommodation theory (Giles, Coupland, & Coupland 1991) might be modified to reflect such recent arguments as that ‘social realities are only fixed through discourse’ and that  ‘the old, structured certainties of class and ethnic self-definition have lapsed’ (179).

In Ch. 9, ‘Adaptation and identity’ (187–203), Martin Fougère explores the idea of place—that is, how living in a different culture can affect a person’s sense of identity.

This volume is designed as a textbook, concluding with two chapters on data gathering, and another chapter that contains ideas for projects. Each chapter (except for the introduction) contains lists of key points for study purposes, questions for discussion, and references for further reading. However, there is much that makes this volume more than just a textbook, notably the depth of discussion in the theoretical chapters. My only real complaint is that most of the authors of the seven more data-based chapters do not noticeably make use of the frameworks discussed. The range of communities considered is great, but most authors simply point out evidence of cultural differences in conversational style in the communities discussed.

REFERENCES

Brown, Penelope, and STEPHEN C. LEVINSON. 1987. Politeness: Some

universals in language usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Giles, Howard; justine coupland; and NIKOLAS COUPLAND. 1991. Contexts of accommodation: Developments in applied sociolinguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Sperber, Dan, and Deirdre Wilson. 1986/1995. Relevance: Communication and cognition. 2nd edn. Malden, MA: Blackwell.