Culture and Language Learning in Higher Education, by Michael Byram (Editor). Clevedon, Philadelphia, and Adelaide: Multilingua Matters Ltd., 1994. 111 pp.

Abstract

Culture and Language Learning in Higher Education edited by Michael Byram. Clevedon, Philadelphia, and Adelaide: Multilingual Matters Ltd., 1994. Ill pp. Reviewed by Kylie Hsu University of California, Los Angeles Culture and Language Learning in Higher Education is based on an on learning foreign languages and cultures held in Manchester, England, in 1993. It consists of ten articles related to culture and language learning in higher education in England, Germany, France, and Denmark. The articles do not appear to follow any thematic format, though the first few seem to be more theoretically oriented, addressing issues in culture and language learning, while the later ones deal more with case studies. The book begins with an article by Dieter Kerl entitled, The Case of Landeskunde: A Vicious Circle? The German word Landeskunde literally means 'knowledge of the land.' Cultural Studies in Germany is known as Landeskunde, and has mostly been taught as an ancillary subject of language, literature, or other social sciences, but Kerl advocates giving Landeskunde a bona fide status in the academy. Making an analogy of studying Landeskunde with the study of medicine, he states, Just as a student of medicine has to study systematically the anatomy of the human body, a student of English has to study the 'anatomy' of Britain and the USA first before she/he can start teaching the language. Kerl devotes most of his international colloquium to explaining why it is important to make Landeskunde an independent field of study rather than retain it as an auxiliary subject of the social sciences. He also devotes considerable space to criticizing the state article of Landeskunde, but offers virtually no solution to the situation beyond calling for more research. Jean-Paul Revauger echoes Kerl's concern about the fact that cultural studies are seen mostly as an auxiliary in language teaching. In his article, Civilisation/Cultural Studies in Grenoble, Revauger suggests that prospective language teachers need to also acquire knowledge of political science, history, sociology, and economics in order to make language learning more attractive and efficient. Like Kerl, he acknowledges the lack of research in cultural studies and would like to see this area become a full- fledged discipline, or at least recognized as a multidisciplinary field. Unlike Kerl, Herald Husemann's From NIMBY Landeskunde to IMBY Cultural Studies does propose a way of teaching Landeskunde. NIMBY Issues in Applied Linguistics ISSN 1050-4273 Vol. 6 No. Regents of the University of California