Intercultural Communication and Cultural Identity in English Language Teaching

Abstract

Dear Readers, It is a great excitement that this book entitled “Intercultural Communication and Cultural Identity in Learning English as an International Language” has been developed as a significant contribution to the field of English language teaching with a focus on intercultural communication. This book aims to shed light on intercultural communicative competence and cultural identity and provide essential perspectives for comprehending and teaching intercultural communication. Intercultural communication refers to the interaction between people from different cultural backgrounds and the sharing of information, ideas, and emotions and puts great importance on the values, beliefs, actions, and identities of individuals that are fundamentally shaped by their own culture. In order to communicate effectively and establish good connections, every individual should be able to become culturally aware and understand intercultural communication in our globalized world. English, as the world's lingua franca, plays a crucial role in understanding cultural differences and developing intercultural communicative competence. The first chapter of the book introduces the topic of intercultural communication and emphasizes how intercultural communication influences language learning processes and reshapes forms of communication in a globalized world. In the second chapter, the author explores theoretical frameworks on culture, cultural identity, communicative competence and intercultural communicative competence together with the models of intercultural competence. The third chapter of the book focuses on methodological practices about research design in a systematic manner. The fourth chapter deals with the findings of the research and presents the data collected in qualitative and quantitative manners. The data collected on intercultural communication and cultural identity are analyzed and reported in detail and meticulously in a mixed-methods research design using qualitative and quantitative analyses. The fifth chapter of the book consists of discussion and conclusion sections of the study. The results of the study showed that the participants' intercultural communicative competence levels increased as a result of the intercultural communicative competence training which was systematically developed within the scope of the study. On the other hand, the cultural identity level of the participants did not change in a significant way and stayed the same after the intercultural communicative competence training. I would like to express my gratitude to Dr. Süleyman GÜN for his efforts and enthusiasm from the first day of the planning of this study to the literature review, the collection and analysis of the relevant data, the submission of the thesis, and the publication of this book. I would also like to thank the precious scholars and participants who contributed to the book study. I hope that this book will make a valuable contribution to the existing literature and provide you with a good reading experience. Regards, Prof. Dr. Aysun YAVUZ Editor August, 2023