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Meta-pragmatic awareness and intercultural competence: Therole of reflection and interpretation in intercultural

mediation

Troy McConachy and Anthony J. Liddicoat

AbstractPrevious models of intercultural competence which have beeninfluential in foreign language education have tended totreat language competencies and intercultural competenciesas separate components (e.g. Byram, 1997). Althoughlanguage competencies are seen as a requirement forcommunicating across cultures, language is more or lesspositioned as a neutral “tool” for “bridging” culturaldifferences. This paper takes a pragmatics perspective onintercultural mediation, considering the role of meta-pragmatic awareness in shaping the interpretation oflanguage in use across cultural boundaries. The paperexamines instances of language learners’ attempts atintercultural mediation in the form of reflectivecommentaries on their processes of sense-making in relationto pragmatic phenomena across languages. Such instances ofinterpretation show that meta-pragmatic awareness functionsas an important resource for drawing together culturalunderstandings from multiple languages and constructingcreative solutions to intercultural problems.

IntroductionIn recent decades the development of interculturalcompetence has been discussed as an educational imperativein various contexts, including in foreign languageeducation (e.g. Bolten 1993, Buttjes & Byram 1991, Byram1997, Kramsch 1993, Kawakami 2001, Liddicoat & Scarino,

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2013, Zarate, Lévy & Kramsch 2008). Within foreign languageeducation it is increasingly recognized that languagelearners need to be equipped with the capabilities whichwill allow them to effectively navigate interculturalcommunication which takes place in one or more foreignlanguages. In particular, the increasing linguistic andcultural diversity which characterizes many moderninteractions means that the ability of individuals tomediate across cultures is of greater importance than ever.In models of intercultural competence that are influentialwithin foreign language education, the ability ofindividuals to draw on knowledge of culturally specificmeanings of different languages in order to relate andexplain written and oral practices to speakers of anotherlanguage has been considered a key component (Byram 1997).However, the theoretical separation of interculturalcompetence from linguistic competence in some currentmodels brings about difficulties in properlyconceptualizing the role of language knowledge inintercultural mediation (Egli Cuenat & Bleichenbacher2013). Although knowledge of foreign languages is seen as anecessary condition for promoting dialogue through whichcultural differences can be overcome, these differences areprimarily understood as language-external. This means thatlanguage comes to be positioned more or less as a neutral“tool” for problem-solving rather than as a constituent ofcultural difference itself (Beacco 2004).

We view culture as a meaning system constituted by acomplex amalgam of knowledge, assumptions and valuesbroadly shared within a given collectivity, which functionsas a resource for individuals and groups to give meaning tothe objects and actions in the material and social world(D’Andrade 1984). Knowledge, assumptions, and values arenecessarily related in that all knowledge is based oncertain assumptions about reality, and aspects of reality

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are judged according to a range of consciously andunconsciously understood evaluative criteria. Culture thuspossesses properties which are used for delineatingdesirable and undesirable behavior, as well as assigning arange of other social characteristics to behavior andindividuals. As a meaning system, culture is necessarilyembodied in symbols, particularly the concepts whichcomprise language and the discourse practices which areessential for dealing with everyday human life (Geertz1973). Individuals draw on culture in order to selectpossibilities for constructing social action, with theexpectation that other members of their social group willinterpret their actions appropriately and so establishintersubjectivity. Cultural differences may be manifestedin differing repertoires of symbolic practices or indiffering understandings of the meanings of thosepractices, which renders more difficult the establishmentof intersubjectivity. It is for this reason that we viewthe act of intercultural mediation as presupposing acertain amount of awareness of the ways in which linguisticpractices can be variably interpreted across cultures andthe ability to use awareness as a resource for constructingplausible interpretations of linguistic phenomena which areencountered (Gohard-Radenkovic, Lussier, Penz & Zarate2004). In this chapter we take the position that anyconceptualization of intercultural competence needs to takeinto account the linguistic experience of difference whichis inherent to intercultural communication (c.f. Dervin &Liddicoat 2013), and the role that the individual’sawareness of language plays in the negotiation of meanings.It is this dimension which has not been adequatelytheorized to this point in many models of interculturalcompetence in the foreign language teaching context. Although much previous discussion on interculturalmediation has focused on how individuals use their

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knowledge of languages and cultures to mediate for others,we wish to emphasize that mediation is first and foremostan interpretive activity engaged in by individuals fortheir own understanding (Liddicoat 2014). This paperexplores the relationship between awareness and mediationas elements of intercultural competence by examining therole that meta-pragmatic awareness plays in interculturalmediation. It analyzes learners’ reflective commentaries onperceived pragmatic differences between languages and howthey make sense of such differences.

Intercultural mediation from a meta-pragmatic perspectiveWithin a view of intercultural mediation as an interpretiveactivity, the ways in which individuals draw on and movebetween cultural frameworks from one’s own and otherlanguages when making sense of pragmatic phenomena is ofcentral importance. While some aspects of pragmaticphenomena may be universal, there are important differencesacross languages in regard to how pragmatic acts arerealized, the degree to which particular acts areconventionalized, and the significance that particular actshave in terms of reflecting and reconstructing socialrelationships. The ways that speakers use linguistic formsto perform pragmatic acts such as requests, apologies,compliments, criticisms, as well as the commonconversational routines which lubricate social relations,are inextricably intertwined with broader culturallyderived notions related to the rights and responsibilitiesof speakers when interacting in particular contexts (Blum-Kulka, House & Kasper 1989; Kasper 2006). Naturally, thisdoes not mean that all individuals who speak a particularlanguage communicate or even interpret pragmatic acts inexactly the same way. What it means is that each languagehas a range of interactional options available forachieving particular pragmatic acts, and the significanceof these options is interpreted with reference to broadly

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shared cultural expectations. As with all types of socialbehavior, pragmatic acts are interpreted within the contextof a moral order (Kádár & Haugh 2013). What this means isthat pragmatic interpretation goes beyond “identifying” theparticular speech act an interlocutor is trying to achieve– it also necessarily accompanies judgments (both consciousand unconscious) as to whether the act was conducted in anappropriate way or not, which is essentially a judgment ofthe individual as a social being. Pragmatic acts provideresources for individuals for indexing particularcharacteristics, such “friendly”, “playful”, “rude”,“considerate” etc., and thus construct particular personasin their social relationships. Interaction is thus a venuefor the interpretation of pragmatic acts and individualswho conduct such acts. What is problematic forintercultural communication, and thus highly relevant forintercultural mediation, is that the cultural assumptionsfrom which such value judgments derive can tend to remainout of conscious awareness (Coupland & Jaworski 2004). Inintercultural communication this means that seeminglysuperficial pragmatic differences contain within them thepotential for generating both positive and negativestereotypes. Therefore, the development of meta-pragmaticawareness is an important requirement for those who engagein intercultural communication.

Although we view meta-pragmatic awareness as a centralfeature of intercultural competence, it is important tonote that meta-pragmatic awareness is understood indifferent ways. Some ways of understanding meta-pragmaticawareness focus very much on linguistic aspects of languagein use and focus on recognizing what linguistic action isbeing performed by particular utterances in context (e.g.Mey, 1993; Verschueren, 2000). Other understandings ofmeta-pragmatic awareness see it more in terms of explicitknowledge of the ways that particular utterances tend to

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correspond with particular interactional contexts. Thefocus here is more on awareness of the contextualconstraints on linguistic resources for achievingparticular pragmatic acts and how this ties in withjudgments of pragmatic appropriateness (e.g. Kinginger &Farrell 2004; Safont-Jorda 2003). One significantlimitation of such conceptions is that the object of meta-pragmatic awareness is limited to the more salientpragmatic norms and conventions without incorporating theindividual’s reflexive awareness of the culturalassumptions and concepts through which norms themselves areconstituted. That is, meta-pragmatic awareness is primarilyconsidered to be knowledge of what is considered(in)appropriate language use in a given context rather thanwhy. Moreover, meta-pragmatic awareness is typicallytheorized as a within-language and within-culture activityand as such does not involve the cross-language and cross-culture dimension that is inherent in interculturalcommunication. That is, traditional understandings of meta-pragmatic awareness have not been formulated to capture theways that individuals bring into interaction culturalconcepts and frameworks relevant to different languages toarrive at interpretations of pragmatic acts.

In order to understand the role of meta-pragmatic awarenessin intercultural mediation, it is necessary to recognizethat for individuals who operate with more than onelanguage, meta-pragmatic awareness is necessarilyintercultural (McConachy 2013). That is to say, theconceptual frameworks which underlie separate languagesinevitably influence each other. This influence may involvethe application of cultural concepts or assumptions aboutfirst language pragmatics to the interpretation of aforeign language, or it may involve the reverse. Moreover,as an individual’s capability in a foreign languagedevelops and interactional experiences diversify,

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individuals construct interpretations which bring togethercultural meanings from originally disparate frameworks inunique ways (Kecskes 2014). Mediation is constituted by aprocess where the individual makes a conscious effort toconsider the cultural frames which shape interpretation ofpragmatic acts in each language, how these differ acrosslanguages, and what the consequences of these differencesare for use of these languages in interculturalcommunication. From a meta-pragmatics perspective thus,mediation involves going beyond simplistic comparisons ofpragmatic norms to probe the concepts and meaningstructures which underlie language use and view diversityfrom beyond the scope of a single linguistic system(Liddicoat and Kohler 2012). Meta-pragmatic awareness forintercultural mediation is thus characterized by heightenedawareness of the culturally contexted nature of pragmaticacts within and across cultures. Viewing meta-pragmaticawareness in this way opens up the possibility of languageitself becoming both a focus of and a resource forintercultural mediation.

The act of positioning languages and cultures in relationto each other, and hence of mediation itself, alwaysnecessitates comparison. However, there is a certainparadox in that although mediation essentially requiresindividuals to relate languages and cultures to each other,it requires that this be done in a way that each culture isseen in its own terms. In order to resolve this paradox itis best to see mediation as existing on a developmentalplane, whereby the ability to move in and out of culturalframeworks to develop more nuanced understandings of thecultural basis of pragmatic interpretation increases insophistication. Whilst early attempts at mediation mightresult in simplistic comparisons and ethnocentric valuejudgments of self and other, the ability to reflect moredeeply on the significance of linguistic input, to decenter

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from default perceptions, and the ability to develop moresophisticated explanations for pragmatic interpretation canbe regarded as indicators of development (Liddicoat 2006).However, although an engagement with foreign conceptualsystems, particularly as they relate directly to norms forlanguage use, provides opportunities for moving beyondassumptions based on the first language, this is not aguaranteed outcome. In fact, an encounter with aspects offoreign language pragmatics can challenge individuals’assumptions about how social relations are conducted andhow the self is to be presented in discourse. This threatto the individual’s worldview can lead to resistance or theattribution of negative value judgments to target languagespeakers as a kind of defensive psychological mechanism(Ishihara & Tarone 2009). It therefore cannot besimplistically assumed that intercultural mediation willalways be successful or that decentering will be aninevitable outcome of attempts at mediation. Resistance ordiscomfort encountered in attempts at mediation serve theimportant function of bringing to awareness eachindividual’s personal boundaries, which can then beexplored through further reflection.

An additionally important aspect of awareness in mediationis recognition of the fact that any individual comes to theact of interpretation not as national representativeembodying perfect cultural knowledge, but as an individualwith his or her own personal biography (Gohard-Radenkovic2009). As mediation always takes place from a givenposition, what is mediated in any concrete act of mediationis not one or more monolithic cultures, but theindividual’s situated understanding of these cultures. Inrelation to the first language, any individual’s meta-pragmatic awareness is constructed on the basis ofreference to broadly shared cultural models forinterpreting pragmatic acts and the individuals own history

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of interactional experiences and personalizedinterpretations of these experiences (Kesckes 2014).Interlocutors who come from a particular country will notnecessarily be culturally situated in the same way and willtherefore not always conform to one’s expectations,particularly those drawn from exaggerated stereotypes(Dervin 2011). This can be stated both in relation to howindividuals achieve pragmatic acts and how they interpretthem within and across cultures. In coming to mediate in aforeign language, while it is necessary for the learner tocome to discern aspects of foreign language pragmatics andthe underlying cultural knowledge and assumptions involved;the learner at the same time needs to be aware ofcontextual and individual variability in language use. Inthis sense, while mediation is informed by an individual’sstarting point meta-pragmatic awareness in any giveninteraction, the individual needs to engage in continualreflection on the basis of incoming cultural data,sophisticating one’s meta-pragmatic awareness and abilityto mediate over time.

The analysis that follows will aim to illustrate how meta-pragmatic awareness functions as a resource forintercultural mediation along a continuum of development.

DataThe data for this paper is drawn from a number of differentsources. The focus is on language learners’ reflections ontheir experiences of language in use. Some extracts aredrawn from classroom interactions in which students focuson aspects of language and culture and construct meaningfulaccounts of their understandings. Other extracts are takenfrom learners’ reflections on their language learning inwhich they retrospectively construct accounts of theiremerging understandings. Each extract has been chosen toreflect a specific feature of meta-pragmatic awareness that

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emerges as language learners’ reflect on language and theaim is for the data to be indicative of the processesrelevant to understanding meta-pragmatic awareness as acomponent of intercultural competence, rather thanpresenting an exhaustive account of the complexitiesinvolved.

Extracts 1 and 2 are taken from written reflections in alearning journal offered by several Japanese learners ofEnglish in their early twenties who had been studying aboutthe role of discourse about the weekend in socialrelationships in Australia. Extract 3 is taken from aseparate group of 4 Japanese learners of English in theirearly twenties who were enrolled in a pre-sessional coursein Tokyo. These students had been conducting a task whichrequired them to reflect on ways of interacting theyobserved when overseas which they perceived as different towhat might normally be expected in a similar context inJapan. Extract 4 is taken from a recording of an in-classdiscussion between a group of Australian post-beginnerlevel students of Japanese who were working collaborativelyto develop a the script for a role play as part of a spokenJapanese language course. Extract 5 is taken from aninterview with an Australian students of French who hadrecently returned from studying for a year as an exchangestudent at a university in Paris in which he was askedabout his experiences, both positive and negative, whenstudying and living in France.

Learners’ meta-pragmatic reflections as acts ofintercultural mediationMeta-pragmatic awareness is manifested in different ways inlearners’ understanding of language in use and thesedifferences can be understood in developmental terms, inwhich development can be seen as increasingly complexinterpretations of the language-culture relationship

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(Liddicoat 2006). The reflective commentary of severalJapanese learners of English below, taken from McConachy(2008), can be seen as meta-pragmatic formulations thatmake a relatively simple link between language and culture.

Extract 1S6: I felt that asking a bunch of questions topeople in the workplace is very different to thingsin Japan. In Japan conversations tend to take placewith one or two utterances, so I felt that peoplefrom English-speaking countries are friendly.

Extract 2S5: I think Westerners have a friendly feel aboutthem. In Japan this would be thought of as being“over-friendly”, so I really feel that culturaldifferences are very difficult. I hope that I cancommunicate enough that the other person doesn’tinterpret me as being rude.

The two examples come from students’ discussions ofdifferences between Australian and Japanese interactionsinvolving enquiries about the weekend. In interactionsamong Australians, such enquiries typically constitute aritualised form of social interaction that is played out ingreetings (Béal 1992), while in Japan this interaction isnot ritualised and is relatively rare (McConachy 2008). S6articulates the idea that enquiries about the weekendinvolve more that the simple asking of questions butinstead involve a form of action that is potentiallyproblematic in the Japanese context. This reveals aninsight into the culturally contexted nature ofquestioning, which results from the comparison of ways ofspeaking across cultures: “asking a bunch of questions topeople in the workplace is very different to things inJapan”. S6 and S5 both draw from their reflection on

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interaction the conclusion that Australians are ‘friendly’.In doing so, they form a stereotype of Australian peoplebased on a personality feature (friendliness) and establishan implicit dichotomy between Australia and Japan(friendly-unfriendly or more friendly-less friendly). Inthe case their analysis is brief and not fully developedas, rather than considering the meaningfulness of thepractice within each cultural context for members of thatculture, the learners produce a stereotypicalised accountof difference. In extract 2, S5 does take the analysisfurther, however, and problematises the Australian way ofinteracting when seen through his Japanese eyes. In sodoing he articulates an awareness of the consequentialityof cultural differences as they are manifested in languageuse in that such differences do not simply constitutedifficulties but also impact on how speakers are perceived.S5 thus moves from a stereotypicalised account of acultural difference to a personalized assessment of theconsequences of difference for himself as a communicator.

In extract 3, the speakers’ reflection on culturaldifferences between Japan and the USA moves from a negativeevaluation to cultural differences to an interpretationbased on emergent understanding, that is a seeminglyunusual practice is understood as indicating somethingabout different understandings of social relationships insimilar contexts in different cultures.

Extract 3Misato: So, when I went to San Fransisco the staff

asked me, “Where did you come from, Tokyo orOsaka?” I said, “I from Osaka”, and last heasked me to shake hands.

Tai: WeirdMisato: Yeah, at last I feel a little strange. So

because he asked me many things.

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Tai: Yeah, I think maybe he was too friendly. Misato: And it because I foreigner and tourist so

maybe he was too friendly, I think.Tai: Ah, but I think the relationship between

customer and staff is equal in….Misato: Abroad?Tai: Abroad? Yeah, I don’t know about that, but

maybe Western.

In this example, Misato is presenting an experience thatoccurred to her on a visit to the USA and describes aninteraction with a shop assistant in which the she wasasked personal questions. Tai’s response characterizes thisinteraction from her own Japanese perspective as ‘weird’ –an assessment with which Misato agrees. Tai considers theinteraction as deviating from expected norms “toofriendly”. Misato then reformulates the evaluations thatthey are making in terms of the context of the interaction– a meeting between a shop assistant and a foreign tourist.That is, she sees the interaction as not motivated by apersonal failing (‘too friendly’) but by a reaction to aparticular context. Tai then develops this understandingthrough an implicit comparison between Japanese norms andAmerican norms1 that provide a cultural reframing of thenature of staff-customer interactions as one of equalityrather than hierarchy. In so doing, Misato and Tai make useof what they were taught to reconstruct a cultural logicfor the particular practices they are discussing andthereby show a developing awareness of the culturallycontexted nature of language use that invites newinterpretations of linguistic behaviour. The analysis herehas begun to move beyond superficial stereotypes andpersonalised responses to a culturally contexted account of

1 Earlier in the interaction the students had been discussing thehierarchical nature of service encounters in Japan, which they hassummed up in terms of the Japanese aphorism okyakusama wa okamisama (thecustomer is a god).

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pragmatic differences. In formulating their understanding,they construct an interpretative account of themeaningfulness of cultural differences in interaction anddevelop an external perspective on their culturalpractices, mediating between two experiences of culturalpractices by developing a new understanding of a practicethat initially had appeared to be a deviation fromexpectations.

In extract 4, three Australian students are preparing adialogue in Japanese dealing with a visit to a Japaneseperson’s house. They are discussing the social rituals thataccompany the beginning of such a visit and appropriateways of using language in the context.

Extract 4A: Perhaps we should bring a present.B: Yeah.C: Yeah. What do you bring in Japan?

(0.2)A: Well usually it’s something small. B: So like whatA: I think things like cakes or some sort of

treat. And you get it wrapped up specially.(0.2)

B: Oh you mean like omiyage?A: Yeah like those, but they’re for souvenirs.B: Okay, so let’s say we bring some cakes. What

should be say?(0.4)

C: How about kono keeki wa oishii desu?B: Uhm (02.) That’d sound-. (0.2) The textbook

has it. Let’s see. (30)A: Isn’t it something like tsumaranai?C: Tsumaranai?A: Yeah.

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C: Like isn’t that boring?A: Yeah but they say it like that.B: Here it is. (2.0) It says uhm kore wa tsumaranai

mono desu ga.A: Yeah tsumaranai mono desu ga. It’s like you give

the present but you don’t want people tothink that it’s good. It’s like, y’know, ifyou say it’s good, you’re like saying thatyou have done good. It’s like y’know uhmboasting.

B: So if you say it’s boring you sound humble.C: That’s so Japanese<always gotta sound humble.A: So if you say oishii, it’s sound like you’re

saying “I’m great”. That’d be so:: bad.C: Yeah.A: So you bring something small and you say it’s

not very good and so you sound like you’re agood person.

After a discussion of whether they should bring a gift tothe host, they then move to the sorts of language thatwould accompany the action of handing over the gift. Cproposes “kono keeki wa oishii desu”. C’s attempt is based on anAustralian practice that involves indicating that onethinks one’s gift is suited to the recipient as a way ofexpressing amicality but this is rejected by the others asan inappropriate response in Japanese. B’s rejection is arule-oriented one based on the authority of the textbook,which contains a formula for such situations. A provideshis own version “tsumaranai” (boring) as appropriatedescription of the gift. That is, he proposes a downgradingof the value of the gift in contrast with C’s positiveevaluation. C recognises the word, but does not understandit as relevant to the event; that is, for her thedescription boring does not fit her understanding of thecultural context. B then confirms tsumaranai as the example

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from the textbook and this is accepted as appropriate. Athen produces an explanation which attempts to address C’sproblem with the use of boring in this context – he makeshis metapragmatic awareness explicit as a way ofestablishing understanding for C. In doing this he invokesthe idea of humility as an appropriate Japanese stance ingift giving and links this to the particular languagepractice under discussion. The choice of wording isexplained in terms of a general Japanese way of presentingthe self to others. A is presenting his understanding of aJapanese world view presented in the textbook which isimplicitly contrasted with the Australian world viewencoded in C’s “kono keeki wa oishii desu”. His talk deals withC’s understanding as faulty in the Japanese context andseeks to represent a different understanding of appropriatetalk in the context. He bases this talk on hisunderstanding of what the word tsumaranai means, not interms of its semantics, which is unproblematic, but interms of its pragmatics and the underlying cultural valuesassociated with acts of gift giving. This view is in turnratified by B, who formulates the cultural valuesarticulated by A explicitly as humble behaviour. Theaccount is then accepted by C as an exemplification ofcultural knowledge that she has already learned about Japanand Japanese, although here in a somewhat stereotypicalisedway (That’s so Japanese<always gotta sound humble). A thenreformulates this as an explanation of cultural meaning ofthe two ways of talking (a positive versus a negativeassessment of one’s gift) in each cultural context. AnAustralian way of speaking equates with a negativeenactment of self in the Japanese context, with attendantproblems for social relationships. The alternativedownplaying of value therefore comes to have a culturallogic that is embedded in the interactional needs to thecontext.

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Extract 4 is a more elaborated articulation of therelationship between language and culture and the ways thatthis influences linguistic practices as meaningfulcommunication than the extracts which preceded it. It is aninterpretative action that establishes sense for linguisticacts within a perceived logic of the interaction and itscultural context. It is through this linking of languageforms, communicative purpose and cultural context that thelearners develop an understanding of cultural differencesin interaction as socially and culturally meaningful and somediate between their own cultural assumptions and those ofthe cultural other. Their starting point lies in theirdeveloping understanding of differences between practicesof language in use in and their meta-pragmatic awarenessprovides the entry point for a more elaborated mediation ofcultural difference drawing in cultural understandingoutside language itself. In such applications of drawingtogether the linguistic and the non-linguistic indeveloping accounts of language in use, meta-pragmaticawareness can be seen as a key element of interculturalcompetence. Developed in such a way meta-pragmaticawareness can provide a resource that can be used toresolve other issues in intercultural communication byproviding a way of seeing behaviours as meaningful withintheir cultural context. This can be seen in the followingextract in which an Australian student, John, spending timein France talks about his difficulties in dealing with openoffice doors in a French context (see Béal, 2010, for adiscussion of this difference in French and Australianpractices).

Extract 5John: This was a very hard thing to do. I hated it.I felt like I was violating someone else’s space,that I was an invader. I know that’s not the waythey see it, but that doesn’t matter. It still

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feels the same. This is just not something I cando. I mean I really feel that there’s this reallyimportant barrier there and I just can’t getthrough that without permissions. That’s aninvasion. I can’t go into another person’s space,well I know it’s not really their space, it’s anopen space, but I can’t– it’s just not– it reallyis their space for me. I can’t change that and Ican’t be an invader like that. It’s too traumatic.It doesn’t even matter that no-one seems to mind. Imind.

In this extract, John is responding to an interviewer’squestion about problems he experienced in France. Thisextract shows that a simple activity such as entering anopen door can become a very different activity when thecontext changes and the interactional rules that frame thesituation normally change. An activity that is normallyunproblematic can become traumatic when there is a classbetween the meaningful possibilities that come with simplesocial actions. As Béal (2010) describes such situations inintercultural interactions in Franco-Australian contexts anopen office door has potentially different meanings in thetwo cultures. In Australia, office doors are often leftopen, but an open door does not invite access to theoffice, while in similar situations in France office doorsare more often closed and an open door indicates that theoffice space is open space. The interactional result isthat in Australia, when entering an office it is usual forthe occupant to display that s/he has noticed the personwishing to enter to his/her entering, while for Béal’sFrench participants, in the same context, the occupantwould not display noticing until after the person hadentered. There is thus for this Australian student amissing cue in French contexts and this lack resignifiesfor him the activity as a social act. John’s comment here

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is also an interpretative act that shows an understandingof both interactional contexts. He has come to understandthat the meanings he attaches to the act are not the sameas the ones that apply in a French context. His problem isthat the differences in meaning are in conflict with hissense of himself as a social actor and hisconceptualisations of politeness and social etiquette. AsJohn goes on to explain his experience in France, hisinterpretation of the meaningfulness of the action ofentering through an open door becomes the basis for aninteractional analysis of what is going on and eventuallyto a mapping of the issue onto linguistic practices thateventually allow him to resolve the problem.

Extract 6John: I still feel that way and I think I alwayswill, but like I also know I needed to deal withthat or it’s not going to work. I can’t just likehang around the door until someone asks me in. Thatjust doesn’t happen or they get annoyed at you forhanging around… I tried to think about why this wasjust so different and it sort of came to think thatyou know the person in the office doesn’t look atyou when you go in. And that’s like what makes mefeel so bad. That’s why it feels like you’reinvading their space… So I kinda thought ‘how couldI get them to look at me’? So I decided to trytalking before I had to go in. You know pardonMadame or something like that. And you know it wasokay. If I did that I could do it. It sort of likegot them to do it my way but was still like theirway.

Here John can be seen as reanalysing the act of walkingthrough the door to solve his problem. He does this bythinking of the action as an interactive one shifting the

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focus from the act to what the people are doing during theact and noticing what was missing for him in the way heexperienced the act in France. He identifies the act as anissue of securing the attention of his interlocutor for hisaction and maps this issue on to his pragmatic resourcesfor securing what he need to accomplish this action – agazing interlocutor. That is his meta-pragmatic awarenessprovided a resource for dealing with a non-linguisticproblem relating from a change of context. He decided toinitiate a summons-answer sequence as a way of securing theattention of the other person and in so doing found a wayof resolving the problem for himself. In this case, meta-pragmatic awareness did not provide the starting point forthe analysis but rather provided the way of working towardsa solution – a solution that was located in an intermediaryintercultural position in which neither his own nor hisinterlocutors’ understanding of the situation became theframe for resolving a problem of difference in meaning butrather his mediation consists of a reframing of the eventfor himself to take into consideration both contexts.

ConclusionIn this chapter we have attempted to bring the ‘cultural’and the ‘linguistic’ into a closer relationship inunderstanding intercultural competence. We have made theargument that for those who engage in interculturalcommunication, mediation takes on a particularly linguisticcharacter because of the centrality of language in any actof communication. For the interculturally competentcommunicator it is particularly important to be able tomove between cultural frameworks in the interpretation ofpragmatic acts by reflecting on the nature of the practicesof language in use encountered and the cultural knowledgeand assumptions implicated in their interpretation. Ashighlighted in the data, meta-pragmatic awareness serves asan important tool for intercultural mediation by providing

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an entry point into understanding the co-constitutive rolesof language and culture in the construction of meaning.

Meta-pragmatic awareness provides a resource for reflectionon and interpretation of cultural practices which theintercultural communicator develops to varying degrees ofsophistication. At a superficial level meta-pragmaticawareness is constituted by awareness of differences inpragmatic conventions, though this may lead individuals tomake simplistic associations between norms and nationalessences. More sophisticated meta-pragmatic awareness ischaracterized by insight into the fact that pragmatic actsare understood within the context of a particular culturallogic, and that this logic varies in degrees rather thanabsolutes across cultures. The ability to see linguisticpractices as culturally contexted allows the individual toconsider the limitations and consequences of understandingthe linguistic practices of one language within thecultural frameworks of another. This awareness can then beused by the individual to consider their own ways of usingthe relevant linguistic and cultural knowledge and how toconstruct ways of dealing with incongruencies withincultural logic across languages. As meta-pragmaticawareness develops in sophistication thus, individuals areable to draw together cultural understandings of meaningmaking that lie both within and beyond language, providingan important site for intercultural mediation. This meansthat pragmatics can provide one way of bridging the dividebetween language and culture that often limits thetheorizing and operationalizing of intercultural competencein language teaching and learning.

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