(CC); intercultural competence (IC); intercultural speaker (IS); CEFcult project
Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC)
A current view on foreign language and foreign language teaching firmly empha-sizes their holistic character and meaning in intercultural encounters and in inte-raction. In line with this development, the Common European Framework of Re-ference for Languages (CEFR 2001) suggests communicative competence (CC) as a wide-reaching component. At the same time, intercultural competence (IC) has been promoted extensively as an emerging domain of intercultural
knowled-ge and skill. However, to our way of understanding, CC and IC are not enough anymore. We need a more holistic concept, namely, intercultural communicative competence (ICC). In this article, we focus our analysis of ICC on the main pur-poses of the CEFcult project (2009–2011; http://www.cefcult.eu).
Intercultural communicative competence (ICC) is in Byram’s model (2010; Figu-re 1) divided into two major competences: (1) communicative (Byram: linguistic) and (2) intercultural. Communicative competence is represented by linguistic, sociolinguistic and discourse competences. Intercultural competence is repre-sented by critical cultural awareness, skills of interpreting/relating, attitudes–cu-riosity/openness, skills of discovery/interaction, and knowledge. Byram’s model is proposed as a prescriptive model for the guidance of teaching and assessment.
The model can also be used analytically, to predict the success or failure of indi-viduals in intercultural interaction. Since the model does not claim to include all the characteristics of intercultural speakers (IS) nor all components of intercul-tural communicative competence, such prediction is likely to be limited.
FIGURE 1. A Model of Intercultural Communicative Competence (slightly modified on Byram 2010).
We interpret Byram’s linguistic, sociolinguistic and discourse competences (1997;
2010) to represent communicative competence (CC). We discuss CC in the follo-wing on the basis of CEFR (2001), in which communicative competence is more comprehensively presented than in Byram’s model. We argue that CC in CEFR
Intercultural Communicative Competence, and Its Assessment:
includes three main components: general competences, communicative langu-age competences and communicative langulangu-age activities and strategies (Figure 2). The sub-competences of communicative competence incorporate attitudes, values, skills, knowledge and know-how.
Communicative competence can also be approached from an intercultural point of view. In fact, all communication in a foreign language is intercultural, as Sercu (2010, 19) argues, which leads in our opinion to the idea that language learners’
or users’ communicative competence is a crucial part of their intercultural com-municative competence. The intercultural dimension of comcom-municative compe-tence is strongly represented in CEFR (2001) by (a) sociolinguistic compecompe-tence as part of communicative language competences, by (b) interactive activities and strategies and by (c) non-verbal communication, both parts of communicative language activities and strategies. In general competences, the intercultural di-mension consists of (d) sociocultural knowledge, (e) intercultural awareness, (f) intercultural skills and know-how, (g) attitudes, values and beliefs, (h) language and communication awareness, and (i) heuristic skills. Communicative compe-tence in CEFR (2001) can in fact be seen to include many components of inter-cultural communicative competence in Byram’s model (Figure 1).
In the following, we will discuss intercultural competence (IC) as a second major competence of intercultural communicative competence of Byram’s model (Figu-re 1). Byram (1997) divides IC into five components without prioritizing them or looking at them as exhaustive. First, IC is grounded in the attitudes of an intercul-tural speaker (IS). Interculintercul-tural attitudes (savoir-être) refer to curiosity and open-ness, readiness to give up one’s disbeliefs about other cultures and beliefs about one’s own. This requires willingness and an ability to see one’s own values, beliefs and behaviours from an outsider’s angle. Another crucial factor is knowledge (savoir), which concerns knowledge (i) of social groups and their products and practices and (ii) of the general processes of societal and individual interaction in one’s own and in one’s interlocutor’s country. Knowledge includes, among other things, knowledge about how other people are likely to perceive you.
A third crucial component of intercultural competence (IC) consists of skills of interpreting and relating (savoir-comprendre), which mean the ability to inter-pret communication and habits in another culture and relate them to those in one’s own culture. Seeing how things look from the other perspective, intercul-tural speakers can perceive how misunderstandings may arise and be resolved.
A fourth component of IC contains skills of discovery and interaction (savoir-apprendre/faire). They are connected to the ability to acquire new knowledge of a culture and cultural practices under the constraints of real-time communication
FIGURE 2. A Model of Communicative Competence (based on CEFR 2001, Inter-preted and visualized by Harjanne in Baten, Beaven & Harjanne 2011).
Intercultural Communicative Competence, and Its Assessment:
and interaction. Skills of discovery and interaction refer to the ability to know how to capitalize on real-time communication by asking people from other cul-tures about their values, beliefs and behaviours. Finally, a fifth crucial compo-nent of IC is critical cultural awareness (savoir-s’engager), relating to the ability to evaluate, critically and on the basis of explicit criteria, perspectives, practices, processes and products in one’s own and other cultures. Intercultural speakers need a critical awareness of themselves and their values and how these influence their views of other people’s values. (Byram 1997, 31–54; Byram, Gribkova &
Starkey 2002, 11–13.)
Intercultural competence (IC) and intercultural communicative competence (ICC) are interpreted and defined in many different and overlapping ways. The idea of ICC is rather old (cf. e.g., Baxter 1983). The concept of ICC has been influentially developed by Byram and his colleagues (e.g., Byram 1997; Byram, Gribkova & Starkey 2002). As described above, Byram defines intercultural com-municative competence as a very comprehensive competence including commu-nicative (Byram: linguistic) competence (CC) and intercultural competence (IC).