Abrams, Zsuzsanna Ittzés. Intercultural Communication and Language Pedagogy: From Theory to Practice. Cambridge University Press, 2020. 374 + xvi pp.

In recent years, the field of intercultural communication (IC) studies has advanced conceptually, theoretically and methodologically (Kulich et al., 2020; Kulich & Tong, 2024; Zhu, 2024), especially in its subfield intercultural (communicative) competence (Byram, 2021; Dai & Chen, 2014; Deardorff, 2009). With this influence and the call from deepened globalization, one of the key objectives of education in a second or any other language (L2/Lx) has shifted to prepare learners for effective and appropriate communication in intercultural contexts. In this context, an IC-oriented language pedagogy has increasingly been adopted to develop learners’ intercultural (communicative) competence in language education (Byram et al., 2013; Corbett, 2022; Jackson, 2020; Liddicoat & Scarino, 2013). Some researchers even argue that language and IC pedagogy is becoming “a field in its own right” (Díaz & Dasli, 2017, p. 4). However, the major difficulty is how to incorporate the findings from the IC field into pedagogical practices to implement an IC-oriented language pedagogy. As Zhu (2024, p. 84) frames the issues: “Where is culture in language learning and teaching? What are the goals of language and culture learning?” Chinese textbooks on “intercultural communication” have been grappling with these issues since the 1990s (Kulich et al., 2006; Suo et al., 2015), and these issues appear and are important to address in each language and teaching context (cf. Kramsch, 1993, 1998; Martin et al., 2020).