Helen Spencer-Oatey

Helen Spencer-Oatey (born 23 March 1952) is a British applied linguist and social psychologist. She is an emeritus professor at the University of Warwick.

Academic career After studying psychology at the University of Durham, Spencer-Oatey moved to Hong Kong and later to Shanghai, where she taught at Shanghai Jiaotong University. While there, she experienced how closely interconnected language and culture are, and how misunderstandings can easily occur. This formed the foundation for her ongoing interest and research into intercultural communication and rapport management. On her return to the UK, she completed a PhD at Lancaster University and later set up the first masters degree in the UK on intercultural communication at the University of Luton (now Bedfordshire). In 2002 she became manager for HEFCE of their £4M Sino-UK e-Learning Programme, after which she took up the post of Director of Applied Linguistics at the University of Warwick.

Spencer-Oatey researches and publishes on rapport and workplace relationships, as well as intercultural communication and intercultural competence. She has developed a range of resources and tools for professionals on these topics. She retired in 2020.

Recognition In 2023, the book Negotiating Intercultural Relations was dedicated to Spencer-Oatey for her interdisciplinary work in the field.

Selected works Books

Spencer-Oatey, H., Franklin, P. and Lazidou, D. (2022) Global Fitness for Global People: How to manage and leverage cultural diversity at work. Melbourne: Castledown. . Spencer-Oatey, H. and Kádár, D. (2021) Intercultural Politeness. Managing Relations across Cultures. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jordans, E., Ngweno, B., and Spencer-Oatey, H. (2020) Developing Global Leaders: African Case Studies. New York: Palgrave. Spencer-Oatey, H. and Franklin, P. (2009) Intercultural Interaction: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Intercultural Communication. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Spencer-Oatey, H. (ed) (2008) Culturally Speaking. Culture, Communication and Politeness. London: Continuum. (2nd edition) Kotthoff, H. & Spencer-Oatey, H. (eds.) (2007) Handbook of Intercultural Communication. [ Vol.7 of Handbooks of Applied Linguistics ]. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Spencer-Oatey, H. (ed) (2007) e-Learning Initiatives in China: Pedagogy, Policy and Culture. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press and the Wah Ching Centre of Research on Education in China. Spencer-Oatey, H. (ed) (2000) Culturally Speaking: Managing Rapport through Talk across Cultures. London: Continuum. [Reprinted several times; Japanese translation version published in 2004; published under licence in China in 2006] Oatey, H. (1987) The Customs and Language of Social Interaction in English. Shanghai, China: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press.

Encyclopedia & Handbook articles Spencer-Oatey, H. & McConachy, T. (2024) Cultural schemas, evaluation and the socio-moral order. In: A. Korangy (ed.) Handbook of Cultural Linguistics (pp.91–107). Springer. Stadler, S., Işık-Güler, H. & Spencer-Oatey, H. (2023) Intercultural discourse: identity perspectives on business interaction. In Handford, M. & Gee, J.P (eds), The Routledge Handbook of Discourse Analysis (pp.625–638). Abingdon, Oxon.: Routledge. Spencer-Oatey, H. Politeness and rapport management. (2022) In I. Kecskes (Ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of Intercultural Pragmatics (pp. 484–509). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Debray, C. & Spencer-Oatey, H. (2021) Discourse and intercultural communication. In K. Hyland, B. Paltridge & L. Wong (eds). Bloomsbury Handbook of Discourse Analysis. 2nd ed. London: Bloomsbury. McConachy, T. & Spencer-Oatey, H. (2021) Cross-cultural and intercultural pragmatics. In M. Haugh, D. Kádár, & M. Terkourafi (Eds.) The Cambridge Handbook of Sociopragmatics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Spencer-Oatey, H. & Debray, C. (2020) Linguistically and culturally diverse project partnerships and teams. In J. Jackson (Ed.) The Routledge Handbook of Language and Intercultural Communication. 2nd edition. London: Routledge, pp.487–502. Franklin, P. & Spencer-Oatey, H. (2019) Developing intercultural interaction competence in organisations. In S. Habscheid, A. Müller, B. Thörle, & A. Wilton (Eds.) Handbuch Sprache in Organisationen. Berlin: De Gruyter, pp. 403–423. Spencer-Oatey, H. and Dauber, D. (2018) Internationalizing the student experience. In: Teixeira, P.N. and Shin, J-C. (General editors), Encyclopedia of International Higher Education Systems and Institutions, sub-section Higher Education as a Global Reality (sub-section editors: De Wit, H., Rumbley, L., Hunter, F.). Springer. Spencer-Oatey, H. & Zegarac, V. (2017) Power, solidarity and (im)politeness. In: J. Culpeper, M. Haugh & D.Kadar (eds.) The Palgrave Handbook of Linguistic (Im)Politeness. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp.119–141. Spencer-Oatey, H. and Wang, J. (2017) Intercultural pragmatics. In: Sybesma, R. (Ed.) Encyclopedia of Chinese Language and Linguistics, Vol. 2 (pp.441–445). Leiden: Brill. Spencer-Oatey, H. (2015) Politeness and rapport management. In: Bennett, J. (ed.) The Sage Encyclopedia of Intercultural Competence. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Spencer-Oatey, H. (2015) Rapport management. In: Tracey, K. (ed.) The International Encyclopedia of Language and Social Interaction. London: Wiley.