Yongping Ran (冉永平)
Yongping Ran (冉永平) is a professor at the National Key Research Center for Linguistics & Applied Linguistics at Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, which is the only key national research center for linguistics and applied linguistics in China. He is Yunshan Distinguished Scholar of Guangdong University of Foreign Studies; he is editor-in-chief for the Xiandai Waiyu, a key journal of linguistics and applied linguistics in China. He is a vice-chairperson of China Pragmatics Association, a vice-chairperson of the China Association for Discourse Studies Association, and a vice-chairperson of the Interface of Foreign Language Studies Committee in China. His research interests include pragmatics, discourse analysis and language teaching. He has published papers in SSCI indexed journals, such as Intercultural Pragmatics, Journal of Pragmatics and Pragmatics and Society and in CSSCI indexed journals of linguistics in China. He has also published five books on pragmatics. He is on the Editorial Boards of journals CASLAR (Chinese as a Second Language Research) (Mouton de Gruyter), the Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict (John Benjamins), the Journal of East Asian Pragmatics (Equinox), and some journals of linguistics and applied linguistics in China. For more details, please visit his web page: http://clal.gdufs.edu.cn/info/1265/2838.htm
Following the key issue “Is intercultural communication changing the way we understand language?” put forward by the famous American scholar Kecskes (2017), this presentation will focus on how intercultural communication is changing the way we use English in the ELF (English as a lingua franca) context, with the aim of bringing some implications for English language teaching and research. Firstly, differences between L1 communication and intercultural communication will be discussed; some ELF interactional issues will then be exemplified from the perspective of intercultural pragmatics. Disagreement serves as a case in point. Due to the way in which ELF interlocutors (co)construct common ground as a discursive strategy to resolve disagreement (i.e., the way in which ELF interlocutors manage knowledge asymmetries for achieving consensus during disagreement sequences), “ELF interactions by nature are asymmetric” (Björkman, 2014: 129) due to the diverse linguacultural backgrounds of ELF interlocutors. This helps to provide evidence that ELF understanding is not a language-based issue but one of “trying to see things as others see them” (Kramsch 2014: 148). That is, when an intercultural issue is considered, common ground cannot be taken as a necessary precondition for achieving interactional success but needs to be jointly created or constructed in the ELF context. This presentation will center on the pragmatics of ‘doing understanding’ in intercultural communication based on “a synthesis of cooperation-centered view of communication” (Kecskes 2014: 86), with the hope of exploring newly-appeared features of communicative competence in the ELF context and gaining insights for English language teaching and research as well.
Björkman, B. (2014). An analysis of polyadic English as a lingua franca (ELF) speech. Journal of Pragmatics, 66, 122-138.
Kecskes, I. (2014). Intercultural pragmatics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kecskes, I. (2017). Is intercultural communication changing the way we understand language? Open Lecture delivered at Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, China.
Kramsch, C. (2014). Identity, role and voice in cross-cultural (mis) communication. Misunderstanding in social life: Discourse approaches to problematic talk, 129-153. London: Routledge.