In the previous chapter, I analysed bilingual teacher talk: looking at what functions were achieved through, for example, Translating, or Prompting. In the present chapter, I take an intercultural perspective on pedagogy, exploring how teachers cross languages and cultures in their EFL classes.

I begin with the work of Bakhtin (1981), who described all language as heteroglossic, that is, composed of ‘many tongues’ in the form of voices, registers, discourses. Thus:

And:

What Bakhtin (1986) thus offered was a view of language which was opposed to the Saussurean split between ‘langue’ and ‘parole’ (Chomsky’s later ‘competence’ and ‘performance’); and which was opposed to any notion of language as ‘neutral medium’. On the contrary, as indicated above, Bakhtin saw every instance of language as deeply embedded in a particular speaker, moment, and context – a view which of course resonates with Hallidayan theories of language as social semiotic. For our purposes, Bakhtin presents an additional perspective on language which sees that words and ideas are constantly in evolution as they pass from one speaker to another, from one context to another – and in this case, from one linguaculture to another.

Bakhtin's notion of heteroglossia was developed into that of intertextuality by Kristeva, who asserted that: 'any text is constructed of a mosaic of quotations; any text is the absorption and transformation of another' (1966, 1980: 66). Since then, intertextuality is said to have become 'one of the most commonly used and misused terms in contemporary critical vocabulary' (Allen, 2000: 2).