Dr. Ryuko Kubota is a professor at Department of Language and Literacy Education, University of British Columbia.

An internationally recognized expert on the topics of language ideology, multiculturalism, race and ethnicity in TESL, Dr. Kubota has published extensively on a range of issues, including the coedited volumes Demystifying Career Paths After Graduate School: A Guide for Second Language Professionals in Higher Education (2012, Information Age Publishing) and Race, Culture, and Identity in Second Language Education: Exploring Critically Engaged Practice (2009, Routledge). Dr. Kubota was the program chair for 2015 TESOL convention in Toronto, Ontario, Canada and is currently a standing committee member at the American Association for Applied Linguistics.

Dr. Kubota’s most recent publications include:

• Kubota, R. (2014). The multi/plural turn, postcolonial theory, and neoliberal multiculturalism: Complicities and implications for applied linguistics. Applied Linguistics.

• Heng Hartse, J., & Kubota, R. (2014). Pluralizing English? Variation in high-stakes academic texts and challenges of copyediting. Journal of Second Language Writing, 24, 71–82.

• Kubota, R. (2014). Race and language learning in multicultural Canada: Towards critical antiracism. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 36(1), 3–12.
  
  

Tell us about your background and how you got involved in the study of intercultural communication in ELT.

Although I do not consider my research to be grounded in the field of intercultural communication, my scholarly interest in intercultural rhetoric (formerly contrastive rhetoric), which investigates cultural dimensions of written discourse features, is linked to intercultural communication. As a teacher of English as a foreign language in Japan and Japanese as a foreign language in North America, I was always interested in the role of culture in language teaching and learning. My first intercultural experience of living and studying in the United States led me to become fascinated by “cultural difference.” Perhaps I was unconsciously influenced [by] the dominant discourse about culture, which views cultural difference in communication in binary terms, such as directness vs. indirectness.

Later, when I first read Robert Kaplan’s influential 1966 article, in which English rhetoric was represented with a straight line and “Oriental” languages a circular line, I was convinced that this description was accurate. However, teaching Japanese to American graduate students in California a few years later led me to question this view. In teaching Japanese to native-English-speaking students, I noticed that many of their essays lacked coherence and effective organization. According to Kaplan’s model, second language Japanese texts written by native speakers of English should demonstrate linear logic and coherent argumentation. This prompted my critical inquiry into cultural difference.

Through reading literature, such as criticism of cultural difference by sociologist Yoshio Sugimoto and postcolonial critiques by Edward Said, as well as discussion with my fellow PhD students, such as Alastair Pennycook and Brian Morgan at OISE in Toronto, I developed critical perspectives on culture in second language education.

How have you seen the field change since you started?

With regard to the field of contrastive rhetoric, it has evolved into intercultural rhetoric, which purportedly takes into account the dynamic and diverse nature of culture as manifested in written discourse features of various genres. The shift from an essentialist view of culture to a nonessentialist one seems to reflect the general trend within applied linguistics and TESOL.

Nonetheless, when culture is discussed in practical contexts, such as classrooms and program standards, the traditional conceptualization of culture still pervades. Teachers and students continue to be encouraged to understand cultural values, beliefs, and practices of specific cultures and apply this knowledge to intercultural communication. This approach tends to reinforce a fixed view of culture and cultural difference.

I do not deny the existence of culture and cultural difference. However, representations of culture need to be understood in relation to power and politics. It is necessary to explore how knowledge about culture and cultural difference is produced and exploited historically and politically and what contradictions exist in the existing cultural framework of reference. Questions such as the following can be asked in critical explorations: Who is represented by the sanctioned image of a certain culture and language? Who is excluded? What are the consequences of accepting and promoting a certain view of cultural uniqueness or cultural difference? What alternative sociocultural realities exist or can be envisioned?

One of the criticisms of critical research is that it is too theoretical, so how in your opinion can we apply these theories to everyday classroom practice?

Discussions of critical approaches to applied linguistics emerged in the 1990s. Scholars have drawn on neo-Marxist, postcolonial, and poststructuralist theories, paralleling scholarly discussions in the broader field of education. They argued that practical “how-to” solutions, often seen in pedagogical discourse, are incompatible with the theoretical critique that resists fixed knowledge. For instance, Paulo Freire’s advocacy of “dialogic” instead of “banking” education (uncritical imposition of knowledge) resists prescriptive teaching methods; once we have a laundry list of what to do or what not to do, the critical impetus will get lost.

Thus, a critical approach to language and culture should be grounded in an attitude, as Alastair Pennycook argues in his book (2001); it is a disposition that leads teachers and learners to always question taken-for-granted assumptions and explore alternative sociocultural visions for justice. Teachers, learners, and scholars are encouraged to examine how the mechanism of power works to produce certain social, cultural, and political meanings and to privilege some while oppressing others. They can also seek alternative understandings of culture, history, and society to foster more respectful human relations as well as equity among diverse groups. Fostering such an attitude requires us to recognize the multiplicity of meanings arising from diverse historical, theoretical, and cultural perspectives. Critical approaches to everyday classroom practice inevitably have to involve intellectual engagement in these perspectives.

However, this is perhaps a drawback of critical inquiry as you mention. Concrete ideas and techniques usually work better to help teachers adopt new approaches. This might be a reason why traditional understanding of culture still pervades. But it is also the case that traditional conceptual frameworks are usually quite resilient and difficult to challenge. For instance, last year, many teacher candidates whom I taught in our teacher education program resisted communicative language teaching (e.g., teaching language in meaningful and contextual ways). Critical teachers, scholars, and teacher educators must make continuous effort to explore how critical ideas can be made relevant to teacher and students.

Did you ever have to fight resistance to your work? What advice would you give to colleagues who might face similar challenges?

In the past, I have engaged in scholarly debates in publication after having my articles published by academic journals. In these debates, some scholars critiqued my arguments. I have always considered these occasions to be valuable opportunities to further clarify my position or to take the issue to a different conceptual level.

At the same time, this demonstrates the multiplicity of views and opinions that exist in our field. I have mentioned the difficulty of promoting critical perspectives on culture in language teaching. This difficulty partly comes from people’s resistance to alternative ideas. In engaging in a dialogue, it is necessary to recognize diverse positions on the issue. Otherwise, a critical perspective, or any perspective for that matter, may become dogmatic. For instance, critical pedagogy advocated in the 1980s in the field of education was criticized as potentially oppressive if it failed to respect classroom participants’ diversity of gender, race, ethnicity, and language. In addition, there is sometimes a conflict between rejecting a certain view as immoral, and recognizing multiplicity of meanings. This sometimes happens in discussing controversial issues in the classroom (Kubota, 2014). It is necessary for teachers and researchers to always be self-reflective about the legitimacy of our own views and practices.

What seminal works would you recommend to those who are interested in exploring this topic further?

For critical intercultural communication in general, Ingrid Piller’s (2011) book is useful. Kumaravadivelu (2008) also provides insightful understandings of culture. Critical approaches to culture in teaching Japanese as a foreign language (Kubota, 2004) can be applied to teaching English. With regard to a critical approach to contrastive/intercultural rhetoric, see Kubota (2010).

References

Freire, P. (1970). The banking concept of education. In Educational foundations: An anthology of critical readings (2004), 99-111.

Kaplan, R. B. (1966). Cultural thought patterns in inter‐cultural education. Language learning, 16(1‐2), 1-20.

Kubota, R. (2004). Critical teaching of Japanese culture. Japanese Language and Literature, 37, 67–87.

Kubota, R. (2010). Cross-cultural perspectives on writing: Contrastive rhetoric. In N. H. Hornberger & S. L. McKay (Eds.), Sociolinguistics and language education (pp. 265–289). Bristol, United Kingdom: Multilingual Matters.

Kubota, R. (2014). “We must look at both sides”—but a denial of genocide too?: Difficult moments on controversial issues in the classroom. Critical Inquiry in Language Studies, 11, 225–251.

Kumaravadivelu, B. (2008). Cultural globalization and language education. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Pennycook, A. (2001). Critical applied linguistics: A critical introduction. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Piller, I. (2011). Intercultural communication: A critical introduction. Edinburgh, United Kingdom: Edinburgh University Press.

Natalia Balyasnikova is a doctoral student in language and literacy education at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. Originally from Russia, Natalia moved to Canada in 2013 to pursue her degree in TESL with a focus on intercultural communication. Natalia writes about her life as a graduate student and a newcomer to Canada in her blog.