Using a Small-Culture Narrative Approach to Explore Intercultural Communication: A Departmental Approach and a Chinese-focused Case study

In this presentation, we outline the broad approach to the study of, and research into, intercultural communication that we are pursuing at the University of Manchester. Through undergraduate and Masters courses and in doctoral supervisions, we are encouraging a “small-culture” approach (Holliday, 1999) to the exploration of ‘cultural’ and ‘intercultural’ phenomena and practices. Much of the intercultural study in the department also employs narrative research design and adopts a reflective and reflexive stance. We first introduce these aspects of our approach and illustrate how these are utilised in our teaching and supervision. We then present a case study illustrating what such a reflexively-undertaken, narratively-pursued small culture approach looks like. This case is that Xiaowei’s doctoral study – a narrative study of the acculturation experiences of some Chinese postgraduate students in the UK. We conclude by discussing the issues and insights emerging from our approach to the ‘intercultural’ with view to drawing out some conceptual and methodological implications for our future teaching and research.