Intercultural communicative competence

Intercultural competence is usually considered a subfield of intercultural communicative competence (Deardorff 2004). Thus, it is helpful to briefly highlight the holistic approach towards intercultural communicative competence from Chen and Starosta (1998), and discuss a seminal model offered by Byram (1997) in more detail before turning to the conceptualisation of cultural awareness and intercultural competence.

2.2.1.1 Chen and Starosta (1999)

Guo-Ming Chen and William J. Starosta’s model of intercultural communication competence (1999) serves as a stepping stone to the conceptualisation of intercultural communicative competence due to its holistic view. According to this triangular model from Chen and Starosta (1999), developed in the context of intercultural teaching in the USA, intercultural communication consists of three interrelated components of different aspects: intercultural sensitivity, intercultural awareness, and intercultural effectiveness/adroitness (Figure 2.3).

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Figure 2.3. Triangular model of intercultural communication competence (Chen 2014: 19)

As stated by Chen and Starosta (1998, 1999), intercultural sensitivity denotes willingness to understand and appreciate different cultures in intercultural communication. This affective aspect is echoed in the proposed framework in this study for analysing activities for their potential to stimulate affective processing of cultural content (see Table 3.7 in Chapter 3). Intercultural effectiveness/adroitness constitutes the behavioural aspect in relation to necessary skills to effectively communicate in intercultural settings (Chen and Starosta 1998, 1999). It can be seen that Chen and Starosta (1999) consider effectiveness and appropriateness crucial factors in successful intercultural communication (cf. Deardorff 2006; Fantini and Tirmizi 2006 in Section 2.2.2 below). Intercultural awareness refers to the understanding of cultural conventions affecting the way of thinking and behaving, and is closely related to cognition (Chen and Starosta 1998, 1999). This dimension, however, is a central factor in Byram’s model for intercultural communication (see Table 2.3 in Section 2.2.2.1), and in Fantini’s A+ASK model of intercultural competence (see Figure 2.10 in Section 2.2.2.3), as well as is in the model for intercultural competence in ESOL proposed in this study (see Figure 3.1 in Chapter 3).

324 2.2.1.2 Byram (1997)

From the perspective of this study, Michael Byram’s much-cited model of intercultural communicative competence (1997) is considered the most influential model as it is rooted in language learning. In Teaching and Assessing Intercultural Communicative Competence, Byram (1997) proposes a comprehensive model of intercultural communicative competence which combines two aspects:

communicative skills and intercultural abilities. This was a groundbreaking model, especially for language education, because ‘intercultural competence’ appeared as a separate but integral component of intercultural communicative competence, together with linguistic, sociolinguistic, and discourse competences (Figure 2.4). By contrast with the intercultural communication model from Chen and Starosta (1999), Byram’s model emphasises the learner’s own identity, language and culture, and highlights the importance of the influence of these ‘learner factors’ on intercultural interaction (Byram 1997, Byram et al. 2002). This makes this model a significant approach towards the conceptualisation of intercultural competence from the ESOL perspective of this study.

Figure 2.4. Byram’s intercultural communicative competence model (Byram 1997: 73)

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The four components of Byram’s model of intercultural communicative competence (1997, Byram et al. 2002) can be briefly outlined as follows:

1) LINGUISTIC COMPETENCE – the ability to interpret and produce spoken and written language by means of the application of linguistic knowledge of the target language;

2) SOCIOLINGUISTIC COMPETENCE – the ability to understand meanings that are taken for granted by either an L1 (first language) or non-L1 speaker as an interlocutor, and negotiate meanings with the interlocutor;

3) DISCOURSE COMPETENCE – the ability to discover, negotiate and use strategies to interpret and produce language by means of conforming to the interlocutor’s cultural conventions or negotiating the meanings imbedded in the language as an intercultural text;

4) INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCE – one’s ‘ability to interact in their own language with people from another country and culture, drawing upon […] knowledge about intercultural communication, […] attitudes of interest in otherness and skills in interpreting, relating, and discovering’ (Byram, 1997: 70); it must be highlighted that intercultural competence here implies communication in one’s own language, whereas intercultural communicative competence refers to communication in a foreign language (Byram and Zarate 1997). (See more on the component savoir s’engager, critical cultural awareness, of intercultural competence elaborated in Section 2.2.2.)

Byram’s (1997) model reflects another aspect of the importance of the learner during the development of intercultural communicative competence by specifying three language learning locations where the model can be applicable. The three locations imply different degrees of learner participation: (1) in the classroom, the learner’s participation is likely to be lower; whereas (2) in another country (called ‘fieldwork’

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in Byram’s model), the learner’s responsibility is usually much higher; while (3) in independent learning, the learner should take full responsibility for the study process.

This indicates that materials (and teachers) have increased responsibility in a language classroom (e.g. Bolitho 1990; McGrath 2013; Mukundan 2009; Tomlinson and Masuhara 2018), especially in an ESOL context (Mishan and Timmis 2015).

An important theme that emerges from the conceptualisation of intercultural communicative competence from Chen and Starosta (1998) and Byram (1997) is that mere knowledge of cultures is not enough for interacting with people from different cultures because the competence to establish good intercultural communication includes, for example, ‘the ability to effectively and appropriately execute communication behaviours that negotiate each other’s cultural identity or identities in a culturally diverse environment’ (Chen and Starosta 1998: 231).

Operational definition of intercultural communicative competence

Drawing on Byram’s (1997) and Chen and Starosta’s (1999) models, the following operational definition of intercultural communicative competence is proposed for this study:

INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATIVE COMPETENCE refers to one’s

‘abilities to interact with people from another country and culture in a foreign’, or second/third/… language, effectively and appropriately by means of utilising one’s linguistic, socio-linguistic and discourse competences in relation to the language used; using skills in interpreting, relating, and discovering; and expressing interest in otherness (based on Byram 1997: 70).

The establishment of a working definition of intercultural communicative competence helped the researcher to conceptualise cultural awareness and intercultural competence (see next section) within the concept of intercultural communicative competence.

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