A critical auto-ethnography of learning Spanish : intercultural competence on the gringo trail? / / by Phiona Stanley

• Autore: Stanley Phiona
• Pubblicazione: Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon ; ; New York, NY : , : Routledge, , [2016]
• Edizione: 1st ed.
• Descrizione fisica: 1 online resource (192 pages) : illustrations, photographs
• Disciplina: 306.442/61; 306.442610098
• Soggetto topico: Intercultural communication - Latin America; Spanish language - Latin America - English; Spanish language - Spoken Spanish; Spanish language; Communication and culture - Latin America; Language and culture - Latin America
• Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references and index.
• Nota di contenuto: 1. Becoming interculturally competent in 'Spanishtown'? -- 2. Theorizing intercultural competence -- 3. Research processes and intrigues -- 4. Learning Spanish in Latin America -- 5. Discourses of others : talking about 'them' and 'us' -- 6. Learning from and negotiating with cultural 'others' -- 7. Voluntourism : practicing on the community? -- 8. Theorizing : doing and developing intercultural competence -- 9. Revisiting methodology -- 10. Suggestions and teaching activities.
• Sommario/riassunto: The premise that intercultural contact produces intercultural competence underpins much rationalization of backpacker tourism and in-country language education. However, if insufficiently problematized, pre-existing constructions of cultural 'otherness' may hinder intercultural competence development. This is nowhere truer than in contexts in which wide disparities of power, wealth, and privilege exist, and where such positionings may go unproblematized. This study contributes to theoretical understandings of how intercultural competence develops through intercultural contact situations through a detailed, multiple case study of three conceptually comparable contexts in which Western backpackers study Spanish in Latin America. This experience, often 'bundled' with home-stay, volunteer work, social, and tourist experiences, offers a rich set of empirical data within which to understand the nature of intercultural competence and the processes through which it may be developed. Models of a single, context-free, transferable intercultural competence are rejected. Instead, suggestions are made as to how educators might help prepare intercultural sojourners by scaffolding their intercultural reflections and problematizing their own intersectional identities and their assumptions. The study is a critical ethnography with elements of autoethnographic reflection. The book therefore also contributes to development of this qualitative research methodology and provides an empirical example of its application.
• Titolo autorizzato: A critical auto-ethnography of learning Spanish
• ISBN: 1-317-48223-9; 0-367-41057-5; 1-315-70823-X
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Record Nr.: 9910150349603321
• Lo trovi qui: Univ. Federico II