Research Methods in Intercultural Communication: A Practical Guide

Research Methods in Intercultural Communication introduces and contextualizes the most important methodological issues in the field for upper–level undergraduate and graduate students. The coverage is broken into three parts, which support students from a project s start to finish. These are: research themes, methodological issues and challenges and twelve specific methods. The specific methods covered include, among others, Matched Guise Technique, Critical Discourse Analysis, Critical Incident Technique, Virtual Ethnography, Corpus Analysis, Multimodality and Narrative Analysis. Chapters assist readers in determining the most suitable method for various research questions, conceptualizing the research process, interpreting results, and drawing conclusions. A global team of experienced scholars and researchers from intercultural communication, anthropology, education, applied linguistics, and communication, explain both established and emerging research methods, and analytical tools. With key terms, suggestions for further reading, and research summaries, this is the ideal companion for students embarking on their own research in intercultural communication.

Acknowledgements xiii

Preface xv

I Linking Themes, Paradigms, and Methods

1 Identifying Research Paradigms 3
Zhu Hua

2 Studying Culture 23
Adrian Holliday

3 Studying Identity 37
Jo Angouri

4 Studying Discourse 53
Leila Monaghan

II Key Issues and Challenges

5 How to Identify Research Questions 73
Zhu Hua, Prue Holmes, Tony Young, and Jo Angouri

6 How to Research Multilingually: Possibilities and Complexities 88
Prue Holmes, Richard Fay, Jane Andrews, and Mariam Attia

7 How to Research Interculturally and Ethically 103
Jane Woodin

8 How to Assess Intercultural Competence 120
Darla K. Deardorff

9 How to Work with Research Participants: The Researcher s Role 135
Fred Dervin

10 How to Develop a Research Proposal 147
Jane Jackson

III Methods

11 Questionnaires and Surveys 165
Tony Johnstone Young

12 Interviews 181
Barbara Gibson and Zhu Hua

13 The Matched–Guise Technique 196
Ruth Kircher

14 Discourse Completion Tasks 212
Emma Sweeney and Zhu Hua

15 The Critical Incident Technique 223
Helen Spencer–Oatey and Claudia Harsch

16 Ethnography 239
Jane Jackson

17 Virtual Ethnography 255
Aoife Lenihan and Helen Kelly–Holmes

18 Multimodality 268
Agnieszka Lyons

19 Critical Discourse Analysis 281
John P. O Regan and Anne Betzel

20 Conversation Analysis 297
Adam Brandt and Kristian Mortensen

21 Corpus Analysis 311
Michael Handford

22 Narrative Analysis 327
Anna De Fina

Index 343

Zhu Hua is Professor of Applied Linguistics and Communication at Birkbeck College, University of London, UK.  Her main research interests are intercultural pragmatics, language and intercultural communication, and child language development. Most recently, she is the author of Exploring Intercultural Communication: Language in Action (2014), editor of The Language and Intercultural Communication Reader (2011), and co–editor of Weaving Intercultural Work, Life, and Scholarship in Globalizing Universities (2016).  She is a joint editor for the book series Routledge Studies in Language and Intercultural Communication.