Hi all and once again, welcome back to my blog. In this weeks entry, I’ll be focusing on ICC, an abbreviation of the term Intercultural Communicative Competence. So, what does this tongue twister actually mean?
As intercultural experts know, a solid definition of ICC hasn’t been established. However, according to the Teaching English British Council, Intercultural communicative competence, or ICC, refers to the ability to understand cultures, including your own, and use this understanding to communicate with people from other cultures successfully. (TeachingEnglish, 2018).
In my opinion the underlying benefit of a person being inter culturally competent is that it allows people from different cultural backgrounds to communicate effectively and respectfully, and acknowledge the existing cultural differences to adapt their communicative methods for the advantage of the other person. Without a doubt, a person could have perfect linguistic fluency in a foreign language, however I don’t think this is sufficient for someone who wants to be inter-culturally competent.
Mantovani writes that “[culture] isn’t something that can be learned, but it is the pretext of every possible future learning experience. One does not learn a culture, one enters into it. We don’t acquire a culture, but it is culture that acquires us.” (Mantovani, 1998)
In Applied Languages, we are lucky enough to be able to participate in activities like the Sharing Perspectives Foundation, virtual exchanges we have within our language modules and of course our Erasmus which are all organised to further our ICC as language learners. This allows us to interact with people from cultures varying from our own as well as natives of the languages we are learning. Our period spent studying abroad will undoubtedly be an incredible asset to us and will look great on our CVs as nowadays employers of multinational companies are not just looking for graduates with fluency in languages but also with vital skills in understanding and respecting norms and values in the culture of their language, which will allow them to communicate seamlessly and effectively.
Shown above is a simple diagram of Byrams model of ICC. This famous linguist believes that an intercultural speaker is someone who possesses the 5 Savoirs.
Savoirs– this refers to the general knowledge one has of it’s own culture and other cultures and their basic ability to interact with people from other cultures
Savoir Comprende– refers to an individuals understanding of practices in another culture and having the ability to relate them to their own experiences in their culture.
Savoir Apprende/ Faire– the ability to acquire new knowledge of cultural practices and to use this knowledge, attitudes and skills in real- time communication, like face to face conversations. As I already said above, foreign language skills are obviously vital but we also need culture appropriate skills eg. politeness
Savoir S’engager– this is the ability to perceive various practices and perspectives from multiple cultural backgrounds
Savoir êntre– this relates to the curiosity, attitude and the openness an individual has towards other cultures, as well as their cultural sensitivity and tolerance of ambiguity
(Byram, 1997)
Hope you enjoyed my post on ICC, thanks for reading!
Aoife x
Bibliography
TeachingEnglish, British Council, BBC. (2018). Intercultural communicative competence. [online] Available at: https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/intercultural-communicative-competence [Accessed 8 Dec. 2018].
Byram, M. (1997). Teaching and assessing intercultural communicative competence.
Mantovani, G. L’elefante invisibile. Alia scoperta delle differenze culturali. Bologna:
II Mulino, 1998. 61.
17234751 