How should linguists examine the complex relationships between language, discourse and culture? And how should they describe these relationships? Conceived by a group of scholars from the Centre de recherche sur les discours ordinaires et spécialisés (Cediscor), based at the Université Sorbonne Nouvelle (Paris 3), this volume seeks preliminary answers by giving researchers from sociology and linguistics (more particularly linguistic anthropology, discourse analysis, ethnopragmatics and second language teaching) a forum to discuss how best to explore the language-culture nexus. To improve overall coherence, the contributions are situated in terms of a number of major research concerns including objectives, definitions of concepts, data and methodologies. The volume itself is divided into four sections.

Focused on theory and methodology, the first section opens with an introductory chapter (15–45) written by the volume's editors, who summarize twenty years of work conducted within Cediscor by the research group ‘Comparaison’. This research group's work is distinguished by its comparative framework called ‘analyse du discours contrastive’ (ADC). Rather than comparing two or more linguistic systems as is traditional in contrastive linguistics, researchers who employ ADC compare the same discourse genre in different ethnolinguistic communities. To assure objectivity, these researchers eschew predetermined categories and create their interpretive categories in an iterative, abductive process of trial and error that requires them to reflect on their own interpretive process. The next chapter (47–65), by Philippe d’Iribarne, focuses on the notion of ‘vivre ensemble’ as embedded in social and political structures such as labor and management. D’Iribarne analyzes equivalent cultural concepts to the French ‘vivre ensemble’ in several national cultures (American, Mexican, French) in terms of idealized images of good and bad social relations as well as the fears that arise when these idealized images are violated. In the next contribution (67–87), Christine Béal argues that the study of intercultural communication implicates a range of focal objects at different levels of cultural analysis – social representations, diverse pragmatic phenomena, even non-verbal behavior. As such, Béal compares intercultural communication to a puzzle that can only be pieced together with multiple, complementary methodologies.

The second section addresses the concerns of research objectives and methodologies from the perspective of two case studies. The first case study (91–116), by Véronique Traverso, is a microanalysis of the interactional patterns of plurilingual group members discussing the rehabilitation of hammams in Mediterranean cities. The participants come from different disciplines and different language backgrounds (Arabic, French, English and German). Traverso examines how participants switch languages in an effort to translate Arabic words related to the Islamic practices of ablution that have no semantic equivalents in the other languages. The other case study (117–141), by Bert Peeters, is an example of ethnopragmatics, the study of communicative behaviors that index cultural values. Peeters argues that the French verb râler and its derivations are recognizable to the French as a communicative practice that indexes the culturally salient value of ‘l’esprit contestataire’. In an effort to avoid ethnocentrism, Peeters captures this French communicative behavior in Natural Semantic Metalanguage, a culturally neutral tool pioneered by ethnolinguists Anna Wierzbicka and Cliff Goddard.

The third section focuses on foreign language teaching and learning. In the only contribution written in English (145–164), Claire Kramsch analyzes how two different language textbooks, one used to teach German in the United States and the other used to teach German in Germany, ‘entextualize’ the same historical events in strikingly different ways. Kramsch argues that the opposing discourses of these two textbooks reflect different goals of history instruction, that is, the inculcation of sanctioned collective memories as opposed to the promotion of critical thought. In the other contribution in this section (165–185), Jean-Claude Beacco describes the development of intercultural competence within European approaches to foreign language education. According to Beacco, intercultural education is primarily about assisting students to develop a set of personal qualities such as curiosity and tolerance towards alterity. Beacco argues that such traits do not necessarily correspond to specific levels of linguistic proficiency.

The fourth section is a critical synthesis by Patricia von Münchow (187–207), who compares the scholars’ contributions in terms of how they conceptualize language and culture. For example, von Münchow distinguishes between scholars who focus on a single linguaculture (‘langue-culture’) as opposed to scholars who examine contact between plurilingual speakers. In addition, she points out that applied linguists interested in intercultural competence tend to view language and culture in terms of the individual engaged in a dynamic, developmental process, whereas ethnolinguists tend to conceptualize language and culture as a priori systems that emphasize the collective. Finally, von Münchow highlights how today's scholars carefully contextualize their findings in order to avoid stereotyping and essentializing, two practices commonly associated with the repudiated research agenda of linguistic determinism. Taken as a whole, this remarkable volume provides an insightful synthesis of recent scholarship located at the intersection of the three titular concepts – culture, discours and langue.