Intercultural intertexts encountered by Taiwanese EFL students

Abstract

This paper reports on an exploratory study of one specific aspect of intercultural literacy: the activation of intercultural intertexts. Readers of intercultural intertexts fall into two general groups: knowing readers (who know the source text) and unknowing readers (who do not know the source text). This paper aims to explore Taiwanese unknowing students' responses to Western-derived allusive intertexts. Eight instances of intercultural intertexts were drawn systematically from the article titles of the British magazine spiked for 16 Taiwanese college students to read, who had a required level of proficiency to skim spiked articles. Qualitative data about their reactions to the intertexts were drawn for analysis from semi-structured one-on-one interviews. In addition, the eight magazine articles were taught to 82 Taiwanese unknowing students without a required level of proficiency. A brief questionnaire was then conducted to probe into their motivations to learn intercultural intertexts. The results show that the interviewees generally felt positively about the intertexts and that most of the interviewees and questionnaire respondents were motivated to learn such intertexts. The findings indicate that it is not only theoretically but also practically worthwhile to inquire further into unknowing readers' responses to and interest in learning intercultural intertexts.

Variations in the use of intertexts at the macro-contextual level: The case of English press news

“…The readers who activate the source text and comprehend or appreciate the alluding text tend to be positively disposed toward the text they are reading (cf. Irwin, 2002; Shie, 2013). When this happens, the reader’s affinity with the text is evoked or enhanced as a consequential effect.…”

“…Home Smart Home ) refers indirectly to an earlier span of text (e.g. Home, Sweet Home ), adopting or adapting the earlier text so as to call to the reader’s mind or attention the earlier text and make it possible for the reader to construct or appreciate the meaning of the present text in process on the basis of the earlier text (Shie, 2013). Both the present text (hereinafter ‘the alluding text’) and the earlier alluded text (hereinafter ‘the source text’) occur as a meaningful span of oral or written discourse in the form of a word, a phrase, a sentence, or a coherent span of longer text.…”