Intercultural communication dialectics in English language teaching

Conceptualizations of intercultural communication in English language teaching have largely been constructed on westerncentric and essentialist representations of interculturality. The failure to take into account power imbalances among Anglophone and Southern spaces may perpetuate the inequalities that have long-existed. Questioning singularity of approaches in the intercultural language education is required to account for the complexity of intercultural interactions, especially in terms of power imbalances. The dialectic perspective, with its inclusiveness of varying discursive reasonings, can offer a discerning treatment of interculturality through reconciling the opposing dialectics in intercultural communication scholarship. This article (a) makes a case for the usefulness of incorporating multiple epistemological stances in order to develop more comprehensive insights about interculturality, (b) argues that, by developing pluriversal perspectives, we can simultaneously consider the multiplicity of individuals’ ontologies, identities, and cultures. This is realized by first advancing an inter-paradigmatic discussion of culture-communication research dialectics and then considering its theoretical relevance and practical applications in English language teaching. Copyright © 2021 IJSCL. All rights reserved.