Dervin & Gross 2016 ICC in Education PDF

Fred Dervin & Zehavit Gross
Intercultural
Competence
in Education
Alternative Approaches for
Different Times
Intercultural Competence in Education
Fred Dervin • Zehavit Gross
Editors
Intercultural
Competence in
Education
Alternative Approaches for Different Times
Editors
Fred Dervin Zehavit Gross
The University of Helsinki Bar-Ilan University
Helsinki, Finland Ramat-Gan, Israel
ISBN 978-1-137-58732-9 ISBN 978-1-137-58733-6 (eBook)

DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-58733-6
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FOREWORD
Intercultural Competence: Alternative Approaches for Today’s Education,

edited by Fred Dervin and Zehavit Gross, offers a crucial and timely con-
tribution to scholarship around intercultural studies. In our time, relevant
sciences across multiple fields are challenging and invariably demolishing
earlier conceptions of the world, its size and complexity, and the nature of
humanity as part of it. The response from scholarship generally must be to
put away narrow, perfunctory and unhelpful stereotypes about human dif-
ference, including many that might conform to political correctness, and
replace them with more informed and facilitative insights befitting the age
in which we live. These new insights must impel advanced approaches to
the study of intercultural relations and the practical competencies needed
to bring effect to inter-relating. Among the sciences that are blowing away
overly simple assumptions about the world and humanity are astrophysics,
neuroscience and the archaeological sciences.
Astrophysics is increasingly pressing the boundaries that have shaped
our thinking about humanity’s distinctiveness among human species and
indeed the uniqueness of life on earth generally. The mind-blowing vast-
ness of the known universe, possibly multiverses, the smallness of our ‘pale
blue dot at the edge of the universe’ (as Carl Sagan would have it) and
the clear linkages between life of all forms wherever it is to be found have
robbed us of any grounds for arrogance in being superior as humans,
much less superior as a particular species of humanity over other human
cultures. If all of life is one and we share basic Ribonucleic acid (RNA) with
all animate and supposedly inanimate species, then whatever small genetic
twist binds us together as humans has to be seen as far more significant
v
vi FOREWORD
than cosmetic differences of colour and creed. These insights must influ-
ence the way we see each other as sharers of the pale blue dot and hence
the way we approach intercultural studies of any kind. For Sagan and his
protégé, Neil de Grasse Tyson, the conclusion for humanity’s place in the
scheme of things is one of humility and reverence, all in one. We are small
yet ever so privileged to share in the miracle of life on this magnificent but
fragile speck in the heavens!
Neuroscience is pushing other boundaries, especially around the vast-
ness of the brain, human and otherwise. It is telling us that digital storage
of a single human brain (if it were possible) would likely exceed all the
storage currently available on the planet. It is telling us that each and
every human brain is unique, much like the fingerprint. Like astrophysical
insights, these are findings that ultimately underline the remarkable com-
plexity and majesty of the phenomenon of all life, but especially human
life. Yet, while we adulate over the wondrous precision of a well-made
motor engine and nurture and protect our mobile phones as if they were
our progeny, we nonetheless treat each other as humans with callous dis-
regard day in and day out. The engine and the phone are only dispos-
able once they’ve run their course, yet we exclude, dismiss and dispose of
human life daily through war, immigration policy and common bigotry.
While modern science is telling us we should treat each other with awe,
we persistently mistreat each other with hatreds built on the baselessness
of cosmetic differences of gender, ethnicity and religion.
Finally, the archaeological sciences are providing ever-deepening under-
standing of how we have evolved as a species and what it is that connects
us most deeply with our ancestors. The once supposed symbols of mod-
ern civilized humanity, namely living in community with authority, legal
and economic structures, are giving way to conceptions of much older
and apparently more ingrained pre-human architecture around common
beliefs and associated artefacts of ritual and myth. In this sense, humanity
and its direct ancestry is seen to have been around for far longer than the
normally ascribed historical period or even that of homo sapiens. We now
know we share DNA with the Neanderthal and possibly pre-Neanderthal
peoples and, it would seem likely, both of these engaged in funerary rites
not hugely different in kind from our own. This is something that sets
humanity and its ancestry apart from other species of life and, again, one
might suppose, should shore up our regard for each other and, in turn,
our earnest desire to communicate with each other in optimal fashion.
FOREWORD vii
These are just some of the ways in which modern research and scholar-
ship is pushing us to lift our sights and intentions around our attitudes and
treatment of each other as a species. Yet, as is so often the case, the preva-
lence of attitudes and treatment does not match it, indeed in many ways
runs counter to it. At a time when we have the education and resources to
live together better than ever before, we find ethnocentrism, xenophobia
and violence one to the other as ingrained as they have ever been. The
instance of Islamophobia is just one example, but quite likely the sharpest
and most damaging available today. One would think that all of the above
scientific insights, together with the obvious and demonstrable fact that
those who commit atrocities in the name of Islam are renegades whose
practices are clearly contradictory to anything one could find out about
Islam from the first page of an authentic Islamic text or from conversing
with any number of ordinary Muslims, would condemn Islamophobia to
the almost unheard of margins of any civilized society. Yet, it is not so!
So far is it not so that one now finds a candidate for presidency of the
supposedly most civilized society on earth running strongly on an anti-
Islam platform, and doing very well as a result. It is for reasons like these,
and many others to do with securing a more coherent, harmonious and
sustainable human community, that we need books like this one edited
by Professors Dervin and Gross, and contributed to by a host of revered
scholars in relevant fields.
Terence Lovat
CONTENTS
1 Introduction: Towards the Simultaneity of Intercultural

Competence 1
Fred Dervin and Zehavit Gross
Part I Adding to Previous Perspectives: Making IC

More Effective? 11
2 Meta-pragmatic Awareness and Intercultural Competence:

The Role of Reflection and Interpretation in Intercultural
Mediation 13
Troy McConachy and Anthony J. Liddicoat
3 Intercultural Competence in Host Students? A Study

of Danish Students Facing China at Home 31
Ulla Egidiussen Egekvist, Niels-Erik Lyngdorf, Xiang-Yun Du
and Jiannong Shi
4 From ‘Intercultural Speaker’ to ‘Intercultural Reader’:

A Proposal to Reconceptualize Intercultural
Communicative Competence Through a Focus
on Literary Reading 51
Hild Elisabeth Hoff
ix
x CONTENTS
5 Competences for Active Communication and Participation

in Diverse Societies: Views of Young People in Iceland 73
Hanna Ragnarsdóttir
Part II Renewing Intercultural Competence: Beyond

Established Models? 95
6 Intercultural Competence and the Promise

of Understanding 97
Giuliana Ferri
7 Intercultural Polyphonies Against the ‘Death

of Multiculturalism’: Concepts, Practices and Dialogues 121
Clara Sarmento
8 Intercultural Competence: Multi-dynamic,

Intersubjective, Critical and Interdisciplinary
Approaches 143
Ribut Wahyudi
9 Living Intercultural Lives: Identity Performance

and Zones of Interculturality 167
Leah Davcheva and Richard Fay
Part III Renewed Intercultural Competence in Practice 183
10 An Interactive, Co-constructed Approach to the

Development of Intercultural Understanding in
Pre-service Language Teachers 185
Robyn Moloney, Lesley Harbon and Ruth Fielding
CONTENTS xi
11 Challenges of Teaching Intercultural Business

Communication in Times of Turbulence 215
Annelise Ly and Kristin Rygg
12 Intercultural Competence: Value Disembedding

and Hyper-flexibility 237
Karin Zotzmann
Index 259
LIST OF FIGURES
Fig. 4.1 Model of the intercultural reader’s engagement

with FL literary texts 63
Fig. 9.1 Zones of interculturality 177
Fig. 11.1 Contrast in Japanese and Norwegian decision processes 227
xiii
LIST OF TABLES
Table 3.1 Research participants 35

Table 5.1 Origins of parents 81
Table 5.2 Responses to ‘Taking different cultural and religious traditions
into account is important’ 82
Table 5.3 Diversity (of backgrounds) is important for Icelandic society. 83
Table 5.4 Responses to the ‘Racism is never justifiable’ statement 85
Table 5.5 Responses to the ‘I think I can learn a lot from having friends
with different backgrounds’ statement 86
Table 6.1 Sequence of the acquisition of competences 106
xv
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
Leah Davcheva AHA Moments Centre for Intercultural Learning, is an

intercultural trainer, coach, researcher and (co-)author of books, articles
and learning resources. She designs and delivers training programmes for
educators, youth workers and business professionals, both interna-
tionally and at home. Leah has contributed to and was instrumental
in building up the foundations of intercultural education and inter-
cultural communication training in Bulgaria. Since 1998, she has col-
laborated with Richard Fay on numerous educational projects and
narrative research studies.
Fred Dervin is Professor of Multicultural Education at the University of
Helsinki (Finland). Dervin also holds professorships in Australia, Canada,
China, Luxembourg, Malaysia and Sweden. He is one of the most critical
voices on the meanings of interculturality in education today.
Xiangyun Du is a Professor in the Department of Learning and
Philosophy and Director of the Confucius Institute for Innovation and
Learning at Aalborg University. Her main research interests include inno-
vative teaching and learning, particularly problem-based and project-based
learning methods in fields ranging from engineering, medicine and health,
and language education, to diverse social, cultural and educational
contexts. She has over 130 relevant international publications including
monographs, journal papers, book chapters, conference contributions and
editing works.
xvii
xviii NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
Ulla Egidiussen Egekvist is a PhD candidate in the Department of

Learning and Philosophy, Aalborg University (Denmark). She received
her MA in Learning and Innovative Change from Aalborg University and
her BA in Cultural Encounters and Middle Eastern Studies from Roskilde
University. Her research focuses on internationalization at the primary
and lower secondary school levels through Chinese language and culture
activities organized by the Confucius Institute for Innovation and
Learning at Aalborg University.
Richard Fay Lecturer in Education at The University of Manchester, spe-
cializes in TESOL, Intercultural Communication, Researcher Education and
Narrative Inquiry. He jointly directs the MA in Intercultural Communication
and the Manchester Global Award as well as the university’s Klezmer
Ensemble. He is currently a co-investigator on the AHRC-funded
‘Researching Multilingually at the Borders of Language, the Body, Law and
the State’ project (2014–2017). Since 1998, he has worked with Leah
Davcheva on educational, intercultural and narrative research projects.
Giuliana Ferri holds a PhD in Applied Linguistics and Intercultural
Communication from UCL Institute of Education. Her doctoral research
engages critically with formulations of intercultural communicative com-
petence in language teaching and learning with the adoption of an inter-
disciplinary theoretical framework that combines research in critical
applied linguistics and critical discourse analysis with philosophical reflec-
tion. She is currently a Teaching Fellow at the University of Warwick in
the Centre for Professional Education and MA Dissertation Supervisor at
UCL Institute of Education.
Ruth Fielding is Assistant Professor at the University of Canberra in the
TESOL and foreign language teaching programme. She teaches and
supervises in language teaching methodology, and intercultural under-
standing. Her research focuses on multilingualism, identity, intercultural
language teaching and bilingual/CLIL education.
Zehavit Gross is the head of the graduate program of management and
development of informal educational systems in the school of education at
Bar-Ilan University, Israel. She also holds the UNESCO Chair in Education
for Human Values, Tolerance, Democracy and Peace and is the Head
of the Sal Van Gelder Holocaust Literature Center in the school of
Education at Bar-Ilan University.
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS xix
Lesley Harbon is both an Honorary Associate Professor in the Faculty of

Education and Social Work at the University of Sydney and Professor and
Head of School of International Studies at the University of Technology
Sydney, Australia. Her research interests include language teacher
professionalism, bilingual/CLIL education, language policy and the
perceived value of short-term international experiences for language
and culture teachers.
Hild Elisabeth Hoff is Associate Professor of English as a Foreign
Language (EFL) didactics, with a specialization in culture and literature
didactics. Working in the Department of Foreign Languages at the
University of Bergen, Norway, she teaches and supervises student teachers
of English. Her research focuses on the role of Bildung, intercultural com-
petence and literary reading in FL education.
Anthony J. Liddicoat is Professor in Applied Linguistics at the Research
Centre for Languages and Cultures in the School of Communication,
International Studies and Languages at the University of South Australia.
His research interests include: language and intercultural issues in educa-
tion, conversation analysis and language policy and planning. In recent
years his research has focused on issues relating to the teaching and learn-
ing of culture through language study. He is current co-convener of
the AILA Research Network investigating the theme of intercultural
mediation in language and culture teaching and learning/La médi-
ation interculturelle en didactique des langues et des cultures and
Executive Editor of Current Issues in Language Planning.
Terence Lovat is Professor Emeritus and former Pro Vice-Chancellor in
Education and Arts at the University of Newcastle, Australia, and a Senior
Research Fellow at the University of Oxford, UK.
Annelise Ly is a PhD research scholar in the Department of Professional
and Intercultural Communication at the Norwegian School of Economics
(NHH), in Bergen, Norway. Her research focuses on the understanding
and the linguistic manifestation of cultural differences in the workplace.
More specifically, her doctoral project looks at how employees of an inter-
national company make sense of cultural differences on the one hand, and
how they express and perceive different speech acts in internal email com-
munication on the other hand. She teaches intercultural communication
with a focus on East Asia and holds lectures on Chinese business culture.
xx NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
Niels-Erik Lyngdorf is a PhD candidate in the Department of Learning

and Philosophy, Aalborg University. He received his MA in Learning and
Innovative Change from Aalborg University and his BA in Chinese and
Anthropology from Aarhus University. His research interests include
teaching and learning of culture and intercultural competence. His object
of research is mainly Sino-Danish short-term studies abroad in the context
of internationalization in higher education.
Troy McConachy is Assistant Professor at the Centre for Applied
Linguistics at the University of Warwick. His research interests include
meta-pragmatic awareness in intercultural language learning, language
teacher cognition, the internationalization of higher education, and the
construction of interculturality in national and institutional educational
policy. He has published a book chapter in Linguistics for Intercultural
Education (John Benjamins), as well as articles in international journals
such as ELT Journal and Language Awareness.
Robyn Moloney is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Educational
Studies, Faculty of Human Sciences, Macquarie University. She supervises
doctoral projects in languages and literacy, and teaches pre-service teach-
ers in methodologies for Foreign Languages and English as a Second
Language. Her research interests include language teacher development,
pedagogy, and intercultural education.
Hanna Ragnarsdóttir is Professor of Multicultural Education at the
School of Education, University of Iceland. She completed an MSc degree
in anthropology from the London School of Economics and Political
Science in 1986 and a DPhil in education from the University of Oslo in
2007. Her research has mainly focused on immigrant children and families
in Icelandic society and schools and various aspect of multicultural educa-
tion and school reform. She has published widely on these issues in
national and international journals.
Kristin Rygg is Associate Professor in the Department of Professional
and Intercultural Communication at the Norwegian School of Economics
(NHH), in Bergen, Norway. She specializes in Japanese language and
business culture, intercultural communication and linguistics with special
attention to pragmatics.
Clara Sarmento PhD in Portuguese Culture, develops her research
on intercultural communication, theories and representations, as the
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS xxi
coordinator of the Centre for Intercultural Studies of the Polytechnic

Institute of Porto, where she is a tenured professor and the director of the
master’s programmes in Specialized Translation and in Intercultural
Studies for Business. Her award-winning work includes numerous books,
essays, PhD seminars and conferences on Anglo-American and Portuguese
Literature, and on Cultural, Intercultural, Feminist and Gender Studies.
Jiannong Shi is Professor of Psychology working at the Institute of
Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. He focuses his research in the
fields of giftedness, talent development and creativity, both theoretically
and practically. He has authored (or co-authored) 11 books in the field of
child development and gifted education, as well as more than 170 journal
articles and book chapters since 1990.
Ribut Wahyudi is a lecturer at State Islamic University Maulana Malik
Ibrahim Malang, Indonesia and PhD candidate at Victoria University of
Wellington, New Zealand. He has published articles in Language Discourse
and Society (2012), Journal of Global Literacies, Technologies and Emerging
Pedagogies (2014), English for Specific Purposes World (2014), Journal of
Research, Policy & Practice of Teachers & Teacher Education (2015),
Journal of IATEFL ESP SIG (2016).
Karin Zotzmann lectures in Applied Linguistics at the University of
Southampton and has previously worked in the same area at different pub-
lic and private universities in Mexico. Her main research interests include
the conceptualization of intercultural competencies and learning in differ-
ent social domains within the framework of transnational or globalization
processes.
CHAPTER 1
Introduction: Towards the Simultaneity

of Intercultural Competence
Fred Dervin and Zehavit Gross
Some months ago one of us attended a cross-cultural training session to

boost his intercultural competence (IC) for selling educational services
to ‘Asian’ colleagues. The session was run by a foremost cross-cultural
consultant who had spent many years in different countries and spoke
a dozen languages. The consultant provided the participants with a list
of ‘to dos’ and ‘don’ts’ as well as ‘cultural recipes’, to meet people from
the East ‘successfully’ and ‘effectively’, repeatedly emphasizing the fact
that they had to pay attention to their Asian counterparts’ ‘face’. As the
attendants were to present in front of the ‘Asian’ colleagues they were
given tips such as ‘bow before you start presenting; this will show that
you respect them. Respect is key to intercultural competence’. When the
day came to meet the ‘Asians’ (who were all from China) one could tell
that everyone was nervous. ‘Let’s hope we don’t make too many cross-
cultural mistakes. I need to remember to bow and protect “their” face’,
some said. All the local speakers did perform a ‘perfect’ bow—as they had
been taught—before talking. During lunch break, however, the Chinese
asked some of them if they also had to bow when they were going to give
F. Dervin ( )
The University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
Z. Gross
Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 1

F. Dervin, Z. Gross (eds.), Intercultural Competence in Education,
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-58733-6_1
2 F. DERVIN AND Z. GROSS
presentations in the afternoon, and if bowing was a Finnish cultural habit.

They all laughed in unison when the local partners told them that they had
been instructed to do it for them, as a mark of respect for their ‘culture’.
This anecdote, of which many readers will probably have ample exam-
ples, shows that the concept of intercultural competence can easily be non-
simultaneous, in reference to E. Bloch’s Ungleichzeitigkeit, 1935/2009:
the ‘recipes’ and ideological representations that the concept bears are
opposed to the reality of our world, of today’s education. In other words
the consultant’s approach could be qualified as something of the past, a
perspective on the ‘intercultural’ which is out of line with the current zeit-
geist. Interestingly enough, one person’s views on a ‘culture’ (‘Asians’)
were meant to dictate the competences, attitudes and behaviours of 12
people from another ‘culture’. Like us, the authors of the chapters con-
tained in this volume believe that ‘solid’ cultural boxes need to be urgently
emptied. What we propose to do in this volume is to re-calibrate IC to a
more simultaneous, synchronized position—IC for today’s education. We
aim to discuss the politics of IC, its potentially ethnocentric and aggran-
dising aspects and the lack of reflexivity that sometimes goes with it.
Contradictorily the concept of IC can be both polysemic and empty in
education: it either means too much or too little. Researchers, practitio-
ners but also decision makers use it almost automatically without always
worrying about its meaning(s), the impact(s) it has on those who are
embedded in its discussions and the injustice it can lead to. A few ‘usual
suspects’ whose work is systematically (and uncritically) mentioned have
often managed to keep mainstream global understandings of intercultural
competence simplified, fuzzy or unrealistic. In times like ours where the
‘other’ tends to be stereotyped, rejected, detested and sometimes abused,
it is urgent to find new ways of dealing with the issue of interculturality
from a renewed perspective. Education has a central role to play here.
This volume presents new, critical and original approaches to IC that
try to go beyond these problematic ‘McDonaldized’ models and ‘rein-
venting the wheel’ perspectives. Some of the authors are interested in
criticizing the most ‘influential’ models of IC while others have attempted
(un)successfully to develop new understandings and models of IC. The
editors wish to promote the idea that failure is also inherent to research
on and teaching of IC. Too often an over-emphasis on success in the field
represents a dangerous bias. The editors and the authors consider IC to be
synonymous with multicultural competence, cross-cultural competence,
global competence, and so on as these labels are also unstable and can be
used interchangeably.
INTRODUCTION 3
WARNINGS: THE NON-SIMULTANEITY OF IC

Different times, different worlds, different solutions. As hinted at earlier
the way IC has been discussed, conceptualized and manoeuvred deserves
full deconstruction again and again. One should never be satisfied with
the concept. Non-simultaneous with the complexity of our world, more
modern-classifying than postmodern-deconstructing in nature, many
aspects of IC can often do more harm than good. In what follows we wish
to oppose misconceptions of IC with the realities of our world.
Let us start with the following utterance: ‘I enjoyed the company of
Malaysians. I had never spoken to a Malaysian before, but they were really
great!’ For many people this simple utterance can signal IC: the utterer is
open-minded, tolerant, respectful and so on. However the intercultural, like
any other human and social phenomena, is ideological and highly political.
Whenever we utter something about self and the other, our discourses cannot
but be political. In the utterance above what the speaker says about Malaysians
shows that he had (potentially negative?) expectations about them (maybe they
are not great?) and that, maybe, under the surface, he believed that ‘his’ group
or other groups were better. What we also find in this short excerpt is a good
example of essentialism, whereby a few people are made to stand for an entire
population (in the case of Malaysia: 30 million people). The British-Pakistani
novelist and writer Mohsin Hamid (2014, p. 31) criticizes this monolithic
approach when he describes different members of his family:
I have female relations my age who cover their heads, others who wear mini-
skirts, some who are university professors or run businesses, others who
choose rarely to leave their homes. I suspect if you were to ask them their
religion, all would say ‘Islam’. But if you were to use that term to define
their politics, careers, or social values, you would struggle to come up with
a coherent, unified view.
As paradoxical as it might seem, an approach to intercultural competence

that fails to point coherently, cohesively and consistently to the complex-
ity of self and the other fails to accomplish what it should do: Helping
people to see beyond appearances and simplifying discourses—and thus
lead to ‘realistic’ encounters. As such Gee (2000, p. 99) reminds us that,
when interacting with others, ‘The “kind of person” one is recognized as
“being”, at a given time and place, can change form moment to moment
in the interaction, can change from context to context, and of course,
can be ambiguous or unstable’. It thus makes very little sense to present
people with grammars of culture or recipes. IC should help us to ques-

tion our solid ways of ‘appropriating’ the world and the other. The prefix
inter- in intercultural competence hints at transformations, mélange, reac-
tions not cannibalistic behaviours through which one of the interlocutors
swallows the other by imposing their ‘better’ and ‘more civilized’ culture.
Another problem with IC lies in the overemphasis on difference (cul-
tural difference), which is problematic in a world like ours where bound-
aries are loose and ideas, thoughts, practices, discourses, beliefs and so
on travel the world so quickly. Commonalities can cut across countries,
regions, languages, religions and so on. They thus need to be included in
IC. We argue with Maffesoli and Strohl (2015, p. 12) that an emphasis
on similarities does not necessarily lead to universalistic perspectives but to
‘unidiversalism’ (diversities in difference and commonality). Without this,
IC has the potential to repress and silence any a priori rejection and critical
reflexivity. It can develop criteria of relativism, and sanctify hypocrisy and
closed eyes, when it’s ‘convenient’, in the name of interests and the noble
need to show IC. Intercultural competence can be aimed at preserving
social coherence and creating uniformity in a superficial sense, though not
uniformity in the deepest sense. The aim can sanctify every means, and the
means can be justified by the argument of interculturality.
The non-simultaneity of many approaches to IC also requires question-
ing the way we (are made to) believe in the aforementioned problems. In
agreement with Merino and Tileagă (2011, p. 91), we need to be careful
with mere reports of experience or discourses on interculturality: Culture
can serve as an alibi, an invention and a way of manipulating the other or
a way of showing others implicitly that we are better than them. IC also
has the potential for flawed morality. In many cases, when people seem to
be displaying IC, they in fact find themselves lying to comply with some
form of political correctness, in order to articulate what ‘the other’ (or,
e.g., educators) might want to hear. In actual fact, though, the speakers
frequently articulate what is an a priori false representation, or a white lie.
This raises the question whether the cultural is political, and whether the
political is cultural—or both. Can we differentiate between them, or are
there specific circumstances when we mix the two with the aim of achiev-
ing certain goals?
IC should thus help its ‘users’ to deal with these unfair phenomena and
to question them in order to move to a higher level of engagement with
others.
INTRODUCTION 5
PROPOSALS: REINFORCING THE SIMULTANEITY OF IC

We agree with P. Nynäs (2001, p. 34) when he claims that ‘there is no
way we can provide a technique for successful communication or a causal
model for intercultural communication’. There is no panacea for IC. IC
cannot be ‘acquired’ forever. Those who try to sell their models of IC as
leading to success or efficiency are either naive or deceitful. Renegotiating
and reinforcing the simultaneity of IC mean taking into account cur-
rent analyses of postmodern and postcolonial realities. They also require
deconstructing Western epistemologies that have helped to validate ‘our’
superiority (Andreotti, 2011).
A simultaneous perspective on IC starts from the idea of diverse diver-
sities: everybody is diverse regardless of their origins, skin colour, social
background and so on. Depending on the context or interlocutor, signs
of diverse diversities may change. IC should also aim at educating about
the dangers of non-essentialistic, non-culturalist ideas and to ‘suppress’
them as they can hide discourses of discrimination, power, superiority and
can easily serve as excuses and alibis (Dervin, 2016). This approach also
questions issues of ‘solid’ origins, which can conceal ‘codes’ leading to
(hidden) discrimination, oppression, injustice and hierarchies.
Of course we need to bear in mind that this approach to self and other
has its limits. IC can be quite unstable as it is negotiated in interaction
with ‘complex’ people and in specific contexts, which has an impact on
power relations. In some situations, because one feels inferior or sim-
ply because one is tired, the noble objectives of non-essentialism and
non-culturalism cannot be met even if one tries hard. IC should thus
recognize their importance but, at the same time, urge its supporters
to remain aware of the ‘simplexity’ of any act of interaction. Simplexity,
a portmanteau word composed of simple and complexity, represents a
continuum between the simple and the complex—two processes that
we have to face all the time (Dervin, 2016). There is a need to recog-
nize and accept that, as IC researchers and practitioners, we can only
reach a practical simplification of intercultural phenomena. Simplexity,
an emerging theory in General Systems Theory, philosophy, biology and
neurosciences (Berthoz, 2012), represents the experiential continuum
that every social being has to face on a daily basis. We all need to navigate
between simple and complex ideas and opinions when we interact with
others. It means that we often end up contradicting ourselves, not being
sure about what we think, adapting our discourses to specific situations
and interlocutors, using ‘white lies’ to please the other, etc. Sometimes
what we say shows some level of complexity (e.g., ‘I believe that every-
body has multiple identities’/‘I don’t believe in stereotypes’), which can
quickly dive back into the simple (‘but I think that Finnish people are
this or that’). Neither simplicity nor complexity can thus be fully reached
and what might appear simple can become complex and vice versa. Our
own complexity makes it impossible to grasp the complexity of others.
No one can claim to be able to analyse, understand and/or talk about
the intercultural from a complex perspective because sooner or later the
complex becomes simple and vice versa. ‘Simplexifying’ IC consists in
recognizing and accepting that one cannot access its complexity but navi-
gate, like Sisyphus rolling up his boulder up a hill, between the ‘simple’
and the ‘complex’. This is also why IC should move beyond program-
matic and ‘recipe-like’ perspectives. Simple progression (‘stages’) in the
development and/or acquisition of IC should be rejected. As such IC is
composed of contradictions, instabilities and discontinuities. Awareness
of instability can help people to accept that the world, and especially self
and the other, are neither programmed nor better than others and to
urge them to revise their power relations.
Finally, as hinted at before, most models of IC ‘available on the market’
fall into the trap of ‘success only’—a problematic feature of our times.
IC should be acceptable as failure and, in a sense, promote the benefi-
cial aspects of failure for future learning and self-criticality. Celebrating
failure—as much as success—should be a ‘natural’ component of IC in
a world obsessed with selective success only. Of course it is important to
make sure that everyone faces failure and not just minorities or those who
are deemed to be very different from ‘us’.
In short, the simultaneity of IC should lead us to accept and recognize
that:
• any approach to IC is ideological and political;

• the principle of ‘diverse diversities’ should guide our understanding
of IC;
• interaction and the negotiation of identities are central to IC;
• the continuum simple-complex (‘simplexity’) should serve as a basis
for work on IC; and
• discussions on and acceptance of failure should be included in ‘mod-
els’ of IC.
INTRODUCTION 7
ABOUT THE VOLUME
The principles for renewing IC proposed in this introduction and for making
it more adapted to today’s education are developed in different ways in the
chapters of this book. The authors provide answers to the following questions:
• What is wrong with current approaches to IC? What mistakes have

been made—especially from researchers’ perspectives?
• How can we move from an individualistic approach to intercultural
competence to interactive and co-constructivist ones?
• Is the idea of intercultural competence a thing of the past? How does
it compare to intracultural competence (if such a thing exists)?
• What can we do with old and tired concepts such as identity, culture
and community when we talk about intercultural competence?
• What are the myths surrounding the concept of intercultural competence?
The volume is divided into three parts: (1) Part I: Adding to previ-
ous perspectives: Making IC more effective? (Chaps. 2–5), (2) Part II:
Renewing intercultural competence: Beyond established models? (Chaps.
6–9); and (3) Part III: Renewed intercultural competence in practice
(Chaps. 10–12).
The first part opens with a chapter by Troy McConachy and Anthony
J. Liddicoat about meta-pragmatic awareness and intercultural compe-
tence. The authors examine instances of language learners’ attempts at
intercultural mediation in the form of reflective commentaries on their
processes of sense-making in relation to pragmatic phenomena across
languages. They argue that this perspective to IC can lead to interesting
creative solutions to interculturality.
In the following chapter Ulla Egidiussen Egekvist, Niels-Erik Lyngdorf,
Xiang-Yun Du and Jiannong Shi explore Danish host students’ IC in
the context of international study visits. Inspired by social constructiv-
ist understandings of culture the authors explore the development of the
students’ IC by investigating their experiential learning, stereotypes and
copying strategies and support.
Hild Elisabeth Hoff ’s chapter proposes to reconceptualize
intercultural communicative competence by focusing on literary read-
ing. Using M. Byram’s famous model as a basis, the proposed model
of IC demonstrates how the text interpretation process may operate at
different interlinked levels of communication, and involving emotions

and cognition. The author also provides a practical example of how
the fostering of ‘intercultural readers’ may take place in the Foreign
Language classroom.
The last chapter of Part I examines how young people in Iceland describe
IC under the label ‘competences for active communication and participa-
tion in diverse societies’. The author, Hanna Ragnarsdóttir, explores the
factors young people see as being important for active communication and
participation in a diverse society. Unlike and in complement to the previ-
ous chapters, the author draws on critical multiculturalism, cosmopolitan
citizenship, cosmopolitanism and liquidity in modern societies.
Part II contains four chapters that represent attempts at renewing IC,
beyond established models. In ‘Intercultural Competence and the Promise
of Understanding’, Giuliana Ferri adopts an interdisciplinary approach
into the epistemological assumptions of the concept of competence and
the ethical implications for intercultural dialogue. She illustrates Derrida’s
notion of promise to critique the epistemological underpinnings of the
notion of intercultural competence as it is presented in two ‘famous’ inter-
cultural frameworks. Through her critique, Ferri introduces the idea of a
deferred promise of understanding as a guiding principle for intercultur-
ality. She also sketches an alternative understanding of competence that
relies on an idea of communication aligned to a Levinasian interpretation
of the ethical.
The next chapter is based the interesting notion of ‘intercultural poly-
phonies’. The author, Clara Sarmento, proposes to open up our under-
standing of IC by including the relations between geographically distant
cultures, as much as between marginal and mainstream, youth and senior,
rich and poor, erudite and popular cultures, all within the same society.
Ribut Wahyudi’s chapter is an auto-ethnography of IC. It represents at
the same time a call for multidynamic, intersubjective, critical and inter-
disciplinary approaches to IC. The author argues that such perspectives fit
well today’s worlds and education, representing a shift from an emphasis
on essentialized descriptions of the other as a cultural being to a more
open, intersubjective perspective.
The last chapter of Part II ‘Living Intercultural Lives: Identity
Performance and Zones of Interculturality’ was written by Leah Davcheva
and Richard Fay. Reacting against mono-ethnic, mono-cultural and even
mono-linguistic constructions of society, and inherent nationally framed
understandings of IC the authors use the narratives of elderly Sephardic
INTRODUCTION 9
Jews living in Bulgaria to trace the intra-, inter-, and trans-cultural activities
that they have engaged in, and continue to engage in, within and beyond
their home society. The authors thus propose a new, data-grounded con-
ceptualization of ICC as a dynamic process of performing intra-, inter-,
trans-cultural identities in zones of interculturality.
The last part of the volume proposes examples of renewed IC in practice. It
opens with, Robyn Moloney, Lesley Harbon and Ruth Fielding’s chapter ‘An
Interactive, Co-constructed Approach to the Development of Intercultural
Understanding in Pre-service Language Teachers’. Exploring an experiential
collaborative approach to the development of intercultural understandings in
pre-service language teachers, the authors explain how they introduced the
teachers to discourse analysis and recognition of classroom discourse patterns
in order to have a critical discussion with them about cultural assumptions.
This approach to IC represents an innovative task to support critical reflec-
tion, and to question teachers’ perspectives, complexity and assumptions.
This is followed by Annelise Ly and Kristin Rygg’s chapter ‘Challenges of
Teaching Intercultural Business Communication in Times of Turbulence’.
The authors discuss the teaching of IC in a Norwegian School of
Economics. Different activities illustrating the ‘renewed’ approach to IC
are presented and problematized.
The final chapter has as its context competence-based forms of educa-
tion (CBE), which are meant to align education with the demands of
the business world. The author, Karin Zotzmann, discusses the assump-
tion that there is a generalizable ‘competence’ with subcomponents that
enables individuals to ‘deal’ with ‘difference’ and ‘otherness’, and that this
can be codified, taught, acquired and, at least potentially, assessed. The
chapter proposes a potentially more desirable view of IC for the context
of higher education.
This is an ambitious volume and we hope that it will succeed in mov-
ing research on IC forward and spur enhanced interest in discussing it
beyond ‘non-simultaneity’—perspectives more likely to apply to today’s
education. IC will, no doubt, remain relevant and vital in the decades to
come—even if it may appear under other labels such as global-mindedness or
cosmopolitanism.
The editors would like to thank the following reviewers for their precious
assistance: Will Baker, Cheryl Cockburn-Wootten, Petra Daryai-Hansen,
Prue Holmes, Malcolm N. MacDonald, Regis Machart, Anna-Leena
Riitaoja, Karen Risager, Gillian Skyrme, Heather Smith, Sarri Vuorisalo-
Tiitinen, Peidong Yang.
REFERENCES
Andreotti, V. (2011). (Towards) decoloniality and diversality in global citizenship
education. Globalisation, Societies & Education, 9(3), 381–397.
Berthoz, A. (2012). Simplexity: Simplifying principles for a complex world. New
Haven: Yale University Press.
Bloch, E. (1935/2009). Heritage of our times. Cambridge: Polity.
Dervin, F. (2016). Interculturality in education: A theoretical and methodological
toolbox. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Gee, J. P. (2000). Identity as an analytic lens for research in education. Review of
Research in Education, 25(1), 99–125.
Hamid, M. (2014). Discontent and its civilisations: Despatches from Lahore,
New York & London. London: Hamish Hamilton.
Maffesoli, M., & Strohl, H. (2015). La France étroite. Paris: Editions du Moment.
Merino, M.-E., & Tileagă, C. (2011). The construction of ethnic minority iden-
tity: A discursive psychological approach to ethnic self-definition in action.
Discourse & Society, 22(1), 86–101.
Nynäs, P. (2001). Bakom Guds rygg. En hermeneutisk ansats till interkulturell kom-
munikation och förståelse I industriella project. Åbo: Åbo Akademi University.
PART I
Adding to Previous Perspectives:

Making IC More Effective?
CHAPTER 2
Meta-pragmatic Awareness and Intercultural

Competence: The Role of Reflection
and Interpretation in Intercultural
Mediation
Troy McConachy and Anthony J. Liddicoat
INTRODUCTION
In recent decades the development of intercultural competence (IC) has
been discussed as an educational imperative in various contexts, includ-
ing in foreign language education (e.g., Bolten, 1993; Buttjes & Byram,
1991; Byram, 1997; Kawakami, 2001; Kramsch, 1993; Liddicoat &
Scarino, 2013; Zarate, Lévy, & Kramsch, 2008). Within foreign language
education it is increasingly recognized that language learners need to be
equipped with the capabilities that will allow them to effectively navigate
intercultural communication that takes place in one or more foreign lan-
guages. In particular, the increasing linguistic and cultural diversity that
characterizes many modern interactions means that the ability of individu-
als to mediate across cultures is of greater importance than ever. In models
T. McConachy ( )
Centre for Applied Linguistics, University of Warwick, Warwick, UK
A.J. Liddicoat
Research Centre for Languages and Cultures, School of Communication,
International Studies and Languages, University of South Australia, Adelaide,
SA, Australia

DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-58733-6_2
14 T. MCCONACHY AND A.J. LIDDICOAT
of IC that are influential within foreign language education, the ability

of individuals to draw on knowledge of culturally specific meanings of
different languages in order to relate and explain written and oral prac-
tices to speakers of another language has been considered a key compo-
nent (Byram, 1997). However, the theoretical separation of intercultural
competence from linguistic competence in some current models brings
about difficulties in properly conceptualizing the role of language knowl-
edge in intercultural mediation (Egli Cuenat & Bleichenbacher, 2013).
Although knowledge of foreign languages is seen as a necessary condition
for promoting dialogue through which cultural differences can be over-
come, these differences are primarily understood as language-external.
This means that language comes to be positioned more or less as a neutral
‘tool’ for problem-solving rather than as a constituent of cultural differ-
ence itself (Beacco, 2004).
We view culture as a meaning system constituted by a complex amal-
gam of knowledge, assumptions and values broadly shared within a given
collectivity, which functions as a resource for individuals and groups to
give meaning to the objects and actions in the material and social world
(D’Andrade, 1984). Knowledge, assumptions and values are necessarily
related in that all knowledge is based on certain assumptions about real-
ity, and aspects of reality are judged according to a range of consciously
and unconsciously understood evaluative criteria. Culture thus possesses
properties that are used for delineating desirable and undesirable behav-
iour, as well as assigning a range of other social characteristics to behav-
iour and individuals. As a meaning system, culture is necessarily embodied
in symbols, particularly the concepts that comprise the language and the
discourse practices that are essential for dealing with everyday human life
(Geertz, 1973). Individuals draw on culture in order to select possibilities
for constructing social action, with the expectation that other members of
their social group will interpret their actions appropriately and so establish
intersubjectivity. Cultural differences may be manifested in differing rep-
ertoires of symbolic practices or in differing understandings of the mean-
ings of those practices, which renders more difficult the establishment of
intersubjectivity. It is for this reason that we view the act of intercultural
mediation as presupposing a certain amount of awareness of the ways
in which linguistic practices can be variably interpreted across cultures
and the ability to use awareness as a resource for constructing plausible
interpretations of linguistic phenomena that are encountered (Gohard-
Radenkovic, Lussier, Penz, & Zarate, 2004). In this chapter we take the
META-PRAGMATIC AWARENESS AND INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCE... 15
position that any conceptualization of intercultural competence needs to

take into account the linguistic experience of difference that is inherent
in intercultural communication (cf., Dervin & Liddicoat, 2013) and the
role that the individual’s awareness of language plays in the negotiation
of meanings. It is this dimension that has not been adequately theorized
to this point in many models of intercultural competence in the foreign
language teaching context.
Although much previous discussion on intercultural mediation has
focused on how individuals use their knowledge of languages and cultures
to mediate for others, we wish to emphasize that mediation is first and fore-
most an interpretive activity engaged in by individuals for their own under-
standing (Liddicoat, 2014). This chapter explores the relationship between
awareness and mediation as elements of intercultural competence by exam-
ining the role that meta-pragmatic awareness plays in intercultural media-
tion. It analyzes learners’ reflective commentaries on perceived pragmatic
differences between languages and how they make sense of such differences.
INTERCULTURAL MEDIATION FROM A META-PRAGMATIC

PERSPECTIVE
Within a view of intercultural mediation as an interpretive activity, the ways
in which individuals draw on and move between cultural frameworks from
their own and other languages when making sense of pragmatic phenom-
ena is of central importance. While some aspects of pragmatic phenom-
ena may be universal, there are important differences across languages in
regard to how pragmatic acts are realized, the degree to which particular
acts are conventionalized, and the significance that particular acts have in
terms of reflecting and reconstructing social relationships. The ways that
speakers use linguistic forms to perform pragmatic acts such as requests,
apologies, compliments and criticisms, as well as the common conversa-
tional routines that lubricate social relations, are inextricably intertwined
with broader culturally derived notions related to the rights and respon-
sibilities of speakers when interacting in particular contexts (Blum-Kulka,
House, & Kasper, 1989; Kasper, 2006). Naturally, this does not mean
that all individuals who speak a particular language communicate or even
interpret pragmatic acts in exactly the same way. What it means is that
each language has a range of interactional options available for achieving
particular pragmatic acts, and the significance of these options is inter-
preted with reference to broadly shared cultural expectations. As with all
types of social behaviour, pragmatic acts are interpreted within the con-
text of a moral order (Kádár & Haugh, 2013). What this means is that
pragmatic interpretation goes beyond ‘identifying’ the particular speech
act an interlocutor is trying to achieve—it also necessarily accompanies
judgements (both conscious and unconscious) as to whether the act was
conducted in an appropriate way or not, which is essentially a judgement
of the individual as a social being. Pragmatic acts provide resources to
individuals for indexing particular characteristics, such ‘friendly’, ‘playful’,
‘rude’, ‘considerate’ and so on, and thus construct particular personas in
their social relationships. Interaction is thus a venue for the interpretation
of pragmatic acts and individuals who conduct such acts. What is problem-
atic for IC, and thus highly relevant for intercultural mediation, is that the
cultural assumptions from which such value judgements derive can tend to
remain out of conscious awareness (Coupland & Jaworski, 2004). In IC
this means that seemingly superficial pragmatic differences contain within
them the potential for generating both positive and negative stereotypes.
Therefore, the development of meta-pragmatic awareness is an important
requirement for those who engage in IC.
Although we view meta-pragmatic awareness as a central feature of inter-
cultural competence, it is important to note that meta-pragmatic awareness
is understood in different ways. Some ways of understanding meta-prag-
matic awareness focus very much on linguistic aspects of language in use
and focus on recognizing what linguistic action is being performed by par-
ticular utterances in context (e.g., Mey, 1993; Verschueren, 2000). Other
understandings of meta-pragmatic awareness see it more in terms of explicit
knowledge of the ways that particular utterances tend to correspond with
particular interactional contexts. The focus here is more on awareness of the
contextual constraints on linguistic resources for achieving particular prag-
matic acts and how this ties in with judgements of pragmatic appropriate-
ness (e.g., Kinginger & Farrell, 2004; Safont-Jordá, 2003). One significant
limitation of such conceptions is that the object of meta-pragmatic aware-
ness is limited to the more salient pragmatic norms and conventions of the
target language, without incorporating the individual’s reflexive awareness
of the cultural assumptions and concepts through which norms themselves
are constituted. That is, meta-pragmatic awareness is primarily considered to
be knowledge of what is considered (in)appropriate language use in a given
context rather than why. Moreover, meta-pragmatic awareness is typically
theorized as a within-language and within-culture activity and as such does
not involve the cross-language and cross-culture dimension that is inherent
in IC. That is, traditional understandings of meta-pragmatic awareness have
not been formulated to capture the ways that individuals bring into inter-
action cultural concepts and frameworks relevant to different languages to
arrive at interpretations of pragmatic acts.
In order to understand the role of meta-pragmatic awareness in intercul-
tural mediation, it is necessary to recognize that for individuals who operate
with more than one language, meta-pragmatic awareness is necessarily inter-
cultural (McConachy, 2013). That is to say, the conceptual frameworks that
underlie separate languages inevitably influence each other within the inter-
pretative processes of the individual. This influence may involve the appli-
cation of cultural concepts or assumptions about first-language pragmatics
to the interpretation of a foreign language, or it may involve the reverse.
Moreover, as an individual’s capability in a foreign language develops and
interactional experiences diversify, individuals construct interpretations that
bring together cultural meanings from originally disparate frameworks in
unique ways (Kecskes, 2014). Mediation is constituted by a process where
the individual makes a conscious effort to consider the cultural frames that
shape interpretation of pragmatic acts in each language, how these differ
across languages, and what the consequences of these differences are for use
of these languages in intercultural communication. From a meta-pragmat-
ics perspective, mediation involves going beyond simplistic comparisons of
pragmatic norms to probe the concepts and meaning structures that underlie
language use and view diversity from beyond the scope of a single linguistic
system (Liddicoat & Kohler, 2012). Meta-pragmatic awareness for intercul-
tural mediation is thus characterized by heightened awareness of the cultur-
ally contexted nature of pragmatic acts within and across cultures. Viewing
meta-pragmatic awareness in this way opens up the possibility of language
itself becoming both a focus of and a resource for intercultural mediation.
The act of positioning languages and cultures in relation to each other,
and hence of mediation itself, always necessitates comparison. However,
there is a certain paradox in that although mediation essentially requires
individuals to relate languages and cultures to each other, it requires that
this be done in a way that each culture is seen in its own terms. In order
to resolve this paradox it is best to see mediation as existing on a develop-
mental plane, whereby the ability to move in and out of cultural frame-
works to develop more nuanced understandings of the cultural basis of
pragmatic interpretation increases in sophistication. While early attempts
at mediation might result in simplistic comparisons and ethnocentric value
judgements of self and other, the ability to reflect more deeply on the
significance of linguistic input, to decenter from default perceptions, and
the ability to develop more sophisticated explanations for pragmatic inter-
pretation can be regarded as indicators of development (Liddicoat, 2006).

However, although an engagement with foreign conceptual systems, par-
ticularly as they relate directly to norms for language use, provides oppor-
tunities for moving beyond assumptions based on the first language, this is
not a guaranteed outcome. In fact, an encounter with aspects of foreign-
language pragmatics can challenge individuals’ assumptions about how
social relations are conducted and how the self is to be presented in dis-
course. This threat to the individual’s worldview can lead to resistance or
the attribution of negative value judgements to target language speakers as
a kind of defensive psychological mechanism (Ishihara & Tarone, 2009).
It, therefore, cannot be simplistically assumed that intercultural mediation
will always be successful or that decentering will be an inevitable out-
come of attempts at mediation. Resistance or discomfort encountered in
attempts at mediation serve the important function of bringing to aware-
ness each individual’s personal boundaries, which can then be explored
through further reflection.
An additionally important aspect of awareness in mediation is recogni-
tion of the fact that any individual comes to the act of interpretation not
as national representative embodying perfect cultural knowledge, but as an
individual with his or her own personal biography (Gohard-Radenkovic,
2009). As mediation always takes place from a given position, what is
mediated in any concrete act of mediation is not one or more monolithic
cultures, but the individual’s situated understanding of these cultures. In
relation to the first language, any individual’s meta-pragmatic awareness is
constructed on the basis of reference to broadly shared cultural models for
interpreting pragmatic acts and the individual’s own history of interactional
experiences and personalized interpretations of these experiences (Kecskes,
2014). Interlocutors who come from a particular country will not neces-
sarily be culturally situated in the same way and will, therefore, not always
conform to one’s expectations, particularly those drawn from exaggerated
stereotypes (Dervin, 2011). This can be stated both in relation to how
individuals achieve pragmatic acts and how they interpret them within and
across cultures. In coming to mediate in a foreign language, while it is nec-
essary for the learner to come to discern aspects of foreign language prag-
matics and the underlying cultural knowledge and assumptions involved;
the learner at the same time needs to be aware of contextual and individual
variability in language use. In this sense, while mediation is informed by an
individual’s starting point meta-pragmatic awareness in any given interac-
tion, the individual needs to engage in continual reflection on the basis of

incoming cultural data, sophisticating one’s meta-pragmatic awareness and
ability to mediate over time.
The analysis that follows will aim to illustrate how meta-pragmatic
awareness functions as a resource for intercultural mediation along a con-
tinuum of development.
DATA
The data for this chapter are drawn from a number of different sources.
The focus is on language learners’ reflections on their experiences of lan-
guage in use. Some extracts are drawn from classroom interactions in
which students focus on aspects of language and culture and construct
meaningful accounts of their understandings. Other extracts are taken
from learners’ reflections on their language learning in which they ret-
rospectively construct accounts of their emerging understandings. Each
extract has been chosen to reflect a specific feature of meta-pragmatic
awareness that emerges as language learners’ reflect on language and the
aim is for the data to be indicative of the processes relevant to understand-
ing meta-pragmatic awareness as a component of IC, rather than present-
ing an exhaustive account of the complexities involved.
Extracts 1 and 2 are taken from written reflections in the learning jour-
nals of several Japanese learners of English in their early twenties who had
been studying about the role of discourse about the weekend in social
relationships in Australia. Extract 3 is taken from a separate group of four
Japanese learners of English in their early twenties who were enrolled in
a pre-sessional course in Tokyo. These students had been conducting a
task that required them to reflect on ways of interacting they observed
when overseas which they perceived as different to what might normally
be expected in a similar context in Japan. Extract 4 is taken from a record-
ing of an in-class discussion between a group of Australian post-beginner
level students of Japanese who were working collaboratively to develop a
script for a role play as part of a spoken Japanese language course. Extract
5 is taken from an interview with an Australian student of French who had
recently returned from studying for a year as an exchange student at a uni-
versity in Paris in which he was asked about his experiences, both positive
and negative, when studying and living in France.
LEARNERS’ META-PRAGMATIC REFLECTIONS AS ACTS

OF INTERCULTURAL MEDIATION
Meta-pragmatic awareness is manifested in different ways in learners’

understanding of language in use and these differences can be understood
in developmental terms, in which development can be seen as increasingly
complex interpretations of the language–culture relationship (Liddicoat,
2006). The reflective commentary of several Japanese learners of English
below, taken from McConachy (2008), can be seen as meta-pragmatic for-
mulations that make a relatively simple link between language and culture.
Extract 1
S6: I felt that asking a bunch of questions to people in the workplace is
very different to things in Japan. In Japan conversations tend to take place
with one or two utterances, so I felt that people from English-speaking
countries are friendly.
Extract 2
S5: I think Westerners have a friendly feel about them. In Japan this
would be thought of as being ‘over-friendly’, so I really feel that cultural
differences are very difficult. I hope that I can communicate enough that the
other person doesn’t interpret me as being rude.
The two examples come from students’ discussions of differences

between Australian and Japanese interactions involving enquiries about the
weekend. In interactions among Australians, such enquiries typically con-
stitute a ritualized form of social interaction that is played out in greetings
(Béal, 1992), while in Japan this interaction is not ritualized and is rela-
tively rare (McConachy, 2008). S6 articulates the idea that enquiries about
the weekend involve more that the simple asking of questions but instead
involve a form of action that is potentially problematic in the Japanese
context. This reveals an insight into the culturally contexted nature of
questioning, which results from the comparison of ways of speaking across
cultures: ‘asking a bunch of questions to people in the workplace is very
different to things in Japan’. S6 and S5 both draw from their reflection
on interaction the conclusion that Australians are ‘friendly’. In doing so,
they form a stereotype of Australian people based on a personality feature
(friendliness) and establish an implicit dichotomy between Australia and
Japan (friendly-unfriendly or more friendly-less friendly). In this case their
analysis is brief and not fully developed as, rather than considering the
meaningfulness of the practice within each cultural context for members
of that culture, the learners produce a stereotypicalized account of differ-

ence. In Extract 2, S5 does take the analysis further, however, and prob-
lematizes the Australian way of interacting when seen through his Japanese
eyes. In so doing he articulates an awareness of the consequentiality of
cultural differences as they are manifested in language use in that such
differences do not simply constitute difficulties but also impact on how
speakers are perceived. S5 thus moves from a stereotypicalzed account of
a cultural difference to a personalized assessment of the consequences of
difference for himself as a communicator.
In Extract 3, the speakers’ reflection on cultural differences between
Japan and the USA moves from a negative evaluation of cultural differ-
ences to an interpretation based on emergent understanding, that is, a
seemingly unusual practice is understood as indicating something about
different understandings of social relationships in similar contexts in dif-
ferent cultures.
Extract 3
Misato: So, when I went to San Fransisco the staff asked me, ‘Where did
you come from, Tokyo or Osaka?’ I said, ‘I from Osaka’, and last he asked
me to shake hands.
Tai: Weird
Misato: Yeah, at last I feel a little strange. So because he asked me many
things.
Tai: Yeah, I think maybe he was too friendly.
Misato: And it because I foreigner and tourist so maybe he was too
friendly, I think.
Tai: Ah, but I think the relationship between customer and staff is
equal in….
Misato: Abroad?
Tai: Abroad? Yeah, I don’t know about that, but maybe Western.
In this example, Misato is presenting an experience that occurred to her
on a visit to the USA and describes an interaction with a shop assistant in
which the she was asked personal questions. Tai’s response characterizes
this interaction from her own Japanese perspective as ‘weird’—an assess-
ment with which Misato agrees. Tai considers the interaction as deviating
from expected norms ‘too friendly’. Misato then reformulates the evalu-
ations that they are making in terms of the context of the interaction—a
meeting between a shop assistant and a foreign tourist. That is, she sees
the interaction as not motivated by a personal failing (‘too friendly’) but
by a reaction to a particular context. Tai then develops this understanding
through an implicit comparison between Japanese norms and American

norms1 that provide a cultural reframing of the nature of staff–customer
interactions as one of equality rather than hierarchy. In so doing, Misato
and Tai make use of what they were taught to reconstruct a cultural logic
for the particular practices they are discussing and thereby show a devel-
oping awareness of the culturally contexted nature of language use that
invites new interpretations of linguistic behaviour. The analysis here has
begun to move beyond superficial stereotypes and personalized responses
to a culturally contexted account of pragmatic differences. In formulating
their understanding, they construct an interpretative account of the mean-
ingfulness of cultural differences in interaction and develop an external
perspective on their cultural practices, mediating between two experiences
of cultural practices by developing a new understanding of a practice that
initially had appeared to be a deviation from expectations.
In Extract 4, three Australian students are preparing a dialogue in
Japanese dealing with a visit to a Japanese person’s house. They are dis-
cussing the social rituals that accompany the beginning of such a visit and
appropriate ways of using language in the context.
Extract 4
A: Perhaps we should bring a present.
B: Yeah.
C: Yeah. What do you bring in Japan?
(0.2)
A: Well usually it’s something small.
B: So like what
A: I think things like cakes or some sort of treat. And you get it wrapped
up specially.
(0.2)
B: Oh you mean like omiyage?
A: Yeah like those, but they’re for souvenirs.
B: Okay, so let’s say we bring some cakes. What should be say?
(0.4)
C: How about kono keeki wa oishii desu?
B: Uhm (02.) That’d sound-. (0.2) The textbook has it. Let’s see. (30)
A: Isn’t it something like tsumaranai?
C: Tsumaranai?
A: Yeah.
C: Like isn’t that boring?
A: Yeah but they say it like that.
B: Here it is. (2.0) It says uhm kore wa tsumaranai mono desu ga.
A: Yeah tsumaranai mono desu ga. It’s like you give the present but you
don’t want people to think that it’s good. It’s like, y’know, if you say it’s
good, you’re like saying that you have done good. It’s like y’know uhm
boasting.
B: So if you say it’s boring you sound humble.
C: That’s so Japanese<always gotta sound humble.
A: So if you say oishii, it’s sound like you’re saying “I’m great”. That’d
be so bad.
C: Yeah.
A: So you bring something small and you say it’s not very good and so
you sound like you’re a good person.
After a discussion of whether they should bring a gift to the host, they
then move to the sorts of language that would accompany the action of
handing over the gift. C proposes ‘kono keeki wa oishii desu’. C’s attempt
is based on an Australian practice that involves indicating that one thinks
one’s gift is suited to the recipient as a way of expressing amicality but this
is rejected by the others as an inappropriate response in Japanese. B’s rejec-
tion is a rule-oriented one based on the authority of the textbook, which
contains a formula for such situations. A provides his own version ‘tsuma-
ranai’ (boring) as an appropriate description of the gift. That is, he pro-
poses a downgrading of the value of the gift in contrast with C’s positive
evaluation. C recognizes the word, but does not understand it as relevant
to the event; that is, for her the description boring does not fit her under-
standing of the cultural context. B then confirms tsumaranai as the exam-
ple from the textbook and this is accepted as appropriate. A then produces
an explanation which attempts to address C’s problem with the use of bor-
ing in this context—he makes his meta-pragmatic awareness explicit as a
way of establishing understanding for C. In doing this he invokes the idea
of humility as an appropriate Japanese stance in gift giving and links this to
the particular language practice under discussion. The choice of wording is
explained in terms of a general Japanese way of presenting the self to oth-
ers. A is presenting his understanding of a Japanese worldview presented in
the textbook which is implicitly contrasted with the Australian worldview
encoded in C’s ‘kono keeki wa oishii desu’. His talk deals with C’s under-
standing as faulty in the Japanese context and seeks to represent a different
understanding of appropriate talk in the context. He bases this talk on his
understanding of what the word tsumaranai means, not in terms of its
semantics, which is unproblematic, but in terms of its pragmatics and the
underlying cultural values associated with acts of gift giving. This view is
in turn ratified by B, who formulates the cultural values articulated by A
explicitly as humble behaviour. The account is then accepted by C as an
exemplification of cultural knowledge that she has already learned about
Japan and Japanese, although here in a somewhat stereotypicalized way
(‘That’s so Japanese<always gotta sound humble’). A then reformulates
this as an explanation of cultural meaning of the two ways of talking (a
positive versus a negative assessment of one’s gift) in each cultural context.
An Australian way of speaking equates with a negative enactment of self in
the Japanese context, with attendant problems for social relationships. The
alternative downplaying of value, therefore, comes to have a cultural logic
that is embedded in the interactional needs to the context.
Extract 4 is a more elaborated articulation of the relationship between
language and culture and the ways that this influences linguistic practices
as meaningful communication than the extracts that preceded it. It is an
interpretative action that establishes sense for linguistic acts within a per-
ceived logic of the interaction and its cultural context. It is through this
linking of language forms, communicative purpose and cultural context
that the learners develop an understanding of cultural differences in inter-
action as socially and culturally meaningful and so mediate between their
own cultural assumptions and those of the cultural other. Their starting
point lies in their developing understanding of differences between prac-
tices of language in use and their meta-pragmatic awareness provides the
entry point for a more elaborated mediation of cultural difference draw-
ing in cultural understanding outside language itself. In such applications
of drawing together the linguistic and the non-linguistic in developing
accounts of language in use, meta-pragmatic awareness can be seen as a
key element of IC. Developed in such a way meta-pragmatic awareness can
provide a resource that can be used to resolve other issues in intercultural
communication by providing a way of seeing behaviours as meaningful
within their cultural context. This can be seen in the following extract in
which an Australian student, John, spending time in France talks about his
difficulties in dealing with open office doors in a French context (see Béal,
2010, for a discussion of this difference in French and Australian practices).
Extract 5
John: This was a very hard thing to do. I hated it. I felt like I was violating
someone else’s space, that I was an invader. I know that’s not the way they
see it, but that doesn’t matter. It still feels the same. This is just not some-
thing I can do. I mean I really feel that there’s this really important barrier
there and I just can’t get through that without permissions. That’s an inva-
sion. I can’t go into another person’s space, well I know it’s not really their
space, it’s an open space, but I can’t—it’s just not—it really is their space for
me. I can’t change that and I can’t be an invader like that. It’s too traumatic.
It doesn’t even matter that no-one seems to mind. I mind. (Liddicoat, 2005)
In this extract, John is responding to an interviewer’s question about

problems he experienced in France. This extract shows that a simple activ-
ity such as entering an open door can become a very different activity when
the context changes and the interactional rules that frame the situation
normally change. An activity that is normally unproblematic can become
traumatic when there is a clash between the meaningful possibilities that
come with simple social actions. As Béal (2010) describes such situations
in intercultural interactions in Franco-Australian contexts, an open office
door has potentially different meanings in the two cultures. In Australia,
office doors are often left open, but an open door does not invite access to
the office, while in similar situations in France office doors are more often
closed and an open door indicates that the office space is open space. The
interactional result is that in Australia, when entering an office it is usual
for the occupant to display that she has noticed the person wishing to
enter, while for Béal’s French participants, in the same context, the occu-
pant would not display noticing until after the person had entered. There
is thus for this Australian student a missing cue in French contexts and this
lack re-signifies for him the activity as a social act. John’s comment here
is also an interpretative act that shows an understanding of both interac-
tional contexts. He has come to understand that the meanings he attaches
to the act are not the same as the ones that apply in a French context. His
problem is that the differences in meaning are in conflict with his sense
of himself as a social actor and his conceptualizations of politeness and
social etiquette. As John goes on to explain his experience in France, his
interpretation of the meaningfulness of the action of entering through an
open door becomes the basis for an interactional analysis of what is going
on and eventually to a mapping of the issue onto linguistic practices that
eventually allow him to resolve the problem.
Extract 6
John: I still feel that way and I think I always will, but like I also know
I needed to deal with that or it’s not going to work. I can’t just like hang
around the door until someone asks me in. That just doesn’t happen or they
get annoyed at you for hanging around … I tried to think about why this
was just so different and it sort of came to think that you know the person
in the office doesn’t look at you when you go in. And that’s like what makes
me feel so bad. That’s why it feels like you’re invading their space … So I
kinda thought ‘how could I get them to look at me’? So I decided to try
talking before I had to go in. You know pardon Madame or something like
that. And you know it was okay. If I did that I could do it. It sort of like got
them to do it my way but was still like their way.
Here John can be seen as reanalysing the act of walking through the
door to solve his problem. He does this by thinking of the action as an
interactive one, shifting the focus from the act to what the people are
doing during the act and noticing what was missing for him in the way
he experienced the act in France. He identifies the act as an issue of
securing the attention of his interlocutor for his action and maps this
issue on to his pragmatic resources for securing what he need to accom-
plish this action—a gazing interlocutor. That is his meta-pragmatic
awareness provided a resource for dealing with a non-linguistic problem
relating from a change of context. He decided to initiate a summons-
answer sequence as a way of securing the attention of the other person
and in so doing found a way of resolving the problem for himself. In this
case, meta-pragmatic awareness did not provide the starting point for the
analysis but rather provided the way of working towards a solution—a
solution that was located in an intermediary intercultural position in
which neither his own nor his interlocutors’ understanding of the situa-
tion became the frame for resolving a problem of difference in meaning
but rather his mediation consists of a reframing of the event for himself
to take into consideration both contexts.
CONCLUSION
In this chapter we have attempted to bring the ‘cultural’ and the ‘lin-
guistic’ into a closer relationship in understanding IC. We have made
the argument that for those who engage in intercultural communication,
mediation takes on a particularly linguistic character because of the cen-
trality of language in any act of communication. For the interculturally
competent communicator it is particularly important to be able to move
between cultural frameworks in the interpretation of pragmatic acts by
reflecting on the nature of the practices of language in use encountered
and the cultural knowledge and assumptions implicated in their interpre-
tation. As highlighted in the data, meta-pragmatic awareness serves as an
important tool for intercultural mediation by providing an entry point
into understanding the co-constitutive roles of language and culture in the

construction of meaning.
Meta-pragmatic awareness provides a resource for reflection on and
interpretation of cultural practices that the intercultural communicator
develops to varying degrees of sophistication. At a superficial level meta-
pragmatic awareness is constituted by awareness of differences in prag-
matic conventions, though this may lead individuals to make simplistic
associations between norms and national essences. More sophisticated
meta-pragmatic awareness is characterized by insight into the fact that
pragmatic acts are understood within the context of a particular cultural
logic, and that this logic varies in degrees rather than absolutes across cul-
tures. The ability to see linguistic practices as culturally contexted allows
the individual to consider the limitations and consequences of understand-
ing the linguistic practices of one language within the cultural frameworks
of another. This awareness can then be used by the individual to consider
their own ways of using the relevant linguistic and cultural knowledge
and how to construct ways of dealing with incongruences within cultural
logic across languages. As meta-pragmatic awareness develops in sophisti-
cation thus, individuals are able to draw together cultural understandings
of meaning making that lie both within and beyond language, providing
an important site for intercultural mediation. This means that pragmatics
can provide one way of bridging the divide between language and culture
that often limits the theorizing and operationalizing of intercultural com-
petence in language teaching and learning.
NOTE
1. Earlier in the interaction the students had been discussing the hierarchical
nature of service encounters in Japan, which they had summed up in terms
of the Japanese aphorism okyakusama wa okamisama (the customer is a
god).
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CHAPTER 3
Intercultural Competence in Host Students?

A Study of Danish Students Facing China
at Home
Ulla Egidiussen Egekvist, Niels-Erik Lyngdorf,
Xiang-Yun Du, and Jiannong Shi
INTRODUCTION
Intercultural encounters with individuals living in other parts of the world
through study visits present students with situations in which learning
can take place, particularly the development of what is most commonly
referred to as intercultural competences (IC). There has been much
research in the field of intercultural competences based on mobile students
engaging in studies abroad for short- and long-term sojourns (Byram
& Feng, 2006; Dervin, 2009), whereas information on the host as the
subject of study-abroad research is scarce (Knight & Schmidt-Rinehart,
2002; Weidemann & Bluml, 2009) and specifically lacking in relation
to IC. Increased internationalization within education also makes it rel-
evant to research student learning through internationalization at home
activities that might bring about new perspectives on IC and intercultural
U.E. Egekvist ( ) • N.-E. Lyngdorf • X.-Y. Du

Department of Learning and Philosophy, Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark
J. Shi
Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-58733-6_3
32 U.E. EGEKVIST ET AL.
meetings. In addition, most research deals with study-abroad activities at

the upper-secondary-school level and in higher education (Byram & Feng,
2006; Deardorff, 2009; Dervin, 2009), while research involving younger
learners at primary and lower-secondary school levels is less common
(Snow & Byram, 1997).
The overall aims of this chapter are to explore the potential of develop-
ing IC in students hosting an exchange student during short-term study
visits, to examine the challenges and possibilities of short-term study visits
at the lower-secondary level, and to contribute to the discussions of inter-
nationalization at this educational level. More specifically, in this chapter,
we ask the question: What are the challenges and possibilities of using short-
term study visits to develop IC in host students?
Theoretically, this chapter finds inspiration in social constructiv-
ist understandings of culture based on the understandings of researchers
such as Dervin (2009); Holliday (2013), and Jensen (2013), and also in
Byram’s (2008, 2009) research on the development of ICs in individuals.
Empirically, data used in this paper were derived from the study of a group
of Danish lower-secondary-school students of ages 12 and 13 who hosted
a group of same-age Chinese students in homestays during a four-day study
visit to Denmark in early 2012. Qualitative data were collected before, dur-
ing and after the visit by means of portfolios and focus-group interviews.
It is important to stress that although we do not want to assess the
possible IC development of the students, some evaluation on this matter
is unavoidable. Instead, our main focus is to discuss host students’ experi-
ences in relation to the challenges and possibilities of using short-term
study visits to develop IC in host students.
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Culture, Hybridity and Negotiation

In this chapter, and in line with Chap. 1 in this volume, we employ an
understanding of culture that emphasizes hybridity and considers cultures
as being produced by individuals. A constant negotiation between the
individual and the social world leads to the shaping and reshaping of cul-
ture. Cultures are not fixed entities but social constructions created by
people, and they undergo constant negotiation and development (Dervin,
2009; Holliday, 2013). Thus, intercultural meetings do not involve meet-
ings or interactions between cultures or groups, but between individuals
INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCE IN HOST STUDENTS? A STUDY OF DANISH... 33
(Byram, 2009, p. 186; Deardorff, 2009, p. 6; Dervin, 2009, p. 119;
Wikan, 2002, p. 84).
Echoing Jensen (2013), we recognize the fact that in practice, it is
difficult to delineate a sharp division between social constructivist and
more essentialist understandings of culture. However, there is a need to
be critical toward and continuously challenge essentialist understandings
that treat ‘cultures’ as things (Phillips, 2007, p. 42) and individuals as
‘robots programmed with “cultural” rules’ (Abu-Lughod, 2008, p. 158).
The terms ‘Chinese’ and ‘Danish culture’, respectively, are used in this
chapter based on recognition of the fact that the particular structures of
the society in which we were brought up have an impact on us as human
beings and are resources on which we draw (Holliday, 2013).
A Constructivist Approach to IC

Much consensus exists about the holistic nature of competences, encom-
passing cognitive, emotional, behavioural and social elements, but
the most common characteristic of a competence is the pivotal role of
action orientation: What is essential is not what individuals ‘have learned
but what they can do with or through what they have learned’ (Illeris,
2014, p. 114), and emphasis is on the ability ‘to cope successfully with
new, unknown, unfamiliar, and unpredictable challenges and situations’
(Illeris, 2014, p. 115). In relation to IC, definitions and models gener-
ally acknowledge that IC entails four dimensions, these being knowledge,
attitude, skills and behaviours, and requires the ability to interact effec-
tively and appropriately with others in intercultural situations or contexts
(Deardorff, 2009).
This chapter employs a constructivist approach to learning (Kolb,
1984; Wenger, 1998) and considers social interaction and experiences to
be important parts of learning. IC is considered a specifically qualified
learning in relation to the intercultural area (Illeris, 2011). Such learning
is a never-ending process that can be developed in both formal and infor-
mal learning contexts (Byram & Feng, 2006).
Inspiration has been found in Byram’s (2008, 2009) research on IC within
foreign language teaching, which is based on the ideal of the intercultural
speaker being an individual who is aware of cultural similarities and differ-
ences and able to act as a mediator in intercultural encounters (see Chap. 4,
this volume). Byram’s model comprises five elements: (1) Knowledge
(savoirs), (2) Attitudes (savoir être), (3) Skills of interpreting and relating
(savoir comprendre), (4) Skills of discovery and interaction (savoir apprendre/

faire), and (5) Critical cultural awareness (savoir s’engager) (For a critical
approach to Byram’s model see Chap. 8, this volume).
For this study, it is important to understand what it means for learn-
ers of ages 12 and 13 to be interculturally competent. At this age, stu-
dents have just entered into the formal operational stage of adolescence
(Inhelder & Piaget, 1999) and have not yet reached full cognitive capacity.
Thus, new ways of thinking are still being developed, such as metacogni-
tion and critical reflection. These cognitive and emotional aspects influ-
ence young learners’ development of IC, so while these learners may not
be able to reach their full potential, it is still possible for them to develop
elements of intercultural competence (Byram, 2008; Illeris, 2007).
Research Methodology
In this study, we have employed a qualitative research approach emphasiz-
ing the words, feelings, perceptions and experiences of young host stu-
dents. We hold that children are significant and competent social actors
and take their life experiences seriously. We emphasize the importance
of their reflections and lived experiences while keeping in mind that cer-
tain biological aspects influence their cognitive and linguistic abilities
(Andersen & Ottosen, 2002). This was taken into consideration in the
research design and in our analysis of the empirical material (Brinkmann &
Kvale, 2009).
Research Context: A Study Visit from China

In late 2011, a school located in Hangzhou, China, and with a focus on
foreign languages, planned a study trip that would allow 22 students (12
girls and 10 boys of ages 12 and 13) to visit Germany during a Chinese
school holiday in early 2012. The organizers found that there would be
time to make a four-day sojourn to a school in Aalborg, Denmark, and
through the Confucius Institute for Innovation and Learning at Aalborg
University (CI AAU), cooperation was established with a local public
school willing to find same-age host students (14 girls and 9 boys, see
Table 3.1). The objective of bringing the students together was to create
an intercultural community of practice (Wenger, 1998), facilitate insti-
tutional development toward internationalization, establish a foundation
for future Danish-Chinese student exchanges, and possibly facilitate the
development of ICs at a student level.
Table 3.1 Research participants

Grade 6 Grade 6 Grade 7 Grade 7 All students
Girls boys girls boys
Host students 6 6 8 3 23
Focus group 6 4 7 3 20
interviews
Portfolios 5 5 7 2 19
With the exception of one case caused by unequal numbers, each of the
Chinese students was randomly paired with a same-gender host partner
in an individual homestay. In practice, the study visit included the use of
English as lingua franca, workshops, a communal student dinner at school,
regular school classes, a GPS run in the city, spare time spent with host
families, and dinner for host families, students, teachers and organizers at
a Chinese restaurant. The design of the study visit as an intercultural com-
munity of practice and the organizers’ reflections in relation to the visit
have been discussed in a previous publication (Lyngdorf, Egekvist, Du, &
Jiannong, 2013).
METHODS
The following qualitative research methods were used to explore and
document the study visit for the purpose of researching the Danish host
students’ intercultural experiences and learning:
1. Student portfolios (before, during and after the visit),

2. Focus group interviews (after the visit).
A portfolio is a pedagogical documentation and learning tool that has

the potential to clarify students’ learning and development in various
learning situations through the use of reflection (Ellmin, 1999; Lund,
2008). Host students were introduced to a student portfolio with pre-
designed categories in order to capture some of their understandings and
intercultural experiences, and to stimulate reflection thereon (Byram,
2008). Prior to the arrival of the Chinese students, Danish students were
asked to share their expectations of the visit and their guests. During the
visit, they were asked to share particularly meaningful experiences and
new knowledge. After the visitors departed, they were asked to share
reflections on whether their expectations had been met. The portfolio was
made voluntary rather than integrated into the school context. Nineteen
students worked on portfolios (Table 3.1), but in some cases, descriptions
and reflections were limited.
Two months after the visit, providing students time to digest the expe-
rience, four focus group interviews (referred to as FG1-4) of approxi-
mately one hour each were conducted with 19 host students (Table 3.1)
to supplement the written portfolio data through the creation of a forum
for oral reflections through shared experiences, ideas, beliefs and attitudes.
In order to create a safe context for students to share experiences, dis-
coveries and viewpoints, interviews were arranged in groups of five or
six students according to their classes, with a researcher functioning as a
mediator (referred to as M) and thus a co-constructor of the knowledge
produced. The combination of a group of students and one researcher
helped balance the asymmetric power-relation between adult and child
(Brinkmann & Kvale, 2009), and the serving of snacks and drinks gener-
ated a relaxed atmosphere.
Focus groups were expected to bring about discussions, joint reflec-
tion and mutual learning through a sharing of experiences. Interview
themes covered elements of IC and supplemented the portfolios by
exploring incomplete information and common elements in more detail.
The moderator transcribed the interviews based on a strategy of main-
taining the contents of what was said, and the data were categorized,
analysed and interpreted through meaning condensation (Brinkmann &
Tanggaard, 2010).
Limitations
One of the main objectives of internationalization efforts at the school
level in Denmark is to establish a foundation for and initiate a process
of IC development in students in order for them to engage actively in
handling the multifaceted future challenges in the international arena
(Styrelsen for International Uddannelse, Denmark, 2010). Schools make
use of various activities to achieve this, including short-term international
experiences, but primarily due to the young age of the students at this
educational level, short-term international experiences often last less than
one week. One might argue that such brief encounters cannot play a sig-
nificant role in individuals’ IC development, but these very short intercul-
tural meetings are a condition of researching international activities at this
educational level. Furthermore, Dervin emphasizes that:
Many researchers have demonstrated, for example, that people who travel
a lot or spent extensive time abroad are not necessarily more open-minded
than others (cf. for instance Phillips, 2007, p. 30) and sometimes they are
even less. (Dervin, 2009, p. 124)
Thus, in relation to IC development, it is not the quantity (e.g., number

of intercultural meetings or time spent abroad) that matters, but the qual-
ity of the intercultural encounters (see Chap. 1, this volume).
Ethical Considerations
It was emphasized as a condition for everyone involved, both in Denmark
and in China, that the study visit would be used as a research context.
The Danish school involved has a tradition of engagement and participa-
tion in research projects, and the Head of School gave permission both
for research to be carried out and for students to work on portfolios and
participate in focus-group interviews for research purposes. The school
informed the host students’ parents about our research activities in rela-
tion to the visit.
In a meeting prior to the host experience, the students were carefully
informed about our role as researchers during the visit and presented
with copies of the pre-designed student portfolio. It was emphasized that
working on the portfolio and sharing the reflections therein was voluntary.
Furthermore, students were asked to participate in focus-group interviews
upon the departure of their visitors, and anonymity was promised in all
cases.
FINDINGS
Findings in this study reflect general understandings, experiences and
reflections of the host students involved and are presented within the
following categories:
1. Pre-understandings
2. Experiences during the study visit. Continuous revisiting of data
showed that students repeatedly referred to experiences in relation
to (a) Dining and home environment routines, (b) Interests, (c)
Physical appearance, and (d) Language.
3. Overall reflections
Quotations from student portfolios and focus-group interviews

(translated from Danish into English by the authors) are included in order
to give voice to the students (students are identified with abbreviations,
e.g., G2-6, meaning Girl 2 grade 6), and each category is summarized
concerning the possibilities and challenges of using short-term study visits
to develop ICs in host students. These will be used as a point of departure
for discussion.
Pre-understanding
Findings from host-students’ portfolios show that their main expectations
were for the study visit to be a fun, exciting and/or educational experi-
ence. One girl wrote:
It will be exciting to learn about their culture and getting to know a Chinese.
It may also be embarrassing and awkward in some situations due to our lan-
guage and that we may not know what to talk about. (Portfolio, G13-7)
Host students’ main expectations of the Chinese students were for them
to be kind and well behaved. Additional expectations among the students
were for the Chinese students to be, for example, small, fast, serious,
good at English, and similar to themselves. These findings bring insight
into students’ pre-understandings (Jensen, 2013) and hetero-stereotypes
(Dervin, 2012).
Experiences
Dining and Home Environment Routines

Nineteen students shared experiences related to dining situations, which
revealed differences in the use of cutlery or chopsticks, table manners,
eating habits, preparation of ingredients, doing the dishes, and behaviour
while dining. Two boys elaborated:
What I remember best was when my mother had prepared a chicken and
bacon sandwich […]. He just chewed his food so noisily. […] I have just
never heard a human being eat so noisily. (FG4, B7-7)
At breakfast […] [my Chinese visitor] put buttery cheese on one side of the
bread roll, then some ham, and some thin slices of chocolate [traditional
Danish food ‘pålægchokolade’], and then he closed it. […] We don’t usually
eat something like that in my house.
[…]
Well, we were having dinner, and then he has finished. Without carrying
out his plate or anything, he goes to his room to find out something about
an email. And we have not even finished eating. Then he comes and asks,
‘Can you help me with my email address?’ We are having dinner. Then we
have to get up and help him. (FG2, B4-6)
In addition, a girl noted a difference in the process of washing dishes:
They used cold water to do the dishes. Here we usually use hot water […]
I thought it was a bit strange, but still, I did not know if it was because they
did not know you are not supposed to use cold water, or because they used
cold water at home. (FG2, G5-6)
Sixteen host students emphasized home environment routines related

to showering, changing and washing clothes, and sleeping, and also dif-
ferences in the everyday lives of Chinese and Danish students. In a focus-
group dialogue, three students shared experiences regarding changing
clothes and sleeping:
G1-6: At first, I thought that perhaps she would be afraid of changing

clothes in front of me. But she just quickly took off her pants and slept in
her knickers.
B1-6: Mine wore all his clothes while sleeping. He wore it for 2 days [B2-6:
looks disgusted]. It is so nasty.
G3-6: Mine, she, what was strange was that the clothes she was wearing,
then when she was off to bed, she just took off her pants, and then she wore
pajamas underneath. And then the next day she just put on her clothes again
on top of the pajamas. That was a bit strange. (FG1)
One female host also described differences in their everyday lives:
At least she has described it [school life in China] very well; that it is really
hard, and that she would stay up until 12pm and do her homework. She fin-
ished school at 6pm, and then she would just sit in her room in the dormi-
tory until 12pm. You see, they did not live at home, they lived at school. So
I think it is really hard, because she also sent me an email saying ‘My teachers
are so mean and cranky’ […]. (FG3, G7-7)
Findings show some common traits in host students’ experiences regard-

ing dining and home environment routines, which confronted them with
tacit knowledge of cultural practices in their own environments through
their visitors’ hands-on engagement. This also allowed students to gain
knowledge about differences in school systems.
Interests
Seventeen students emphasized experiences related to interests such as
sports, games, activities, school and topics of conversation among friends.
One girl shared an experience of learning about Chinese social interaction:
G7-7: […] they asked us questions about which boys we thought were
cute and so [laugh]. It was mega weird, I think. I did not even think they
thought about such things.
M: Well, do you talk about such things with your friends?
G7-7: Yes.
M: Since you think it was strange…
G7-7: Yes. I think it was strange. I did not think they did so. Well, I
thought that boys and girls could not date. And they said they could not.
M: But you still think it is strange for them to even think about…?
G7-7: Yes. But I don’t think it was strange. I just did not think they did.
I did not think they were allowed to. And then they were teasing someone
with some boy and so. And I did not think they were allowed to do so. I did
not think they could date in China. I thought it was like with Muslims—that
they cannot date anyone before getting married and so. (FG3)
Two boys elaborated on an experience related to gameplay:
B4-6: At [B5-6]’s house they asked if we should play poker. We said yes,
because we knew what poker was. Then they bring out this box, and it was
not that kind of poker they had. It was a different kind of poker. […]
B5-6: Yeah, it was a bit difficult to understand.
B4-6: Yes, but we learned in the end. It was pretty funny, and we won.
(FG2)
The findings illustrate students’ encounters with similarities and differ-

ences in both cultural products and practices related to interests between
the Danish and Chinese students. For example, the Chinese students’
interest in boyfriends and girlfriends was puzzling for some host students
and thus illustrated the presence of a hetero-stereotype.
Physical Appearance
Twelve host students emphasized experiences related to aspects of the
visitors’ physical appearance, such as height, teeth, bracelets, glasses and
fashion. Two explained in their portfolios:
Almost all the Chinese either wore a bracelet or glasses. […] I think it was
strange that so many either wore a bracelet or glasses, because not as many
people do that here. (Portfolio, G8-7)
[It was surprising] that he was as tall as me. I always think Chinese look so
tiny on TV. Perhaps they stop growing before us? (Portfolio, B2-6)
Likewise, differences in fashion trends were discussed in a focus-group

interview:
G5-6: Yes, they wore really colourful clothes. We usually wear black and
white and darker colours. […] They always wore red and… [The girls speak
all at once]
G6-6: A jacket with ears and something that looked like a pirate. It was
‘Lalabobo’ [fashion brand] [All the girls laugh]
G5-6: Yes.
B4-6: Also, all of their jackets were, at least in my opinion, these shiny
ones, all smooth and shiny. (FG2)
Experiences related to physical appearance illustrate how host students

were confronted with visible similarities and differences, both due to
biological differences between and within the European and Asian races
(e.g., height) and due to cultural practices in their home environments
(e.g., bracelets and fashion trends).
Language
English was used as a lingua franca, and six host students noted improve-
ments in their own English as a consequence of the visit. However, in their
portfolios, nine students pointed at the limited English skills of some Chinese
students as a challenging aspect of the experience. Due to the visitors attend-
ing a school with a focus on foreign languages, the hosts had expected better
skills. Three girls jointly reflected on the limited English skills:
G9-7: I also think it is because our language is more similar to English

than theirs. There is not a single similarity there. […]
G7-7: That is actually true. […] Actually, I have never thought about the
fact that it might be difficult for them to learn English. It is just as difficult
for them, as it is for us with French. But of course, we have only had French
for half a year.
G8-7: We have not learned much either. (FG3)
While there were some instances of limited English skills influencing

attempts to understand situations or experiences and causing irritation
for the hosts, nine students pointed at the use of activities such as board
games, cards, soccer, foosball, and ‘truth or dare’ as a way to interact
positively with the Chinese students by getting to know them better and
creating a sense of community. One girl shared an experience of playing
the game ‘truth or dare’:
[…] I think they think it was funny, because it was the Chinese students who
had to decide a consequence for us […]. And then I believe they thought it
was funny, because they could laugh with us at them. Whether it was them
or us who had to do something, they could laugh with us. So there was a
kind of community to it. (FG4, G10-7)
Students developed strategies to cope with language challenges, such as

resolving misunderstandings or unravelling mysteries by asking clarify-
ing questions or using digital translation tools such as Google translate.
However, some did not make an effort to clarify communication, such as
a girl who explained: ‘They probably could not understand what I said
anyway’ (G9-7).
Findings show that while host students experienced improvements to
their English through the practice of English as lingua franca, lack of lan-
guage proficiency proved to be a challenge and created gaps between hosts
and visitors. Strategies to overcome challenges involved acting as a media-
tor and dealing effectively with misunderstandings or puzzling episodes
through engagement in social activities. In addition, games established
a positive and informal atmosphere of community in the intercultural
encounter.
Students’ Overall Reflections

Looking back, students generally agreed that they had a good and edu-
cational experience through which some found new friends while others
learned to take more responsibility or appreciate aspects of their own lives.
As one boy explained, the experience was also an opportunity to experi-

ence some aspects of China at home: ‘Not to travel abroad to see how they
are. To have the culture brought home’ (FG2, B4-6).
The experiences led to overall reflections in relation to habits, similari-
ties and differences in general, as well as varying understandings of polite-
ness. In one of the focus groups, a girl reflected on her visitor’s habits:
I also thought about that in Denmark, with certain things, we could not
imagine anything different. Therefore, in many cases I thought: ‘Oh, that
was a bit strange.’ But then, after her departure, I reflected upon it and came
to think it was a bit peculiar that we have so many things we cannot see
done differently—with the cold meats and how they eat. […] They just do
it. They just try all kinds of things that we could not even think of. […] Not
only in terms of food, but generally speaking. […] at least I now think a lot
about it. That it is fine. That you do not always have to think about things
in that way. (FG2, G6-6)
Another girl reflected on the similarities and differences between the

Danish and Chinese students:
Well, there is not much difference in behaviour in our age group; how you
behave as a Chinese and as a Dane. But when there are differences, then it
is reasonably big differences. […] They behave very similar to us when they
were hanging out with their friends. Then they had some things they could
talk about. It was similar to us, if we were hanging out with our best friends.
[…] They were also looking at all kinds of singers from Asia and said that
they were hot and such things, like we did. It is kind of the same. (FG4,
G10-7)
In addition to limited vocabulary, other reasons for communication dif-

ficulties were discussed:
G7-7: […] It was a bit difficult. I also think they are just a bit shy in
general, because they have been taught in their upbringing not to be so
ahead of the curve. I also think the reason why you talked only with your
own Chinese is because, first, it was really difficult getting to know your own
Chinese, and then it is even more difficult getting to know the others. It
takes three days or so, before you really know the Chinese, so that you can
talk a lot with them.
M: But did that have anything to do with them being Chinese? […]
G9-7: I think you judge them quickly.
M: How?
G9-7: Well, it is just like, because you know, because we have learned
about China [in school], then you hear about how strict it is, and then you
judge them to be these quiet and boring people, I think.
G7-7: Yes.
M: Okay, yes. So did they live up to the things you judged them to?
G9-7: Many times, I would say. They were boring. […]. She was very
posh all the times. (FG3)
A few students expressed that they did not feel their expectations had been
fulfilled. One experienced a very homesick visitor who did not engage in
or share anything while visiting. Others expected something similar to a
previous experience of international student exchange1 (that they would
interact with everyone, make many friends, and communicate easily via
English).
Students’ overall experiences led to discussing and reflecting on cultural
practices, rules, and meaning constructions in different cultural environ-
ments, including their own. Understandings of ‘politeness’ and ‘normality’
in relation to such things as family and school life were widely discussed,
and host students were confronted with the fact that ‘good manners’ and
the definition thereof stem from an individual’s cultural resources, or what
is learned from family and society during their upbringing.
Challenges and Possibilities
Students’ pre-understandings of, experiences during, and overall reflec-
tions on the visit indicate several possibilities and challenges in developing
ICs:
• Students’ pre-understandings indicate a willingness to engage in the

host experience with a positive attitude (savoir être). However, stu-
dents’ retrospective attitude is closely linked to the (un)fulfilment of
expectations during the experience.
• Concrete intercultural experiences in host students’ own cultural
environment provide possibilities for experiential culture learning
(saviors apprendre/faire) and confrontation of pre-understandings
and hetero-stereotypes (savoirs). However, pre-understandings and
stereotypes can be difficult to change.
• English as a lingua franca provides students with possibilities to
improve their English through practice (savoir apprendre/faire)
and to gain new knowledge in face-to-face communication (savoir).

Conversely, the lack of language proficiency poses a challenge that
demands effective coping strategies. Games were found to establish a
positive atmosphere in the intercultural encounter by creating laugh-
ter, informal interaction and a feeling of community.
• Some students’ retrospective reflections on the host experience indi-
cate curiosity, openness and a readiness to suspend disbelief about
both their own and others’ culture (savoir être), in addition to an
ability to critically evaluate practices and products in both their own
and other cultures (savoir s’engager).
These challenges and possibilities will be discussed in relation to theory

and other studies within the following categories: (1) experiential learn-
ing, (2) stereotypes, and (3) coping strategies and support.
DISCUSSION
Experiential Learning
Hosting an international student creates an opportunity to experience
an individual with another cultural background in a face-to-face meeting
without travelling abroad. Homestays are an intense internationalization
at home experience for host students, providing possibilities for them to
learn in their comfort zones and seek parental support during the experi-
encing of similarities and differences in terms of cultural practices, which
are some of the most noticeable signs of culture, and of which people may
hardly be aware until they experience situations confronting them with
unfamiliar practices (Holliday, 2013).
Byram and Feng (2006) argue that experiential learning about culture
through hands-on experiences is more effective than classroom learning
about culture. However, research on IC shows that face-to-face meetings
between individuals of different cultural backgrounds do not automati-
cally lead to IC (Deardorff, 2009, p. xiii; Dervin, 2009). Similarly, in his
research on competences, Illeris (2011) argues that even though practical
experience in a specific field is considered desirable, it is rarely enough
for an individual to develop a structured understanding and react both
quickly and appropriately to new situations. Conscious, critical and ana-
lytically orientated reflections are needed in order to develop a personal
attitude and overview. Thus, a combination of practical experience and
theoretical schooling is considered the best way to develop competences

(Illeris, 2011, p. 44). This leads to considerations related to the design of
study visits and the support of students’ IC development before, during
and after host experiences, which will be discussed in the next section.
Based on a social constructivist understanding of intercultural encoun-
ters as involving meetings between individuals (Dervin, 2009), it is,
however, also relevant to discuss why international study visits should
be prioritized and whether intercultural encounters might as well hap-
pen locally. This study shows that the international perspective can bring
about training in foreign language skills and raise awareness of similarities
and differences between people. Elements such as different first languages
and nation states can create borders between people. Phillips (2007,
pp. 50–51) argues for a need to challenge the tendency to exaggerate
differences between cultures and focus more on similarities instead. This
might result in a deeper sense of global citizenship, while a focus on differ-
ences could be used as a point of departure to reflect upon normality and
the social construction of culture.
Stereotypes
Host experiences can bring about some of the possibilities and challenges
in confronting existing stereotypes formed around oneself and others in a
process of stereotyping, re-stereotyping and de-stereotyping, an example
in our findings being the development of one student’s understanding of
Chinese dating practice.
Stereotypes are poorly nuanced images charged with values (both posi-
tive and negative) that emphasize differences and boundaries between
groups of people and either ignore or explain away deviating examples
(Illman, 2006). Stereotypes are ‘understood as tools for defining the oth-
erness of the other and maintaining symbolic order’ (Hall, 1997, p. 258).
Once stereotypes become part of our worldview, they are difficult to
change. As explained by Lippmann (1922, p. 64): ‘They are the fortress
of our tradition, and behind its defenses we can continue to feel ourselves
safe in the position we occupy’.
Increased intercultural contact between individuals does not neces-
sarily disarm stereotypes (Hewstone, 1996; Illman, 2006), and Allport’s
research on contact hypothesis in relation to prejudice and stereotypes
concludes that mere contact between individuals of different groups does
not necessarily lead to a change of attitudes. Contact has to ‘reach below
the surface in order to be effective in altering prejudice’ (Allport, 1954,

p. 276).
Keeping this in mind, it is crucial to create awareness of stereotypes in
students involved in study visits. However, echoing Dervin (2012, p. 186),
attempts should not be made to ‘break’ stereotypes or replace them with
the ‘truth’. It is unrealistic to believe that stereotypes can be completely
eradicated. They will always exist, but it is possible to heighten the aware-
ness of their existence and provide an understanding of how and why
they are created, and how they may influence individuals in intercultural
encounters (For more on stereotypes see Chaps. 1 and 10, this volume).
Coping Strategies and Support

Students’ intercultural encounters in study visits are complicated and, in
many ways, unpredictable. Similar to Weidemann and Blüml’s (2009)
study on German host families, the present findings show that it was not
a purely positive experience for the host students involved; in some cases,
it was found to be problematic to varying degrees due to such factors as
language difficulties, lack of interaction or specific negative episodes left
unexplained. The findings illustrate a need to help students put cultural
behaviour in context and understand that there are, in fact, many similari-
ties between people from different cultural backgrounds, no matter how
different they may initially seem. Some behaviour is universal, some is
cultural, and some is personal (Storti, 2009).
This fact points to the challenge of helping students manage pre-
understandings and expectations of the hosting experience in relation to
the reality of the experience and of exploring certain experiences during
the intercultural encounter. Learning situations are not necessarily conflict-
free and can be experienced as both difficult and frustrating (Illeris, 2014).
To assist host students, study visits can be designed in ways that prepare
them in advance for the intensive and sometimes challenging character of
the host experience through theoretical schooling. Themes and theories
of culture, IC, stereotypes, coping strategies, human interaction, and the
general etiquette of being a host (to avoid alienation of the other) could
be addressed at a learner-appropriate level (Byram, 2009; Dervin, 2009).
Furthermore, this study suggests that laughter and the use of games as
mediating objects are positive aspects in intercultural encounters, which
could be emphasized during the experience. Likewise, it is important that
the experience is not merely left to evaporate into thin air, but used to
create a foundation for coping successfully with future unfamiliar and

challenging intercultural situations. Individual portfolio writing can assist
students in their learning process in relation to the experience, and sup-
port through creation of a forum for joint reflections was found to add
nuance to experiences, raise awareness of similarities and differences, and
bring about overall reflections of critical cultural awareness. Thus, the
‘right’ facilitation of intercultural learning spaces (see also Lyngdorf et al.,
2013) and help during the reflection process can assist students in their
intercultural competence development and their appreciation of diversity.
CONCLUSION
Findings from host students’ experiences and reflections in this study indi-
cate both challenges and possibilities of IC development in relation to
experiential learning, stereotypes and coping strategies and support.
The study shows that host students experience many challenges
involved in the intercultural encounter despite its taking place in their own
cultural environment and comfort zone. There is a continuous interaction
between potential difficulties and possibilities in such a meeting, and the
study shows clear signs of challenges related to cultural practices such as
eating and visible cultural products such as clothes, both of which illumi-
nate differences. However, the challenges host students encounter appear
to be eased through laughter and games, which were found to bridge
the intercultural meeting by bringing about a feeling of community and
emphasizing similarities in the students.
It is essential to maintain awareness of the fact that ICs are not neces-
sarily the result of a host experience; the experience can also reinforce
host students’ negative hetero-stereotypes. Thus, the ‘right’ facilitation of
the study visit is important in order to establish a context for possible IC
development, and support is essential before, during and after the expe-
rience. Shared experiences and joint reflection in groups were found to
reveal many nuances to students’ experiences and lead to a critical cultural
awareness among some of the participants.
NOTE
1. Five students had experiences from Poland and Sweden via EU-funded
Comenius programmes.
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development. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
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Lund, B. (Ed.) (2008). Portfolio i et lærings- og uddannelsesperspektiv. Denmark:
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designing and organizing an intercultural student exchange program. In M. J.
Kirkebæk, X. Du, & A. A. Jensen (Eds.), Teaching and learning culture:
Negotiating the context (pp. 27–42). Rotterdam; Boston: Sense Publishers.
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CHAPTER 4
From ‘Intercultural Speaker’

to ‘Intercultural Reader’: A Proposal
to Reconceptualize Intercultural
Communicative Competence Through
a Focus on Literary Reading
Hild Elisabeth Hoff
INTRODUCTION
In an essay about what education can learn from the arts, the US aca-
demic E. W. Eisner (2004) brings attention to how the conditions of our
contemporary world necessitate a reconsideration of current educational
methods and aims:
our lives increasingly require the ability to deal with conflicting messages,
to make judgments in the absence of rule, to cope with ambiguity, and to
frame imaginative solutions to the problems we face. Our world is not one
which submits single correct answers to questions or clear cut solutions to
problems. (p. 9)
H.E. Hoff ( )
Department of Foreign Languages, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway

DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-58733-6_4
52 H.E. HOFF
The present chapter explores how intercultural competence (IC) may

be reconceptualized as an educational goal to take into account such
notions of conflict, ambiguity and imagination. The fragmentation and
pluralism of postmodern societies as well as the development of global
communicative technologies (see Chap. 5, this volume) have turned
intercultural communication into a ‘complex, changing and conflictual
endeavor’ that entails ‘challenging established meanings and redefining
the real’ (Kramsch, 2011, p. 359). As a consequence, interculturality, to
a larger extent than before, requires the ability to look beyond actions
and words, to reflect upon the effects of subject positions and to analyse
cultural assumptions from different vantage points in order to bring about
new, imaginative understandings.
The present chapter addresses such concerns by adapting and refor-
mulating a central term in foreign language (FL) didactic theory. Byram’s
(1997) model of intercultural communicative competence (ICC)1
describes the ideal ‘intercultural speaker’s’ engagement with both individ-
uals and texts from foreign cultures, and accordingly processes of reading
are included in the concept. The present chapter argues that the encounter
with FL texts offers unique opportunities to investigate the complexities
of intercultural communication, and proposes that the constitution of a
profoundly engaged, analytical and creative ‘intercultural reader’ may add
a new dimension to Byram’s original concept. While other scholars have
already highlighted the role of literary texts in promoting IC, the present
chapter explores this issue from a different angle than previous efforts,
focusing on what makes the reading of FL texts a form of intercultural
communication in itself, and also on what distinguishes processes of text
interpretation from real-time communication. In doing so, it examines
aspects of the reader–text relationship on which Byram’s model of ICC, as
well as other theoretical perspectives on reading and IC, are unclear.
The research question has been formulated as follows: how does the
competent ‘intercultural reader’ interact with FL literature in her quest to
create meaning, and how may this interaction promote her awareness of
the ‘complex, changing and conflictual’ (Kramsch, 2011, p. 359) nature
of intercultural communication? In order to answer this question, the
qualities of the competent ‘intercultural reader’ are defined, and a descrip-
tive model of her engagement with FL texts is proposed. The chapter also
provides a practical example of how the fostering of such ‘intercultural
readers’ may take place in the FL classroom.
FROM ‘INTERCULTURAL SPEAKER’ TO ‘INTERCULTURAL READER’:... 53
BACKGROUND
The present chapter relies on a view of reading as a communicative experi-
ence. Gadamer’s (1996) theory of hermeneutics describes the nature of
interpretation, or the process of understanding a text, interhuman com-
munication or the world at large, as a form of dialogue that transforms the
interpreter as a moral subject. The need for interpretation arises when the
subject is confronted with a ‘horizon of understanding’ different from her
own, and, through dialogue, the two conflicting systems of convictions
are integrated in a ‘fusion of horizons’ (Gadamer, 1996, pp. 302–307). As
the intercultural encounter represents such a meeting between different
horizons of understanding due to divergent subjectivities, the reading of
FL texts may function as a form of intercultural communication.
The dialogue between reader, text and their interaction, is the cen-
tral principle of reader reception theory (Eco, 1990; Fish, 1980; Iser,
1978). According to this tradition of literary theory, the act of reading
is a give-and-take process of meaning-making in which the reader and
text interact in a dialectic relationship. Iser (1978) points out that the
indeterminate quality of the literary text places it in an asymmetrical rela-
tionship with the reader, and balance can only be achieved if the ‘gaps’
of the text are filled by the reader’s projections. Herein lies the major
difference between reading and other forms of social interaction: the text
cannot adapt itself to each reader with whom it comes in contact. The par-
ticipants in other communicative situations can ask each other questions
in order to clarify points of misunderstanding or disagreement, and they
may adjust their responses and their own outlook accordingly. In contrast,
the reader’s interpretation of the text may, in Gadamarian terms, broaden
the ‘horizon’ of the text and thus add to it a layer of meaning which did
not previously exist, but because the text itself cannot change, ‘a success-
ful relationship between text and reader can only come about through
changes in the reader’s projections’ (Iser, 1978, p. 167). This ability to
decentre—to move away from one’s own perspective in order to gain a
fuller, more nuanced understanding—also lies at the core of the concept
of IC (Bredella, 2003; Byram, 1997; Forsman, 2006).
Moreover, from a didactic perspective, it is worth noting how processes
of text interpretation differ from real-time communication. While oral
communication functions at a level of immediacy, for instance, the nature
of the dialogue between reader and text is somewhat different, as the writ-
ten word invites the reader into a more deliberative and reflective style of
54 H.E. HOFF
communication than spoken interaction. The reader always has the option
to stop to reflect on what she has read, to re-read certain passages, and to
adjust her response to the text accordingly. The encounter with literature
also gives the reader the unique opportunity to take on a number of differ-
ent vantage positions in the communication process, since the possibility
to revisit the text several times allows her to employ a range of analytical
approaches in order to fill the ‘gaps’ of the text. In contrast, face-to-face
encounters require a more immediate form of understanding, as they do
not allow for the same amount of reflection and critical distance which
may be involved in processes of text interpretation. From this viewpoint,
the reading of a FL text provides opportunity for a multifaceted analysis of
intercultural communication.
PREVIOUS RESEARCH ON READING AND THE DEVELOPMENT

OF IC
In a context of language education, the reading of literature and other forms

of fictional text2 has traditionally been linked to Bildung, of which IC is an
inseparable aspect (Bohlin, 2013; Byram, 2010; Fenner, 2012; Hoff, 2014).
Indeed, the inherent qualities of FL literature have led scholars from diverse
fields of research to highlight the role such texts may play in developing inter-
cultural understanding (Bredella, 2006; Burwitz-Meltzer, 2001; Fenner,
2001, 2011; Greek, 2008; Hoff, 2013; Kramsch, 1993, 2011; MacDonald,
Dasli, & Ibrahim, 2009). First of all, literature functions at both a cognitive
and emotional level, much like IC itself (Narancic-Kovac & Kaltenbacher,
2006). Moreover, the reading of FL literary texts allows a ‘symbolic dimen-
sion’ (Kramsch, 2011) to be included in the concept of IC. Fenner (2001)
argues that FL literature represents ‘the personal voice of a culture’ (p. 16),
facilitating access to information rich in cultural details while at the same
time allowing for personal contact with otherness. Furthermore, literary lan-
guage is fraught with ambiguity and symbolism, and it consequently carries
a multiplicity of possible meanings which must be negotiated by the reader
(Fenner, 2001; Ibsen & Wiland, 2000; Kramsch, 1993). The reading of lit-
erary texts is thus a more subjective and emotional experience than the read-
ing of factual texts. A literary narrative challenges the reader to place herself
in somebody else’s shoes (Bredella, 2006), and to enter into a negotiating
dialogue with the values and worldviews inherent in the text. Because litera-
ture is ‘neither oppositional to or representative of reality, [it] enables the
(re)shaping of [the] reality of its reader’ (MacDonald et al., 2009, p. 115).
At the same time, the ‘multivocality’ of the literary medium lends itself to a
complex analysis of issues regarding culture, identity and difference (Greek,
2008).
A number of scholars within the field of FL didactics (e.g., Burwitz-
Meltzer, 2001; Fenner, 2001; Gomez, 2012; Hoff, 2013; Kramsch, 2011;
Narancic-Kovac & Kaltenbacher, 2006) have discussed reading practices
and approaches to text that may be suited to bring about processes of
intercultural learning in the FL classroom. Although much of this research
emphasizes the importance of helping learners to establish a dialogical
relationship with the text and offers didactic advice to practitioners in this
respect, it does not explore the details of how the communication between
reader and FL texts may take place. A recent study by Porto (2014)
sheds some light on this matter, by ‘extend[ing] the focus of research on
intercultural communication to include the analysis of reading processes’
(Porto, 2014, p. 518). Porto introduces a model that is partly based on
Byram’s model of ICC and may be used to identify the different ways
in which FL learners understand the culture-specific dimensions of texts.
Her study shows how the reading process involves moving back and forth
between different levels of cultural understanding, and as such it is suc-
cessful in capturing the fluid and procedural aspects of interculturality.
Furthermore, it demonstrates how the understanding of cultural aspects
of FL texts during reading is ‘not a matter of idea units present or absent
in a recall, but a question of increasing levels of complexity and detail’
(Porto, 2013, p. 285).
What Porto’s study does not reveal, however, is how readers go about
accessing these different levels of complexity. In an educational context, it
is important to bear in mind that learners’ competences as ‘intercultural
readers’ will not be developed automatically as a result of their exposure to
a FL text. In fact, such exposure may, for instance, serve to uphold cultural
stereotypes rather than countering them, unless prejudiced attitudes are
explicitly brought out in the open and challenged in the classroom (Hoff,
2013). Moreover, research indicates that it is a particular challenge for
young readers to use and understand other contexts than their own ‘here
and now’ perspectives as they interpret literary texts (Skarstein, 2013).
Adolescent readers are inclined to be either completely immersed in the
experience (Appleyard, 1991) or they may exhibit a resistant attitude to
the text due to the estrangement effect of reading in a foreign language
(Hoff, 2013; Thyberg, 2012). This means that young readers of FL
literature may fill the ‘gaps’ of the text solely with their own projections or
56 H.E. HOFF
they may overlook aspects of potential conflict and ambivalence; in short,

they may not be as inclined to scrutinize the text from a critical distance
as more mature readers.
Accordingly, it is not possible to separate cultural competence from
literary competence when it comes to the reading of FL texts. In order
to integrate language, literature and culture in FL education it is not suf-
ficient for teachers to be able to identify different levels of complexity and
detail in learners’ ability to access and understand the cultural dimensions
of FL texts; they must also have insight into how the communicative pro-
cess between a competent ‘intercultural reader’ and FL text takes place
so that they can assist the learners into accessing and dealing with such
complexity. In other words, there is a need for research that examines the
reader–FL text relationship closely. In order to provide a context for such
an investigation, a discussion of intercultural communication in general
and the qualities of Byram’s ‘intercultural speaker’ in particular, is first
provided.
THE COMPLEXITIES OF INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION

IC entails the ability to successfully communicate across cultures. This
is especially prominent in Byram’s influential model of ICC, which is an
extension of the concept of communicative competence, a central concern
in FL education since the 1980s. First published in Teaching and Assessing
Intercultural Communicative Competence in 1997, Byram’s model defines
the qualities of a quintessential ‘intercultural speaker’ who is genuinely
concerned with ‘establishing and maintaining relationships’ across cultural
boundaries (Byram, 1997, p. 3). The model identifies five aspects of learn-
ing that should be cultivated in order to foster such competence:
Savoir: knowledge of self and other; of interaction; individual and societal.

Savoir être: attitudes; relativizing self, valuing other.
Savoir comprendre: skills of interpreting and relating.
Savoir apprendre/faire: skills of discovering and/or interacting.
Savoir s’engager: political education, critical cultural awareness. (adapted
from Byram, 1997, p. 34)
According to Byram (2000), the intercultural speaker is able ‘to see

relationships between different cultures—both internal and external to a
society—and to mediate, that is interpret each in terms of the other, either
for [himself] or for other people’. He also knows how to ‘critically or

analytically understand that one’s own and other cultures’ perspective is
culturally determined rather than natural’ (Byram, 2000, p. 10).
However, successful communication cannot be achieved merely
through an understanding of how different cultural contexts affect the
interpretation of what one says or writes, and a reason for this is that pro-
cesses of globalization and migration have made it increasingly difficult
to attach meaning to such concepts as ‘culture’ and ‘identity’ (see Chap.
8 and 9, this volume). Indeed, the impact of transnational and multilin-
gual cultures has been the focus of a significant amount of research within
the fields of sociolinguistics (Bloomaert, 2010; Zarate, Lévy, & Kramsch,
2008) and FL didactics (Byram, 2008; Fenoulhet & Ros i Solé, 2011;
Kramsch, 2009; Risager, 2007). Ros i Solé (2013) notes that Byram’s
model is ‘rooted in a single mother tongue and nation and its accompa-
nying social spheres and spaces’, and argues that this ‘limit[s] the ways in
which multilingual subjects are able to position themselves in the language
learning experience and the roles they are allowed to adopt’ (Ros i Solé,
2013, p. 335). She therefore proposes to expand the concept of the ‘inter-
cultural speaker’ to a ‘cosmopolitan speaker’ in order to take into account
multiple and complex identities more effectively. A consequence of such
complexity is that IC is
not only a question of tolerance towards or empathy with others, of under-

standing them in their cultural context, or of understanding oneself and the
other in terms of one another. It is also a matter of looking beyond words
and actions and embracing multiple, changing and conflicting discourse
worlds. (Kramsch, 2011, p. 356)
This means that intercultural communication may be a challenging,

even uncomfortable and confusing, undertaking. It is thus essential that
intercultural education plays a role in promoting learners’ ability to handle
conflict and ambiguity in a constructive and creative manner.
To what extent, then, are ambivalence and uncertainty recognized as a
part of ‘the intercultural speaker’s’ experience as he engages with other-
ness? Byram’s model acknowledges that the ‘intercultural speaker’ may go
through ‘different stages of adaptation to and interaction with’ otherness,
and that these stages may include ‘phases of acceptance and rejection’
(savoir être) (Byram, 1997, p. 58). This means that the model to some
extent incorporates elements of conflict and ambivalence, but the central
58 H.E. HOFF
aim for the ‘intercultural speaker’ is to overcome such temporary draw-

backs in order to establish a harmonious relationship with an interlocu-
tor, or to help along such relationships between other individuals. For
instance, the ‘intercultural speaker’ helps ‘interlocutors overcome con-
flicting perspectives’ (savoir comprendre) and to ‘negotiate agreement on
places of conflict and acceptance of difference’ (savoir s’engager) (Byram,
1997, pp. 61, 64). It should be noted that ‘the intercultural speaker’
acknowledges the fact that opposing views may not always be possible to
reconcile. However, this appears to be a solution for which he ‘may settle
when all attempts of a harmonious fusion of horizons have failed, rather
than as positive conditions for the communication process’ (Hoff, 2014,
p. 514). In terms of its potential to enhance ‘the intercultural speaker’s’
awareness of the complex and frequently conflictual nature of intercultural
communication, then, what may not be adequately expressed in Byram’s
model is an acknowledgement of how conflict, misunderstanding and dis-
agreement may lead to ‘meaningful communicative situations in which
the participants are deeply engaged, thus contributing to a higher level of
honesty and involvement’ (Hoff, 2014, p. 514).
The FL learner’s encounter with literature can play an important role in
this respect. Iser (1978) notes that it is the very ‘lack of ascertainability’ in
the reading process, caused by the indeterminacy of the literary text, that
‘gives rise to communication’ (pp. 166, 167). Accordingly, phases of con-
flict, misunderstanding and ambiguity are a natural part of any encounter
with literature, and should not be regarded as barriers hindering success-
ful communication, but as catalysts for communication itself. Indeed, the
tolerance and even the aesthetic enjoyment of ambiguity is ‘a key “com-
petence” for an appreciation of literature and the development of literary
literacy in a broader sense’ (Lütge, 2012, p. 193). Since text interpre-
tation always involves ‘a logic of uncertainty and qualitative probability’
(Ricoeur, 1991, p. 159), learners’ engagement with FL literature may be
essential in promoting their disposition to see the world not in black or
white but in multiple, subtle nuances.
Moreover, because discourse both reveals and conceals something about
the nature of being, seemingly effective communication may be no more
than a common illusion, behind which ‘the circulation of values and identi-
ties across cultures, the inversions, even inventions of meaning’ (Kramsch,
Lévy, & Zarate, 2008, p. 15)3 may be hidden. What the ‘intercultural
speaker’ perceives as harmony and mutual understanding, then, may in
fact be a deception. Indeed, he cannot always take what the interlocutor
says at face value. This is not necessarily a matter of recognizing whether

the other’s utterances are to be trusted, but of exploring the subconscious
dimensions of the dialogue. The theoretical perspective of the Russian phi-
losopher, literary critic and semiotician Bakhtin (2006) may be used to
illustrate the complex nature of interhuman communication in general,
and the act of text interpretation in particular. Bakthin employs the terms
‘heteroglossia’ and ‘polyphony’ to describe how any utterance bears traces
of other voices and discourses: ‘Each word tastes of the context and con-
texts in which it has lived its socially charged life; all words and forms are
populated by intentions’ (Bakhtin, 2006, p. 293). This means that there
is always a multiplicity of possible, even conflicting, interpretations that
must be considered and negotiated in order to make sense of human dis-
course or a text, and the implicit ideologies involved must be identified and
challenged.
Byram’s model of ICC answers this need to take into account and scru-
tinize multiple perspectives by emphasizing the ‘intercultural speaker’s’
recognition of how different cultural points of view may lead to diverse
experiences of texts or events. The ‘intercultural speaker’ is able to use the
encounter with an interlocutor from a foreign culture to ‘discover other
perspectives on interpretation’ (savoir être), to ‘establish relationships of
similarity and difference between them’ (savoir apprendre/faire) and to
‘mediate’ between them (savoir comprendre) (Byram, 1997, pp. 58, 62,
61). Furthermore, he knows how to ‘identify and interpret explicit or
implicit values in documents’ and is able to ‘place a document […] in con-
texts (of origins/sources, time, place, other documents or events)’ (savoir
s’engager) (Byram, 1997, p. 63). In other words, he is able to disclose
ideological dimensions in the text and to identify aspects of intertextuality
in order to explore how the text draws on prior discourses.
It follows from this that the ‘intercultural speaker’ acknowledges that
processes of reading entail examining the FL text from a number of
different vantage points, and he may thus be in possession of some impor-
tant tools that might help him in his quest to look beyond actions and
words in the intercultural encounter. However, what is lacking in Byram’s
model is the ‘intercultural speaker’s’ recognition of what distinguishes
processes of text interpretation, and particularly the reading of literary
texts, from other forms of intercultural communication. In the following,
the complex processes of communication that may potentially take place
during the reading of FL texts, are explored in order to define the qualities
of an ideal ‘intercultural reader’.
60 H.E. HOFF
DEFINING THE ‘INTERCULTURAL READER’

A unique characteristic of the literary medium is that it is not governed by
time and space constraints as it speaks to its readers. From this viewpoint,
FL literature gives readers the opportunity to communicate with literary
voices from other cultural, social and historical contexts. The multivocality
of literary texts adds to the complexity of this interpretative process. A piece
of FL literature does not represent ‘the personal voice of a culture’ (Fenner,
2001, p. 16) as much as it can be said to be an amalgam of multiple, diverse
and even conflicting voices along a spectrum of accessibility: those of the
narrator, the protagonist, the antagonist, other characters, the author, the
implied author, the implied reader,4 etc. In other words, the text encom-
passes multiple, complex identities that must be discerned by the reader.
Furthermore, the reader’s communication with these diverse voices
may be enhanced or obscured by the narrative style and structure of the
text. The point of view, tone, range of vocabulary, use of symbols as well
as adherence to or breach with familiar genre conventions, for instance,
have an impact on how the text speaks to the reader, and on how the
reader responds. Such processes are further influenced by the plot, set-
ting and theme of the text, that is, the structural framework underlying
the order and manner in which the story is told. The way in which one
expresses oneself, either as a result of deliberate or subconscious choices,
is of course a central element in any intercultural encounter, but processes
of text interpretation offer the reader the opportunity to analyse the effects
of such choices and to pay as much attention to what is not said as to what
is said (Kramsch, 2011).
Moreover, the lack of time and space constraints allows readers to take
into account how a wide range of other prior and contemporary readers
experience the text. It is thus not sufficient for a reader of a FL text to
gain insight into how a particular interlocutor from a foreign culture may
understand the text differently from her; she is interested in exploring how
and why the cultural, social and historical subject positions of a wide range
of readers may lead to different interpretations. The subjective nature of
literary reading lends itself to an examination of how diverse, even oppos-
ing, perspectives can be found among readers within a given culture, not
only across cultural boundaries. Such an emphasis on the individual rather
than the collective aspect of intercultural communication may lead to an
understanding of cultural identity as a dynamic and multidimensional con-
cept (see Chaps. 8 and 9, this volume).
Another point for consideration is that different pieces of literature may

address the same basic themes or events. They may be set apart by the
particular language that they use or by the way the events are framed and
narrated. In order to gain an understanding of how the FL text both draws
upon and challenges prior discourses (savoir s’engager), the reader must
examine the manner in which it communicates with other texts, both con-
temporary and from other historical periods. She must also consider the
extent to which she and other readers respond differently to these other
texts, and reflect on why such responses may be similar or disparate.
It follows from this that the encounter with FL literature has the poten-
tial to be a multifaceted endeavour, which may enhance the reader’s under-
standing of the ‘complex, changing and conflictual’ (Kramsch, 2011, p. 359)
nature of intercultural communication. The reader’s consideration of how
the text communicates with a wide range of other readers and texts enables
her to challenge her own prior understandings as well as those of others in
order to construct new interpretations. The qualities of a competent, cre-
ative and flexible ‘intercultural reader’ may thus be summed up as follows:
1. The ‘intercultural reader’ regards the reading of FL texts as a form

of intercultural communication, and understands how the nature of
text interpretation allows her to explore the complexity of this type
of communication from a number of different vantage points.
2. The ‘intercultural reader’ regards conflict and ambiguity as catalysts
for communication rather than as communicative difficulties to be
overcome, and consequently seeks out and explores such conditions
both in terms of her own emotional response to the FL text and as
inherent aspects of the text itself.
3. The ‘intercultural reader’ takes into account how the FL text may
communicate with other contemporary and prior texts and readers
as she attempts to fill the ‘gaps’ in the reading process. This venture
involves exploring the effects of her own cultural, social and histori-
cal subject positions as well as those of the FL text itself, other texts,
and other readers.
4. The ‘intercultural reader’ takes into account how discourse both
reveals and conceals something about the nature of being, and is
consequently concerned with the effects of different narrative styles
and structures. This entails looking beyond the surface of the FL
text as well as developing a critical awareness of how she and others
communicate.
62 H.E. HOFF
5. The ‘intercultural reader’ regards her encounter with FL literature

as a creative undertaking that entails challenging prior understand-
ings and constructing new, creative interpretations.
THREE LEVELS OF COMMUNICATION

The following is an attempt to describe the processes of communication
in which the competent ‘intercultural reader’ takes part as she interprets a
piece of FL literature. Her engagement with the text can be said to operate
at three, interlinked levels of communication, each of which involves her
emotions as well as her cognition. At all three levels, the effects of narrative
choices as well as the various cultural, social and historical subject positions
of text(s) and reader(s) are considered by the ‘intercultural reader’.
Level 1 involves the ‘intercultural reader’s’ engagement with multiple
voices inherent in the FL text. The protagonist and other characters often
represent the most easily accessible voices of the text, and are consequently
also the ones to trigger her immediate emotional response. At the other
end of the spectrum, the ‘intercultural reader’s’ communication with the
implied author/reader relies not only on a high degree of abstract thinking
and critical investigation of the narrative; it may also require research of
external sources.
At Level 2, the ‘intercultural reader’ takes into account how other readers
may communicate with the FL text, and she reflects on how different subject
positions make some interpretations possible/likely and others impossible/
unlikely. Her investigation may include contemporary and prior readers who
share the ‘intercultural reader’s’ own cultural background, readers from the
author’s/narrator’s/literary characters’/implied author’s/implied reader’s
cultures, as well as readers from cultures with no apparent connection to the
text or the ‘intercultural reader’ herself. A variety of diverse interpretations
among readers within a given culture are considered.
Furthermore, this deliberation of other interpretations may take place
on a concrete or an abstract level, depending on whether the perspectives
of the other can be explicitly accessed. In a classroom context, for instance,
the text-interpretation process has the potential to become a collabora-
tive effort (Aase, 2005; Ibsen & Wiland, 2000). Such democratic and
sociocultural processes of text interpretation may allow the different sub-
jectivities of the classroom to be recruited rather than ignored (Tornberg,
2004), and may thus contribute to an understanding of cultural identity as
a complex phenomenon. Other, concrete sources that might be taken into
consideration at this level of the ‘intercultural reader’s’ communication

with the text, are book reviews or alternate versions of the text.5 Where
such concrete sources are not possible to access, the ‘intercultural reader’
must draw upon her existing knowledge of foreign cultures (savoir) and
project herself into the position of Another (savoir être) in order to imag-
ine how the text may be understood from other points of view. In doing
so, she must also reflect upon how the subjective nature of literary reading
as well as the multiple, complex identities of individuals make it difficult to
foresee how others may respond to a given text.
Level 3 takes into account how the FL text may communicate with
other texts. This means that texts from different cultures, time periods and
genres are compared and contrasted. The aim of the ‘intercultural reader’
is not only to identify aspects of intertextuality, but to juxtapose the FL
text with other texts in order to explore the extent to which alternate nar-
rative choices and subject positions affect her understanding.
Based on the above discussion, I propose a schema of the communica-
tive processes involved and the relationships between them, in Fig. 4.1.
The ‘intercultural reader’s’ quest to fill the ‘gaps’ of the FL text involves
a continuous expansion of her projections upon the text, and the act of
reading should, therefore, be regarded as a dynamic process of mov-
ing back and forth between the different levels, leading to a gradually
increasing awareness of the inherent complexities of the text as well as the
Fig. 4.1 Model of the intercultural reader’s engagement with FL literary texts
64 H.E. HOFF
interpretation process. Because both the narrative style and structure of the
text and the cultural, social and historical subject positions of the readers
as well as those of the literary voices have an impact on the communication
process, the model illustrates the fact that linguistic, cultural and literary
competence cannot be separated when it comes to the reading of FL texts.
The teacher’s role in this process is discussed in the following section.
FOSTERING THE ‘INTERCULTURAL READER’: SOME

SUGGESTIONS FOR THE FL CLASSROOM
The three-level model proposed here describes the ideal ‘intercultural
reader’s’ interaction with FL texts. However, the model may also be used
to inform teaching procedures and reading practices in the FL classroom.
In this respect, the central task for the FL teacher is to draw the learn-
ers’ attention to potential ‘gaps’ in the text, and then to encourage them
to explore such ambiguities from a variety of different vantage positions
involving all of the three levels of communication described in the model.
Because the subject’s emotional and personal involvement is essen-
tial to the development of IC (Byram, 1997, 2010; Fenner, 2001, 2012;
Kramsch, 2009; Narancic-Kovac & Kaltenbacher, 2006), the effect of
negotiating meaning from the ‘gaps’ of the literary text may be enhanced
if the learners are explicitly encouraged to explore feelings of confusion,
discomfort and tension during reading. One way to bring about such pro-
cesses in the FL classroom is by including texts that challenge the learners
on a number of levels, for instance in the form of provocative subject
matters, the inclusion of unsympathetic literary characters who may be
difficult to relate to or narrators whose trustworthiness is disputable. The
degree of complexity in this process must be adjusted to the learners’
prior experience with texts, but it must also challenge their creativity and
capacity for critical and abstract thinking. It is important to note, however,
that any resistance and discomfort exhibited by learners upon their initial
contact with the text do not mean that a sense of openness cannot be
maintained at the same time. In the words of Ricoeur (1970), hermeneu-
tics, or the process of interpreting, is ‘animated by this double motivation:
willingness to suspect, willingness to listen; vow of rigor, vow of obedi-
ence’ (Ricoeur, 1970, p. 27). This means that elements of contention and
disagreement do not rule out the possibility of establishing a meaningful
relationship with the FL text; in fact, such conditions may stimulate a
more profound dialogue.
Let us look at an example of how such a multifaceted interaction with

literary texts may be promoted in the FL classroom. The following is not
intended to be a normative or exhaustive representation of how reading
should take place as a form of intercultural communication, but the exam-
ple to be discussed here shows how learners may be encouraged into and
guided through processes of text interpretation which involve all three
levels of communication. Moreover, it indicates how such communication
may take place across notions of time and place, involving varying degrees
of critical and abstract thinking.
The word ‘nigger’ (often referred to as the ‘N-word’ to avoid con-
troversy) is a highly sensitive term that carries connotations of racism,
oppression and dark chapters in African American history. Mark Twain’s
classic novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn may be juxtaposed with an
episode of the contemporary TV series The Wire, and learners of English
as a foreign language6 may be invited to compare and contrast the use of
the word in the two texts. The classroom discussion may revolve around
such questions as:
• How did the use of the N-word in these texts make you feel? Why
did it invoke such a reaction? Discuss your responses in groups. To
what extent are your reactions similar or different? What may be the
reasons that you respond similarly/differently? (Levels 1, 2)
• How might your response(s) differ from an American reader in gen-
eral, and an African American reader in particular? Is it even possible
for you to make assumptions about this? Why/why not? (Level 2)
• Does the word mean the same thing in the two texts? (Levels 1, 3)
• Read some of the reviews written at the time Huckleberry Finn was
first published.7 What can these reviews tell you about the critics’
attitudes to the use of the word in the book? Would the use of the
word be a point of discussion in your own review of the book? Why/
why not? (Levels 1, 2)
• In recent years, some publishers have removed the N-word and
replaced it with ‘slave’. Which effect does this have, do you think?
Can you think of other texts (written in a foreign language or your
own mother tongue) that have been treated in a similar way? Do you
agree or disagree with such a decision? Why? (Levels 2, 3)
• What do you think are Mark Twain’s and the creator of The Wire’s
attitudes to the use of the word? What kinds of evidence in the texts
do you base your assumption on? (Levels 1, 3)
66 H.E. HOFF
• The narrator of Huckleberry Finn uses the word when talking to and
about Jim, a runaway slave who becomes his friend. In The Wire, the
word is used by members of the police force to insult the African
American teenagers, but it is also used humorously and affectionately
among the teenagers themselves. What makes it possible for these
various characters to use the word in such different ways, do you
think? (Levels 1, 3)
• Do you think that the word would have been used in the same way if
Jim had been the narrator of HF rather than Huck? Why/why not?
(Levels 1, 3)
• Huckleberry Finn is considered to be one of the greatest works of
American literature, while The Wire is a contemporary product of
pop culture which reaches a wide, international audience. Do the
different statuses of these texts legitimize your own use of the word
in any way? If so, which one, and why? (Levels 1, 3)
When discussing these questions, the learners may gain profound insight
into the various cultural, social and historical implications of an utterance.
Their emotions are explicitly included as they are asked to examine aspects
of ambiguity, contradictions and intertextuality, in addition to considering
different interpretations, and even alternate versions, of the texts. Both
concrete examples, in the form of fellow classmates’ readings and book
reviews from a different time in history, as well as abstract examples in the
form of the learners’ perceptions about other people’s perspectives, are
included. Throughout this set of questions, there is a focus on the effects
of narrative choices and subject positions. Finally, the juxtaposition of a
piece of nineteenth-century ‘classical’ literature with a contemporary pop-
culture text allows learners to ponder how we draw on prior discourses to
express ourselves, and to reflect on how notions of language, culture and
identity may be manipulated in order to challenge established meanings
and redefine our reality.
CONCLUSION
As expressed by the editors in Chap. 1, the aim of this volume is to offer
innovative and critical perspectives on IC as an educational aim. In such
respect, the present chapter adds a new dimension to the academic dis-
course on IC and reading through a close examination of the relationship
between reader and FL text. The chapter has explored why and how the
process of interpreting a FL text may be regarded as a multifaceted form of
intercultural communication. Adapting and reformulating a central con-
cept in FL didactic theory, it has addressed the need to define the quali-
ties of a profoundly engaged, analytical and creative ‘intercultural reader’
in order to supplement Byram’s original description of the ‘intercultural
speaker’. Answering to recent developments in culture, sociolinguistics
and FL didactic theory, the chapter has argued that the subjective and
indeterminate nature of literary reading makes FL literature a particularly
suited medium through which to foster individuals who are capable of
handling the complexities of our contemporary world in a constructive,
creative manner.
A descriptive model of ‘the intercultural reader’s’ engagement with FL
literature has been proposed and discussed. This model shows how the
text interpretation process may operate at three, interlinked levels of com-
munication, each of which involves the ‘intercultural reader’s’ emotions
as well as her cognition. At all three levels, she considers the effects of the
narrative style and structure of the text as well as the various cultural, social
and historical subject positions of text(s) and reader(s). Furthermore, the
model takes into account how the text-interpretation process may take
place across notions of time and place, involving varying degrees of criti-
cal and abstract thinking. In order to demonstrate the relevance of the
model for educational practice, the chapter has provided a practical exam-
ple of how the fostering of ‘intercultural readers’ may take place in the FL
classroom.
By defining and discussing the qualities of the ‘intercultural reader’
as well as the communicative processes involved in her reading of FL
literature, the chapter has illuminated aspects of the reader-FL text rela-
tionship on which previous theoretical perspectives on reading and IC,
are unclear. In doing so, it has shown how it is not possible to separate
IC from literary competence when it comes to the reading of FL texts,
and the model may thus hopefully contribute to the integration of lan-
guage, culture and literature in FL education. Further, empirical research
is needed regarding the use of the model as a tool for analysing readers’
engagement with FL texts.
68 H.E. HOFF
NOTES
1. Byram (1997) uses the label ‘intercultural communicative competence’ to
indicate that his model expands the concept of communicative competence,
in addition to making explicit that it is first and foremost relevant in a con-
text of FL teaching and assessment (Byram, 1997, p. 3). In the following,
the term ICC will be used when referring specifically to Byram’s model,
whereas the term intercultural competence (IC) will be used more broadly.
2. This includes films and other forms of multimodal texts. For the sake of
brevity, the term ‘literature’ is in the following used as a common denomi-
nator for such fictional texts.
3. This is originally a quote in French. One of the co-authors provides the
English translation in Kramsch (2011).
4. The implied author is a term which refers to the character a reader may attri-
bute to the author based on the way the text is written, and accordingly it
may not correspond with the author’s true personality. The implied reader
exists merely in the imagination of the author, and may be reconstructed
only through the latter’s statements or extra-textual information (Abrams,
1999, pp. 219, 257).
5. For instance, Baz Luhrman's film Romeo + Juliet may be approached as an
interpretation of Shakespeare’s original play.
6. Due to the explicit language of the dialogue in The Wire, this particular les-
son plan is suitable for upper-secondary-level learners above 16 years of age.
An example of a classroom discussion of The Wire can be found in (Hoff,
2013).
7. http://twain.lib.virginia.edu/huckfinn/hucrevhp.html
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CHAPTER 5
Competences for Active Communication

and Participation in Diverse Societies: Views
of Young People in Iceland
Hanna Ragnarsdóttir
INTRODUCTION
What does it take to be an active member of contemporary diverse societ-
ies? What are important competences for communicating and participat-
ing in such societies and how are they expressed by young people? In this
chapter I address these and other related questions and discuss the useful-
ness of different approaches in addressing the liquidity and complexity of
social relations in contemporary diverse societies. The chapter draws on
research (two separate studies) conducted in 2011–2014 with students
from various ethnic backgrounds in upper secondary schools and universi-
ties in Iceland.
The first study is a mixed method study conducted in 2011–2014
(Finnbogason, Gunnarsson, Jónsdóttir, & Ragnarsdóttir, 2011) where a
survey and focus group interviews with young people age 18–24 were used
for data collection. The aim of the project was to study young people’s life
views and values in a multicultural society in Iceland. The first part of the
research was a survey that was conducted among students in seven upper
H. Ragnarsdóttir ( )
School of Education, University of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland

DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-58733-6_5
74 H. RAGNARSDÓTTIR
secondary schools in the Reykjavík area and other areas of Iceland in 2011
and 2012 covering measures of self-identity, family ties, communication,
diversity, religious affiliations and background variables. Focus-group
interviews were conducted in the schools in the following years, where
mixed groups were asked to discuss a number of topics related to the main
findings of the survey.
The second study is a qualitative interview study conducted in 2011
with nine young immigrants in Iceland (Ragnarsdóttir, 2011). The study
was a follow-up study from an earlier longitudinal study conducted in
2002–2005 with these immigrants and their families. The purpose of the
research was to analyse their experiences of life and work in Icelandic soci-
ety during the past ten years, with particular emphasis on their school
experiences and how they thought schools in Iceland could better support
immigrant children.
Drawing on selected findings from both studies, the aim of the chapter
is to explore which factors these young people see as being important
for active communication and participation in a diverse society. Questions
considered in the chapter also include whether these young people relate
obstacles for communication to their different origins, cultures, values,
religions or other factors, or whether they consider these as irrelevant
factors.
BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT: ICELANDIC SOCIETY

AND EDUCATION SYSTEM
Languages, cultures and religions of Iceland’s population have become

increasingly diverse in recent decades. The ratio of non-Icelandic citizens
to the total population was 1.8 per cent in 1995. In 2000 it was 2.6 per
cent; in 2005 3.6 per cent and in 2013 6.7 per cent of the total population
of 321,857 (Statistics Iceland, 2013). Over the past few years there has
been a rapid increase in the youngest age groups (Statistics Iceland, 2013).
Immigrant children and youth consequently attend most preschools and
compulsory schools in Iceland, creating new challenges for school commu-
nities that previously were more homogeneous in terms of students’ eth-
nicity and languages (Ragnarsdóttir, 2008). The largest groups of people
born in other countries than Iceland come from these countries: Poland
(9,404), Denmark (3,147), USA (1,967), Sweden (1,869), Germany
(1,512), Philippines (1,487), Lithuania (1,408), UK (1,200), Thailand
(1,132), Norway (972). These numbers can also include Icelandic citizens
born in these countries (Statistics Iceland, 2013).
COMPETENCES FOR ACTIVE COMMUNICATION AND PARTICIPATION... 75
Religious diversity has also increased in recent years, partly as a result

of immigration, with a growing number of religious organizations in
Iceland. According to Statistics Iceland (2013), 76.2% of the population
of Iceland claim to belong to the National Church of Iceland which is an
Evangelical Lutheran Church. 5.2% of the population are not registered in
religious organizations. Altogether 40 religious organizations other than
the National Church are registered in Iceland, most of them are Christian.
Two are Buddhist (0.3% of population), two are Muslim (0.2% of popula-
tion), one is Bahá’í (0.1% of population) and one is Ásatru (old Icelandic
religion, 0.7% of population) (Statistics Iceland, 2013).
Several policy initiatives have been developed in recent years as a
response to the changing demographics in Icelandic society on state and
municipal levels (Félagsmálaráðuneytið, 2007; Reykjavíkurborg, 2014).
While some aim at the integration of immigrants (Félagsmálaráðuneytið,
2007), other policies have broader aims with a focus on equality for all
in a multicultural society (Reykjanesbær, 2004; Reykjavíkurborg, 2014).
The Icelandic education system has gradually been responding to the
changing demographics in Icelandic society. It is grounded in equal rights
to education for all persons (Mennta- og menningarmálaráðuneytið,
2015). Legislation governing preschools, basic schools and upper sec-
ondary schools in Iceland (Lög um framhaldsskóla nr. 92/2008; Lög um
grunnskóla nr. 91/2008; Lög um leikskóla nr. 90/2008) are based on
principles of equality. These laws stipulate that schools should benefit all
students and educate each child effectively. Various municipalities have
developed policies where the growing diversity of students is addressed
(Reykjanesbær, 2004; Reykjavíkurborg, 2014).
In spite of an educational system based on principles of equality and
new policy initiatives, findings of research in Iceland have shown that
rapid demographic and social changes have resulted in the development
of new inequalities: the formation of obstacles for educational access
and participation for ethnic minority students, as well as social exclusion
(Bjarnason, 2006; Ragnarsdóttir, 2008; Ragnarsdóttir & Loftsdóttir,
2010). Furthermore, the findings of a recent study indicate that dropout
rates among young immigrants in upper secondary schools are higher than
the average in the European Union (EU) and the European Economic Area
(EEA) countries (Garðarsdóttir & Hauksson, 2011). Consequently, there
is a need to address structural as well as social inequalities in Icelandic soci-
ety. Exploring young people’s views on communication and participation
in an increasingly diverse Icelandic society is an important contribution to

a discussion on such inequalities.
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Globalization, Mobility and Communication in Diverse Societies

Globalization and international migration have produced transnational
communities and culturally diverse societies (Osler & Starkey, 2005).
In the introduction to their edited book Youth Moves: Identities and
Education in Global Perspective, Dolby and Rizvi (2008) argue that
increasingly, a large number of young people develop their identity within
a context of mobility. Quoting Bauman, they note that emerging global
cultural economies are ‘driven largely by the new information and com-
munication technologies that make it possible for people not only to travel
across vast distances but also to remain connected’ (Dolby & Rizvi, 2008,
p. 2). As a result of this, more complex identities emerge. According to
Dolby and Rizvi, young people ‘who have a multiple and mobile sense of
belonging view themselves as neither immigrants nor as tourists’ (Dolby
& Rizvi, 2008, p. 2), but ‘consider themselves to occupy an entirely dif-
ferent space’ (Dolby & Rizvi, 2008, p. 2). In a similar vein, in discussing
the contemporary world, Elliott and Urry (2010, p. 15) claim that ‘all
social relationships should be seen as involving diverse “connections” that
are more or less “at-a-distance”, more or less fast, more or less intense and
more or less involving physical movement’. Thus many connections with
peoples and social groupings are not based only upon propinquity, but
also on absence or imagined presence. How do the experiences of mul-
tiple and mobile sense of belonging affect young people’s competences for
communication? Is the term culture an important issue in understanding
these competences or are other issues more relevant to young people’s
contemporary world? Do other factors position young people unequally
in regard to communication and participation?
According to Parekh (2006), it is difficult to reach full equality in societies
as each society has one or more majority languages and no language or soci-
ety is culturally neutral. Therefore, obtaining equality in contemporary mul-
ticultural societies is a challenge. Each society needs to find its balance and
ensure equal opportunities and equal access through active communication
and agreements of groups. With the development of Icelandic society
towards increasing cultural diversity, the questions arise whether such
balance has been reached and how young people view and address the
diverse reality in their everyday lives and surroundings. Cummins (2009)
has discussed how the increasing mobility of people between countries has
given rise to social tensions ‘as societies find themselves dislodged from their
national identity comfort zone’ (Cummins, 2009, p. 53). In this respect, it
is interesting to consider whether young people’s travels and international
communication on the Internet as well as confronting various aspects of
diversity on a daily basis make diversity ordinary rather than a cause for
social tension, or even both at the same time.
Some authors have discussed cosmopolitanism as an important quality
in times of transnational communities and culturally diverse societies (see
Hansen, 2010; Osler & Starkey, 2005; Urry, 2003). Appiah (2006) notes
that, although disputed, cosmopolitanism is a useful concept in contem-
porary larger societies. According to Appiah, two strands intertwine in
the notion of cosmopolitanism: First, the idea that we have obligations to
others and second, that we take seriously the value of particular human
lives, taking an interest in the practices and beliefs that lend them sig-
nificance (Appiah, 2006, p. xv). In discussing the term cosmopolitanism,
Ong (1999) discusses the ‘need to identify a kind of progressive cosmo-
politan intellectual’ (Ong, 1999, p. 14), in order to disassociate the term
from ‘European bourgeois culture, capitalism, and colonial empires…’.
Related to this, Osler and Starkey (2005) have discussed the concept
of cosmopolitan citizenship. According to them, citizenship has three
essential and complementary dimensions; ‘It is a status, a feeling and a
practice’ (Osler & Starkey, 2005, p. 9). While citizenship is probably most
often understood as status, Osler and Starkey (2005) argue that citizen-
ship is also a feeling of belonging to a community of citizens and practice,
associated with democracy and human rights. Historically, citizenship has
mostly been related to nation states. The concept of cosmopolitan citizen-
ship refers to recognizing ‘universal, values as its standard for all contexts,
including national contexts’, stressing ‘those things that unite human
beings rather than what divides them’ (Osler & Starkey, 2005, p. 21).
Furthermore, according to Osler and Starkey (2005), a limited under-
standing of citizenship as a function of nationality is no longer adequate
and at odds with realities on the ground, as globalization has enabled the
development of a consciousness that identity is multiply situated.
On a similar note, in discussing a possibly emerging ‘cosmopolitan
global fluid’, Urry (2003, p. 133) notes that such fluid involves vari-
ous characteristics. These are: extensive mobility; curiosity about places,
peoples and cultures and a stance of openness to other peoples and cul-
tures; willingness to take risks by virtue of encountering various ‘others’;
and some global standards by which other places, cultures and people are
positioned and can be judged.
Bauman (2007) describes the consequences of this state as liquid mod-
ern times, where the social relationships of individuals become increasingly
complicated as they choose groups, ideas, values and attitudes, which again
are changeable (see Chap. 3, this volume). Similarly, identities can become
hybrid and changeable (Baumann, 1999; Giddens, 1997; Ragnarsdóttir,
2007; Suárez-Orozco & Suárez-Orozco, 2001). While there have been
many academic debates about clashes and challenges in modern multicul-
tural societies and the complexity of communication in such societies (see
Baumann, 1999; Holliday, 2011; Kymlicka, 1996; Parekh, 2006; Vertovec
& Wessendorf, 2010), rather few have focused on how young people experi-
encing such societies feel about their communication and participation.
Intercultural Competences and Intercultural Dialogue

in Contemporary Societies
When discussing competences for communication and participation in
diverse societies, it is important to consider the concepts intercultural
competences (ICs) and intercultural dialogue.
In an article on the challenges of developing IC in Europe, Hoskins and
Sallah (2011) trace the use of the terminology of culture within European
policy and practice, and explore the effectiveness of the use of culture in
addressing discrimination at an individual and structural level. They criti-
cize definitions of IC and dialogue which place the onus on people to take
responsibility at the individual level, while the obligation of mainstream
organizations and public bodies to address discrimination and oppression
is often overlooked. They argue further that:
The mainstream services that interact with people, in a multicultural, multi-

ethnic and multi-faith society have the responsibility to ensure that their
staff has the required skills, knowledge and resources to effectively engage
with everyone in the public sphere regardless of their race, ethnicity, religion
or background. (Hoskins & Sallah, 2011, p. 121)
Hoskins and Sallah (2011) argue that the approach of IC needs to

be more political and more involved in dismantling the structures that
oppress. May’s (2011) writing on critical multiculturalism is useful in
this context. He argues that a theory of multiculturalism requires a cen-

tral recognition of unequal power relations and emphasizes that culture
needs to be understood as part of the discourse of power and inequality.
Similarly, definitions and understanding of IC need to address unequal
power relations.
In the European context, Barrett (2011) discusses the Council of
Europe’s White Paper on Intercultural Dialogue from 2008, which proposes
that ‘intercultural dialogue offers the best approach for managing issues of
cultural diversity within contemporary societies’. He notes that the White
Paper defines intercultural dialogue as ‘the open and respectful exchange
of views between individuals and groups from different ethnic, religious,
linguistic and national backgrounds on the basis of mutual understanding
and respect’, arguing that such dialogue is crucial for promoting tolerance
and understanding, preventing conflicts, and enhancing societal cohesion.
Barett (2011) also discusses how these competences need to be learned,
practised and maintained. In the same chapter, Barrett refers to a variety
of models that have been developed on ICs and are outlined in Spitzberg
and Changnon (2009), who claim that these models can be classified into
five types: compositional models; co-orientational models; developmental
models; adaptational models; and causal process models. Do such models
provide us with an explanation and understanding of communication in
modern diverse societies? Do they shed light on the realities and under-
standing of young people?
To summarize, it is important that the use of the concept of IC acknowl-
edges unequal power relations and allows for a broad definition of culture.
METHOD
The first study introduced in the chapter is a three-year project (2011–2014)
based on both quantitative and qualitative research methods. The aim of the
study was to explore the life views and life values of young people in Icelandic
society. The sample is students (18–24 years) in upper secondary schools in
Reykjavík and the countryside. A survey and focus groups (Cohen, Manion,
& Morrison, 2000) were used for data collection in seven upper secondary
schools in different areas of Iceland, three schools in Reykjavík, the capital
and four schools, each in a different area around the country. In the survey,
conducted in 2011–2012, participants were asked about background infor-
mation, such as gender, age, nationality, mother language and religious affil-
iation. They also responded to 77 different statements (Likert scale) about
their life views and life values, identities, well-being, communication and
attitudes towards others, and diversity. Issues such as tolerance, prejudice,

equality, human rights and religious needs were addressed in the survey.
There were 904 participants. Findings from the survey provided the basis
for focus-group interviews with mixed groups (in terms of gender and back-
ground, one in each of five schools in the study) of students in 2013–2014.
The interviews lasted approximately one and a half hours each and were all
conducted in Icelandic. They were coded thematically and categorized into
main themes (Flick, 2006; Kvale, 1996), which were: views about diversity;
religions and life views; family, friends and communication; schools; fear,
anxiety and bullying; human rights, equality, freedom and justice; visions for
the future and growing up; and other.
Methods in the second study included individual in-depth and semi-
structured interviews with nine young immigrants, six young women and
three young men in the 16–24 age range. Purposive sampling was used to
track the individuals, who all participated in the author’s previous study,
among ten immigrant families in Iceland (2002–2005). The aim of the
study was to explore the young immigrants’ experiences of living and
studying in Icelandic society for ten years. Two of the participants are
originally European; from two European countries and seven originally
Asian; from three Asian countries. They belong to five families. Questions
in the interviews centred on their daily lives, their education and work,
their social networks and friends, their connections with Icelandic soci-
ety and their countries of origin, as well as their future plans. An effort
was made to learn about their personal histories and experiences since the
author’s earlier research was concluded, which included their families. The
interviews lasted approximately one hour each and were all conducted in
Icelandic. Coding and categorization of data was thematic (Flick, 2006;
Kvale, 1996). The main themes that emerged from the data were: adapt-
ing to a new society; experiences of schooling and social network; lan-
guages; visions for the future.
The findings are introduced separately for the two studies.
FINDINGS
Young people´s views on communcation

and participation in a diverse Icelandic society
The following sub-sections introduce some findings from the sur-
vey and focus groups in the first study concerning communication and
participation.
The Participants
Altogether 904 students 18–24 years participated in the survey, 491
females (54.3%) and 413 (45.7%) males. The background of the students
is in broad terms as follows: Table 5.1 shows the origins of parents of
the participants. The parents of 89.15% of the participants are Icelandic,
while 8.4% of the participants have one parent of non-Icelandic origins.
Participants who have both parents of non-Icelandic origins are 2.2%.
Background information on first languages spoken in participants’
homes reveals that 92.1% of participants have Icelandic as a first language,
while 5.9% of participants have Icelandic and another European language,
0.2% of participants mention Icelandic and an Asian language as first lan-
guages and 0.2% mention Asian language only, while European languages
other than Icelandic are mentioned by 1.1% of participants. Information
given by participants on religious affiliation reveals that 59.3% of par-
ticipants claim to belong to the National Church of Iceland (Christian
Evangelical Lutheran Church) or Christian religion more broadly, while
23.8% of participants claim to be non-religious or not to belong to reli-
gious associations. 6.6% of participants claim to belong to other religious
associations than Christian. However, 10% of the participants (89 partici-
pants) did not reply to the question on religious affiliation.
The overview on background information of the participants reveals
that the participants are a diverse group in terms of origins of parents,
languages and religions, although the majority are Icelandic and claim to
be Christian.
Table 5.1 Origins of

Numbers %
parents
Iceland 806 89.15
Iceland/Nordic countries 25 2.8
Iceland/other European 27 3.0
countries
Iceland/USA or Canada 8 0.9
Iceland/other areas 15 1.7
Europe 11 1.2
Asia 5 0.6
Latin America 4 0.4
No reply 3 0.3
Total 904 100.0
Below, some main findings related to conceptions of culture, back-

ground and religions in an increasingly diverse Icelandic society are
introduced.
Culture, Background, Religions and Communication

in a Diverse Icelandic Society
In response to one of the statements in the survey: My culture and back-
ground is very important to me, 84% of girls and 77% of boys agreed or
agreed strongly with the statement. If we look at cultural background the
young people having mixed or foreign background (89%) are more likely
to agree or agree strongly to the statement than those with both parents as
Icelanders (79%). Response to the statement Taking different cultural and
religious traditions into account is important in Table 5.2 gives a higher
proportion of positive responses.
Of the participants, 88.3% agreed or agreed strongly. Around 90%
of the girls agreed or agreed strongly to the statement and 81% of the
boys. Almost all (98%) of the young people having mixed or foreign back-
ground agreed or agreed strongly to this statement but only 79% of those
with both parents as Icelanders. Responses to these two statements may
indicate that there is generally a positive atmosphere among young people
towards different cultural and religious traditions and an understanding of
the importance of taking different traditions into account. This could also
indicate positive views towards equality in society, although the statement
could be interpreted in different ways.
However, taking different cultural and religious traditions into account
does not appear as clearly in responses to the statement All religious orga-
nizations should be able to flourish and build their places of worship, where
58% of participants’ responses agree or agree strongly, while 24% disagree
or disagree strongly and 14% claim not to know. Recent media coverages
Table 5.2 Responses

Numbers %
to ‘Taking different
cultural and religious Agree strongly 451 50.2
traditions into account is Agree 342 38.1
important’ Disagree 39 4.3
Disagree 27 3
strongly
Don’t know 39 4.3
No reply 6 0.6
Table 5.3 Diversity (of

Numbers %
backgrounds) is impor-
tant for Icelandic society. Agree strongly 179 20.0
Agree 374 41.7
Disagree 119 13.3
Di sagree 47 5.2
strongly
Don’t know 177 19.8
No reply 8 0.8
on religious buildings, often with negative undertones may have influ-

enced responses to this particular statement.
Responses to the statement on diversity in Icelandic society in Table
5.3 are equally interesting. Around 62% of participants agree or strongly
agree on the statement that Diverse backgrounds or origins are important
for Icelandic society, while 18.5% disagree or strongly disagree and around
20% do not know. These findings may reveal some insecurity towards the
multicultural society and are in some contrast to the flexibility towards
diverse cultural and religious traditions appearing in Table 5.2.
As discussed earlier, the main findings of the survey provided a basis for
the focus-group interviews where the main issues were explored further. In
the focus-group interviews, cultural and religious diversity was discussed
openly and extensively by the participants. The young people generally
positioned themselves firmly within the diverse society and opposed the
forming of any types of divisions based on people’s backgrounds, cultures
and religions. They expressed a general belief in equality and human rights
and the will to stand up and take action in case of injustice. Furthermore,
a sense of religious pluralism was expressed by some of the students as the
following example from a young man reveals:
Yes, I am … registered in the national church but I don’t define myself as a

Christian but I … have been reading about various religions … Buddhism
and eastern philosophy and I am enthusiastic about this, but could not, not
yet at least, define myself as a Buddhist.
A young woman added:
I do not think much about whether I am religious or whether I believe in god

or … I am registered in the national church and christened and confirmed
but somehow it is not much part of my daily life but … of course one should
just respect everyone and everyone is entitled to their opinion and I have
nothing against this … I mean everyone just has their belief and this is fine.
The young people generally had strong opinions about diversity and
prejudice and how to counteract the negative effects of prejudice in com-
munication. One young man noted that:
If I am with friends of different backgrounds and you know, the fact that
he is of a different background …, does not bother me … I do not feel any
prejudice or such, I am not saying that there is no prejudice in this society…
Referring to religious backgrounds this discussion took place in one of the

focus groups:
Researcher: How would you describe your general view of life?

V1: To give everyone a fair chance.
V2: Yes, to trust everyone until they show distrust or something like
this.
V1: It does not matter how a person looks, how she behaves, if she
behaves well towards me I behave well towards her.
Several statements in the survey were directly related to racism and

prejudice. A statement on racism, Racism is never justifiable (see Table 5.4)
gives positive results.
Findings in Table 5.4 reveal that around 90% of participants agree or
strongly agree on the statement. 7.7% disagree or disagree strongly and
2.8% don’t know or did not reply. It is interesting to consider what these
numbers indicate. Are these findings related to the multicultural society
generally and discussion or lack of discussion on this development in soci-
ety? Can these findings perhaps be linked to negative media coverages on
immigrants or particular groups of immigrants?
To follow up, in the focus groups, equality and prejudice were dis-
cussed openly. One young woman described these in the following way:
I think, concerning equality in society, that there is, unfortunately… a lot

of prejudice against religious groups but… I think it is becoming less, you
know 15 years ago it was more open… why are they like this, they are differ-
ent but… now people… perhaps think like this… but do not say it openly…
Table 5.4 Responses to

Numbers %
the ‘Racism is never justi-
fiable’ statement Agree strongly 692 76.9
Agree 117 13
Disagree 36 4
Disagree 33 3.7
strongly
Don’t know 22 2.4
No reply 4 0.4
you know you should not be prejudiced and I think that it is decreasing and
with new generations it is becoming less and less obvious.
A young man added to this: ‘It is a certain belief in man’. The focus
group agreed.
In the focus groups tolerance was also discussed as well as empathy. A
discussion between three young people was as follows:
V1: It is to be able to completely put yourself in another’s shoes and bor-

row their eyes.
V3: Just be open to something else.
V2: And these are just the golden rules from Christianity, treat others as
you want to be treated, show others tolerance and they will show you
tolerance.
Another conversation on tolerance was as follows:
V2: You just need to show tolerance and really learn to show tolerance in
a society where there are so many different religions.
V1: So many people think… that they can and are doing this but are not
really doing this, but I think… at least everything is getting better and
becoming better and I feel that most people are positive…
V2: Now that they are discussing, this discussion about the mosque is
going on, about that a mosque should not be allowed, I think we are
just taking a step backwards in not allowing it.
A few questions in the survey were linked directly to individuals and

communication in the multicultural society. To the statement I think it’s
Table 5.5 Responses to

Numbers %
the ‘I think I can learn a
lot from having friends Agree strongly 395 43.8
with different backgrounds’ Agree 356 39.5
statement Disagree 35 3.9
Disagree 14 1.6
strongly
Don’t know 102 11.3
No reply 2 0.2
important to have friends that have another mother tongue (first language)
only 24% agreed or agreed strongly. No gender differences appeared. In
the responses to this question, it was interesting how many of the young
people were not certain (29 %). Of those with both parents Icelandic
22.7% agreed or agreed strongly compared to 35.5% of the young people
having mixed or foreign background. Another related statement, I think
I can learn a lot from having friends with different backgrounds reveals
very different responses, as appear in Table 5.5. At the same time as half
of the young people do not think it’s important to have friends that have
another mother tongue, over 83% claim they can learn a lot from having
friends with different backgrounds. Of these, 87% of the girls agreed or
agreed strongly but only 75% of the boys. Only one of the young people
having mixed or foreign background disagreed to the statement and none
of them disagreed strongly.
Somewhat fewer agree or agree strongly on the statement
Communication of people of different origins are important to me. Here,
61.5% of participants agree or strongly agree on this statement. Around
22% disagree or disagree strongly and around 17% answer that they do
not know. It is interesting to compare these findings with responses to the
statement It is rewarding to associate with people who have different opinions
than I have. Around 90% agree or agree strongly on this statement, while
around 4% disagree or disagree strongly and 6.6% claim they do not know.
Here the focus is on different opinions generally rather than the different
origins in the statement above and this could explain the difference in
responses.
Some examples from the extensive survey and focus group interviews
have been introduced above. To summarize, findings of the study indi-
cate that the majority of the young people participating in the survey are
positive towards the increasingly diverse Icelandic society and do not see
differences in cultures, backgrounds and religions as an obstacle for com-
munication. This is further emphasized in the focus-group interviews.
The focus-group interviews also reflect the complexity and liquidity of the
young people’s identities.
In the following sub-section, some findings from the second study,
with young immigrants, will be introduced.
Views of Young Immigrants in Icelandic Society

In this study, the nine young immigrants’ (age 16–24) experiences of living
and studying in Icelandic society for ten years were explored. Questions in
the interviews centred on their daily lives, their education and work, their
social networks and friends, their connections with Icelandic society and
their countries of origin, as well as their future plans. The main findings
indicate that the participants in the study have all successfully adapted to
Icelandic society and take a positive stand towards it. They claim to be
happy about their lives in Iceland and have positive visions of the future.
They describe how they have become used to living in Iceland and how
they identify at least partly with Icelandic society. One of the participants
said:
I have been here for nine years… half of my life was here… It is a little
difficult now: I go every year to [the country of origin], two weeks, three
weeks or a month, it differs. But, now I find it difficult to live abroad, in [the
country of origin]… Now I am so used to living in Iceland…
Some of the young immigrants see themselves as having mixed or

hybrid identities, partly Icelandic and partly belonging to their country
of origin. One of the young women described herself as being ‘sort of
fifty-fifty’. However, most of them talked about being citizens of the
world or cosmopolitans rather than belonging to two cultures, being
able to live and work wherever they may choose. One of the young
men said:
I am going to finish [school] here first… perhaps live anywhere, I don’t

really care… where English can be used… just work there and travel… go
wherever I can, not stay in one place… rather change and see something
new.
They appear to have managed to use their experiences in a new society

and the opportunities it provides for their own benefit. They talk about
their experiences of immigrating to Iceland having formed them as indi-
viduals and provided them with both open-mindedness and serenity. The
young immigrants all have interesting future plans in work and education,
both in Iceland and elsewhere. These individuals see many opportunities
resulting from their immigrant background and experiences from living in
two or more countries. The fact that they seem to enjoy the best of both
worlds, their country of origin and Iceland, and have plans to use their
experiences for their benefit could be related to the environment they are
brought up in. They have been able to be active in Icelandic society and
schools, as well as their country of origin, thus ensuring contact with dif-
ferent cultures and societies. The young immigrants do not seem to have
experienced pressure to assimilate, rather to enjoy the best of both worlds.
Their parents seem to have supported them in making their own choices
regarding participation and communication in both societies, for example
by travelling back to their countries of origin regularly and communicat-
ing with their relatives there, thus keeping different options open for their
future.
To summarize, the main findings of the research indicate that the
participants in the study feel that they have all successfully adapted to
Icelandic society and take a positive stand towards it. They emphasize the
possibilities that their experience of living in two countries has brought
them and how they can make use of these experiences in their future work.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
The aim of the chapter was to explore which factors young people in
Iceland see as being important for active communication and participa-
tion in a diverse society. Questions considered in the chapter also included
whether these young people relate obstacles for communication to their
different origins, cultures, values, religions or other factors, or whether
they consider these as irrelevant factors. Although the two studies intro-
duced in the chapter are limited to around 900 young people in Iceland,
they provide important indications of how young people view communi-
cation and participation in a society that is becoming increasingly diverse.
Young people’s views on communication in a contemporary diverse soci-
ety can provide indications concerning what competences are important
for communication and participation in diverse societies more generally.
The views of the young people in the two studies are generally positive
towards diversity and opposed to inequality based on diversity. The find-
ings indicate that the young people see diversity as a normal or intrinsic
part of their society and their daily life and do not describe different ori-
gins, cultures, values or religions as obstacles for communication. These
views and attitudes indicate or connote that the young people share certain
competences for communication in a diverse society, which may perhaps
be defined as intercultural. Some of them describe themselves as cosmo-
politan and discuss various competences that they see as important for
participation and communication. Their attitudes reflect an understanding
similar to the ‘diverse diversities’ discussed in the introduction, rather than
cultural boxes.
As discussed earlier, in recent years Icelandic society has changed rap-
idly from a relatively homogeneous to a more diverse society. Young
people are presently under the influence of international communica-
tion through the Internet and increasing travels (Dolby & Rizvi, 2008;
Elliott & Urry, 2010). Such communication across borders influences
young people’s identities (Banks, 2007). The findings from the survey
introduced in this chapter indicate that the young people are generally
positive towards communication with peers that have different opinions
and find they learn a lot from having friends of different backgrounds.
One can draw the conclusion that the international and intercultural com-
munication in their daily lives and the rapid societal changes they have
experienced may have influenced their identities and views strongly. The
positive attitudes towards diversity generally that appear in the findings
are hopefully indications of a development of a strong diverse society in
Iceland. It may also be an indication of a strong sense of equality that
around 90% of participants in the survey agree or strongly agree on the
statement that racism is never justifiable. At the same time, it is a mat-
ter of concern that not all participants agree with this statement. Also, it
may be a matter of concern that only around 62% of participants agree or
strongly agree on the statement that diverse backgrounds or origins are
important for Icelandic society. It is likely that Icelandic society in general
and its political and educational systems need to address issues of diversity
and multiculturalism more thoroughly and find their balance with active
communication with groups and individuals without losing the necessary
cohesion (Parekh, 2006). Responses to the statements on diversity in the
survey indicate that diversity is for many of the young people a normal
state rather than a cause of tension (Cummins, 2009). Communication on
the Internet on a daily basis and frequent travels of many young people in
Iceland are likely to affect their views on diversity.
When considering quotes from the focus-group interviews with mixed
groups of young people and the individual interviews with young immi-
grants, concepts such as cosmopolitanism (Appiah, 2006; Hansen, 2010;
Ong, 1999) and cosmopolitan citizenship (Osler & Starkey, 2005) come
to mind. Osler and Starkey’s (2005) definition of the concept of cosmo-
politan citizenship as including ‘universal values as its standard for all con-
texts, including national contexts’, and stressing ‘those things that unite
human beings rather than what divides them’ (Osler & Starkey, 2005,
p. 21) relates to the comments of the young people in the research.
Similarly, Urry’s (2003) emerging ‘cosmopolitan global fluid’ can be a
useful concept in understanding the young people’s views on commu-
nication in the increasingly diverse Icelandic society. Findings from the
focus groups and individual interviews also reveal a sense of hybrid and
changeable identities among some of the young people (Baumann, 1999;
Giddens, 1997; Suárez-Orozco & Suárez-Orozco, 2001; see Chap. 3, this
volume).
According to the findings of the two studies introduced in this chapter,
critical and hybrid (May, 2011) and political (Hoskins & Sallah, 2011)
models of IC can be useful in understanding how the young people view
communication in a diverse society as well as the notion of cosmopolitan-
ism (Appiah, 2006). Combining these models potentially sheds light on
their realities and understanding. Findings from the two studies indicate
that the young people’s views and perhaps also identities stretch across
national and cultural borders—imagined or not—and that they see them-
selves as belonging to a more complex and cosmopolitan reality (see
Chaps. 6–8, this volume).
The findings from the studies introduced in this chapter provide impor-
tant indications of young people’s views towards diverse values, cultures
and religions in a society that has recently become increasingly diverse.
More extensive research with young people in contemporary diverse soci-
eties is likely to provide interesting data on their complex daily realities
and potentially important guidelines in defining competences for com-
munication in diverse societies.
Funding
The research was funded by the University of Iceland Research Fund, The
School of Education, University of Iceland and the Research Centre for
Multicultural Studies, University of Iceland.
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PART II
Renewing Intercultural Competence:

Beyond Established Models?
CHAPTER 6
Intercultural Competence and the Promise

of Understanding
Giuliana Ferri
SETTING THE SCENE
Notwithstanding the contribution of postcolonial notions of subjectivity
that emphasize the hybrid nature of a third space (Bhabba, 1994), the
category of culture remains at the centre of intercultural communication
theory. I agree with both Dervin (2011) and Holliday (2011) in point-
ing not only to essentialist intercultural communication theory with its
rigid attribution of cultural identity along national lines (e.g., Hofstede &
Hofstede, 2004), but also to neo-essentialist uses of culture, particularly
in the field of intercultural foreign language education. In fact, Cole and
Meadows (2013) write of an ‘essentialist trap’, highlighting a paradox of
intercultural communication: although there is a growing awareness of the
dangers of essentialism, culture and language are still considered discrete
entities, a fact that Holliday (2011) defines in terms of methodological
nationalism and which derives from the association between learning a
foreign language and a foreign culture. Thus, neo-essentialism describes
the situation ‘where educators recognise the limits of essentialism but nev-
ertheless reinforce it’ (Cole & Meadows, 2013, p. 30). Taking an anti-
essentialist stance, I focus on the first term of the word intercultural, the
G. Ferri ( )
Centre for Professional Education, University of Warwick, Warwick, UK

DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-58733-6_6
98 G. FERRI
‘inter-’, to argue in favour of a shift from culture to the dynamic process of

communication, in order to highlight the dialogic character of interaction
and its unpredictability.
In regard to the notion of competence, Byram argues that academic
research has been preoccupied primarily with the necessities of interna-
tional trade, leaving under-theorized the aspect relating to the creation
of a framework for dialogue that will provide ‘a better understanding of
human beings and their potential’ (2011, p. 20). In this sense, Byram
delineates a research agenda for intercultural competence (IC) based on
the problematization and critique of current theory, in order to provide
the conceptual work needed before the collection of empirical data. This
conceptual work, including philosophical inquiry, is not limited to the
description of a phenomenon but postulates ‘the possible forms it might
take’ and evaluates ‘the effects these might have’ (2011, p. 33). In this
particular context philosophical inquiry can be employed to analyse the
role of the notion of competence in the intercultural field,
Philosophical inquiry is also necessary for the analysis of the concept of

‘competence’ which has easily become attached to the notion of the inter-
cultural. (2011, p. 33)
In line with this critique, I adopt an interdisciplinary approach in the

form of a philosophical investigation into the epistemological assumptions
of the concept of competence and the ethical implications for intercultural
dialogue. From this perspective, I critique the epistemological underpin-
nings of the notion of IC as it is conceptualized in two frameworks that
are paradigmatic of current thinking in intercultural research: the pyramid
model (Deardorff, 2009) and the Intercultural Competence for Professional
Mobility (ICOPROMO) project (Glaser, Guilherme, del Carmen Méndez
García, & Mughan, 2007).
First, I illustrate the notion of tolerance as it is conceptualized by
Derrida (2006) in relation to the concept of hospitality, and I propose
a guiding principle for intercultural communication based on the idea of
deferred understanding, meaning the acceptance of risk taking and incom-
pleteness in communication. Following from this, I introduce the notion
of subjectivity as it is formulated by Levinas (1998, 2006), which pro-
vides an account of the relationship between self and other that informs
a dialogic, ethical and open-ended understanding of communication in
the form of presence to one another as corporeal, embodied subjects who
INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCE AND THE PROMISE OF UNDERSTANDING 99
co-construct meanings. In the light of this philosophical discussion, I cri-

tique the pyramid model of competence and the ICOPROMO project.
Finally, I sketch an alternative understanding of competence that relies on
a dialogic idea of communication closely aligned to a Levinasian interpre-
tation of the ethical, which is connected to the experiential sphere and the
bodily aspects of lived human subjectivity.
THE PROMISE OF UNDERSTANDING

Vandenabeele (2003) warns against the danger of creating another ‘grand
narrative’ (Lyotard, 1984) of intercultural communication, highlighting
the danger of universalizing an ideal of understanding and communicative
transparency based on the value of unambiguous information (Block &
Cameron, 2002) and on the ideas of tolerance and understanding from the
hegemonic perspective of a dominant cultural position (Holliday, 2011).
This ‘grand narrative’ of efficiency in communicating across cultures is
evident in formulations of IC and intercultural training programmes that
focus on the acquisition of communicative skills to deal effectively with the
other (e.g., Deardorff, 2009; Spencer-Oatey & Stadler, 2009).
This ideal of fulfilment and completeness in communication is ascribed by
Derrida (1974, 1984, 1997) to a metaphysics of presence. In other words,
Western metaphysical tradition refers to an original signified that encloses
truth within a system of binary oppositions, in which one term is identified
with full presence—or truth, and the other term, the negative, with the loss of
presence (Bradley, 2008; Derrida, 1997; Norris, 1982). As MacDonald and
O’Regan (2012) argue, an instance of this metaphysics of presence in inter-
cultural communication theory is reflected in the opposition between toler-
ance and intolerance: the positive value of tolerance of the other, achieved
through intercultural understanding, is opposed to the negative value of
intolerance and refusal of the ‘cultural other’. Thus, according to this meta-
physics of presence, on the one side intercultural theory embraces and cel-
ebrates cultural difference, while on the other it aims for a final moment of
reconciliation of all differences in the unity of universal tolerance.
In contrast to this ideal of universal tolerance and of a final unity of
understanding, I refer to the notions of promise, hospitality and deferred
understanding, which recur throughout Derrida’s philosophical investi-
gations. The promise is described in the notion of a ‘disjointed’ tempo-
rality that is irreducible to presence (Derrida, 1994; Wortham, 2010),
meaning that there is an element that remains irreducible to the system of
100 G. FERRI
binary oppositions of Western metaphysics, which is described by Derrida

in terms of a promise of hospitality without reserve. This idea of hospital-
ity is better illustrated through Derrida’s deconstruction of the notion of
tolerance.
Derrida contrasts the idea of tolerance, intended in terms of ‘conde-
scending concession’, and ‘a form of charity’ (Borradori, 2003, p. 127), to
that of unconditional hospitality. The inherent contradiction in the notion
of tolerance is expressed with the word hostipitality: the word hospitality
carries within itself its own contradiction, in the word host-hostility,
The welcomed guest (hôte) is a stranger treated as a friend or ally, as opposed

to the stranger treated as an enemy (friend/enemy, hospitality/hostility).
(Borradori, 2003, p. 127)
This means that the welcome conferred upon a guest is dependent on

the goodwill of the host, and that the welcome can be withdrawn, turning
into hostility, if the rules imposed to the guest are not observed. These
rules are defined by Derrida as the law of the household,
Where it is precisely the patron of the house—he who receives, who is mas-
ter in his house, in his household, in his state, in his nation, in his city, in his
town, who remains master in his house—who defines the conditions of hos-
pitality or welcome; where consequently there can be no unconditional wel-
come, no unconditional passage through the door. (Derrida, 2006, p. 210)
In fact, the exercise of tolerance is dependent on a conditional wel-

come, which can be withdrawn to exclude the welcomed. Although
unconditional hospitality is in itself impossible, this notion provides an
idea of perfectibility guiding the rules that govern conditional hospitality,
regulated by politics and the law. In other words, unconditional hospital-
ity is experienced in the tension between the act and its realization.
In this sense, Derrida’s deconstruction of the word hospitality resonates
with the distinction that I propose here in relation to intercultural com-
munication theory between two forms of understanding, one intended
in terms of a promise of final reconciliation and universal tolerance, and
the other in terms of a promise of deferred understanding which is con-
stantly renewed in the practice of communication and thus remains open-
ended. This distinction addresses the problematic nature of the notion of
tolerance of the cultural practices of the other employed in intercultural
theory, which leaves the conceptualization of the relationship self/other

open to this internal contradiction highlighted by Derrida and which I
analyse next in reference to Levinasian ethics.
LEVINAS: THE VULNERABILITY OF THE SUBJECT

In the context of intercultural theory an understanding of the role of the
other in shaping interaction is a crucial determinant in the task of redefin-
ing an idea of competence that is based on the interdependence of self and
other. To this purpose, I contrast the Kantian presuppositions of current
notions of IC with the concept of Levinasian heteronomy intended in
terms of hospitality without reserve and deferred understanding.
In Kantian autonomy, persons are ends in themselves in virtue of their
rationality and thus each person is a moral legislator, according to the
dictates of the moral imperative guided by reason (Kant, 1983). This con-
ception of the self as moral legislator can be observed in the notion of
tolerance that underpins IC. According to this ethics of autonomy, the
competent intercultural speaker is able to determine in advance the out-
come of communication through the acquisition of communicative tools
that are used responsibly by the moral agent in interaction with a cultural
other, who is the recipient of this act (Ferri, 2014). In contrast to this
understanding of ethical autonomy, an appreciation of Levinasian ethics
suggests a different approach to intercultural communication, because the
position of the moral agent as legislator is destabilized by the presence of
the other.
The notion of the face (Levinas, 1998, 2006) conveys the ethical effect
of an encounter with the other that reveals the vulnerability of existence,
indicating the proximity and corporeality of the other person facing the
self. In the context of intercultural theory, I propose an understanding of
the other that emphasizes the materiality of the embodied other facing the
self (Sparrow, 2013). As an illustration of this reading, in the following
quote Levinas explains that, as opposed to ontological knowledge of the
other, the ethical relation is established in the presence of self and other in
their materiality, as embodied beings,
I do not know if one can speak of a ‘phenomenology’ of the face, since

phenomenology describes what appears. So, too, I wonder if one can speak
of a look turned toward the face, for the look is knowledge, perception. I
think rather that access to the face is straightaway ethical. You turn yourself
toward the Other as toward an object when you see a nose, eyes, forehead,
102 G. FERRI
a chin, and you can describe them. The best way of encountering the Other
is not even to notice the colour of his eyes! When one observes the colour
of the eyes one is not in social relationship with the Other. The relation with
the face can surely be dominated by perception, but what is specifically the
face is what cannot be reduced to that. (Levinas, 1985, pp. 85–86)
Understood in this way, ‘the whole human body is in this sense more or
less face’ (Levinas, 1985, p. 99). Thus, obligation towards the other is not
the result of a formal or procedural universalization of maxims, because
ethics is lived in the corporeal obligation that originates from the imma-
nent, here and now, meeting with the other (Critchley, 1999). Here, I
understand that in the presence of another being we are compelled to
respond, although in relation to the phrase ‘straightaway ethical’ employed
by Levinas, I contend that it does not imply necessarily a conception of
‘goodness’ as it is commonly used in reference to a moral judgement, rather
it expresses the practical engagement established with an other in the praxis
of everydayness and communication, which also harbours the possibility of
hostility, fear and even violence. Understood in this sense, ethical engage-
ment assumes a different connotation due to the acknowledgment of the
possibility of miscommunication, misunderstanding and failure to establish
dialogue, which is entailed in a conception of intercultural communication
that recognizes the dimension of risk taking and open-ended engagement
between self and other.
IC AND INDIVIDUAL AUTONOMY
Following from the theoretical discussion relating to the idea of hospital-
ity and to the ethical status of the self in the encounter with the other, I
focus on the critique of two models of competence. These two models
illustrate the Kantian ideal of an autonomous and self-sufficient self who
is in control of the interaction and is unaffected by the role played by the
other in communication. In particular, I draw attention to an epistemo-
logical issue, which I identify in the passage from a mono-cultural self to
inter-relationality that is postulated in both the pyramid model and the
ICOPROMO project as a result of the acquisition of skills and ICs.
Whereas the notion of a mono-cultural identity is unproblematized in
both frameworks, I adopt a critical stance in relation to the idea of an ideal-
ized self as expression of a national culture and of a national language. This
idealized self indicates an essentialist orientation according to which cultures
are clearly defined entities delimited by national boundaries. From this per-
spective, Street (1993) attributes essentialism to the use of nominalization
imported from scientific discourse, which turns culture into a natural entity
that determines individual behaviour. To this use of the notion of culture,
Street opposes the idea of culture as a verb, describing meanings as contingent
and unstable, constantly negotiated in everyday life and culture as a discur-
sive construction built in interaction (see Chap. 7, this volume). Similarly,
Coupland (2007) refers to the term styling to indicate culture as the shaping
of social meanings through the use of semiotic resources.
To the critique of mono-cultural identity as expression of an essentialist
conception of culture, I add another dimension relating to ethics. As the
contrast between Kantian autonomy and Levinasian heteronomy suggests,
the notion of mono-culturality is rooted in the ideal of a self-sufficient and
self-governing individual reflected in the conception of ethical autonomy
of Western liberal tradition. With the critical reading of the two models
of competence I aim to tease out this particular aspect relating to ethical
autonomy and I argue for a different conceptualization of the relation
between self and other based on dialogism.
THE PYRAMID MODEL AND THE ICOPROMO PROJECT

With the critical reading of two competence frameworks, in this section
I delineate the features of the autonomous Kantian individual who is in
control of the interaction. In reference to Derrida’s ethics of hospitality, I
highlight the limitations of cultural tolerance that emerge in the two mod-
els and I contrast the value of autonomy with that of interdependence.
The notion of competence delineated by Deardorff (2006, 2009) aims
to provide a framework to guide intercultural dialogue according to a
pyramid model in which the main four elements are ordered hierarchi-
cally: attitudes, skills, knowledge, internal and external outcomes. These
elements can be applied to a variety of contexts to guide and assess the
development of IC. In this model, IC is defined in terms of effective-
ness in communication. The final outcome of the process of acquisition of
competences allows the self to move from the personal level, represented
by attitudes, to an interpersonal and interactive level. This conclusion,
however, poses an issue. Although the acquisition of the required attitudes
leads to appropriate cultural behaviours in intercultural situations, the role
of the other in shaping competence is neglected in the emphasis placed on
skills and measurable, realistic outcomes.
104 G. FERRI
As a consequence, what Deardorff interprets as inter-relationality

stands for a change in behaviour generating from a static notion of cul-
ture occurring after the acquisition of competences, rather than through
a process of transformation originating from the ‘inter’, the processual act
of interaction. The essentialist attribution of cultural traits arises from an
abstraction according to which an autonomous and self-sufficient indi-
vidual acquires the skills to deal with the representative of a cultural tra-
dition, the ‘other’. In contrast to this conceptualization of the relation
between self and other, in this chapter I bring forward the idea discussed
in relation to Levinas that self and other meet in the materiality of practical
engagement, as embodied subjects and not as abstract entities. Before I
describe the features of dialogic engagement, envisioned according to this
Levinasian perspective, I discuss the representation autonomy of the self
in the ICOPROMO project.
As in Deardorff’s pyramid model, responding to the necessities of
global trade represents a major preoccupation in the ICOPROMO model
(Glaser et al., 2007). However, the ICOPROMO project combines the
preoccupation with professional development in competitive markets and
the idea of transformation. Indeed, this model of competence is defined
‘transformational’ because,
it articulates the journey the individual undergoes when becoming aware of

intercultural challenges as a result of his/her mobility or that of others with
whom he/she must communicate effectively. (Glaser et al., 2007, p. 15)
Similarly to Deardorff’s model, this training programme is targeted at

educators and facilitators working with undergraduates, graduate students
and professionals who need to develop language and cultural awareness
in order to interact effectively in intercultural situations. The transforma-
tional journey of the individual towards the acquisition of competences is
represented by a traffic light in which the individual is initially positioned
on the red light prior to the development of intercultural skills, moving to
the amber and green lights once she becomes able to interact effectively
with cultural difference. The theoretical premise of this journey is individ-
uated by the authors in the necessities presented by the ‘new world order’,
meaning the global flows of trade and communication developed after
World War II, which in their account has exposed individuals to a higher
intensity of cultural difference and consequently to challenges that are lin-
guistic, cultural and emotional. Crucially, the authors define the individual
in terms of a ‘mono-cultural identity’ (Glaser et al., 2007, p. 16), and as a
consequence the main aim of the training programme is to cause an attitu-

dinal change towards the other, with the ability to dispel stereotypes about
‘members of a foreign culture’ (Glaser et al., 2007, p. 16).
As mentioned above, the transformational aims of the ICOPROMO
model are based on the notion of a ‘new world order’ that poses the chal-
lenge of being able to cope when confronted with cultural difference.
The development of IC, in order to bring about attitudinal and behav-
ioural changes, requires: awareness of the self and the other, communica-
tion across cultures, the acquisition of cultural knowledge, sense-making,
perspective-taking, relationship building and the ability to assume social
responsibility. This complex of skills results in intercultural mobility, ‘the
ability to interact effectively in intercultural professional contexts’ (Glaser
et al., 2007, p. 17). The theoretical underpinning of this transformational
model resides in a conception of the self based on field theory (Lewin,
1935), which studies behaviour as the interaction between personality
and environmental pressures. Thus, training is designed with the scope to
influence behaviour through an intervention that is tailored to the needs
of individuals and the particular challenges that they are facing.
In more detail, the development of competence begins with the awareness
of self and other, particularly dealing with culture shock or ‘cultural fatigue’
(Glaser et al., 2007, p. 31). This aspect relating to culture shock as a conse-
quence of cultural difference is employed to justify the notion that commu-
nication across cultures leads to miscommunication and misunderstanding
and the necessity to acquire both language awareness and the acquisition of
specific cultural knowledge. The fact of being exposed to new information
from a different culture leads in its turn to the necessity to develop the ability
of sense-making, in the form of interpreting and making meaning, as well as
the skill of ‘identifying/perceiving and understanding prevalent values, beliefs
and norms in a situation’ (Glaser et al., 2007, p. 35). Perspective-taking allows
the individual to look at reality from different viewpoints, and to develop
empathy and tolerance, flexibility and the ability to decentre. At this stage,
the result of effective IC is represented by intercultural mobility. However,
according to the authors this mobility needs to be contextualized within a
broader project of democratic citizenship, which promotes intercultural inter-
action and dialogue in complex societies and emerging communities created
by intercultural contact.
The problematization of Deardorff’s model of competence and the
ICOPROMO project highlights a number of issues that relate to their
epistemological assumptions. Table 6.1 illustrates the sequence of the
acquisition of competences that is employed in both models.
106 G. FERRI
Table 6.1 Sequence of the acquisition of competences

Motivation to become Skills Outcomes
interculturally
competent
Global trade To acquire knowledge of another Effectiveness

Need to become culture and the patterns of Cultural sensitivity
competitive behaviour associated with it Tolerance
Response to culture To relativize and dispel stereotypes Responsibility
shock attributed to the cultural other Transformation
In both frameworks the motivation to interact in intercultural contexts

stems from the necessities of global trade, which require that the problem
of cultural difference is fixed through the acquisition of skills and the fram-
ing of the other in cultural terms. The emphasis on consciousness and on
a functional, instrumental understanding of communication presents the
transformation of the self into a responsible, intercultural being as a pro-
cess beginning in a fully bounded individual who acquires the necessary
competences to deal with the initial cultural shock that occurs as a conse-
quence of the encounter with another culture. Following the acquisition
of competence, the individual is then able to deal effectively and sensitively
towards the cultural other.
From this perspective, although the dimension of critical intercul-
tural citizenship developed by Guilherme (2002) is included in the
ICOPROMO project, and a critical approach to a static vision of culture
is advocated in Deardorff’s model, the practical necessity to become com-
petitive in the global market is taken as the principal element that guides
the epistemological assumptions underpinning both frameworks, which
relate to the conception of the self as an autonomous being (see Chap.
12, this volume). Thus, the ideal of autonomy critiqued in this chapter
emerges in both frameworks in the shape of the self-sufficient and self-
governing individual of Western liberal tradition, while the role of the
other in interaction is left unexamined.
This aspect is visible in reference to Deardorff’s description of intercul-
tural learning and intercultural courses in further education as a means to
equip students for a more global and interdependent world,
How can we prepare our students to comprehend the multitude of coun-

tries and cultures that may have an impact on their lives and careers? More
broadly, what knowledge, skills, and attitudes do our students need if they
are to be successful in the twenty-first century? (…) To this end, service
learning and education abroad become two mechanisms by which students’
intercultural competence can be further developed, leading to students’
transformation. (Deardorff, 2011, pp. 69–70)
The role of global trade is acknowledged as the initiating force behind

the development of intercultural training programmes and creates what
Holliday (2011) defines in terms of a reification of intercultural training
and the creation of a product marketed as IC. This reification presents
the intercultural process as the meeting of separate cultural entities, while
the intercultural trainer facilitates and provides the tools to help navigate
and interpret behaviour as expression of cultural difference. The starting
point in this process is represented by the notion of culture shock, or
cultural fatigue, which is assumed to initiate the transformational process
that changes the individual from mono-cultural to an interculturally com-
petent entity.
The idea of culture shock derives from anthropology and the four stages
of adaptation identified by Oberg (1960), beginning with the honeymoon
stage during initial contact with a different culture, followed by negative
feelings of anxiety, rejection, anger and frustration, ending with adjust-
ment and finally adaptation to the new culture. This concept of culture
shock has been widely criticized, although it has become embedded in
popular consciousness and it is used to designate the shock upon encoun-
tering an ‘exotic’ culture (Kuppens & Mast, 2012). In relation to the role
of culture shock in both models of competence discussed in this research,
I argue that what is described as the encounter with a reality that is incom-
prehensible and alien represents a more complex phenomenon that com-
prises a series of factors that neo-essentialist accounts of culture, of which
the two models of competence are paradigmatic, fail to acknowledge.
In this sense, what is described in terms of culture shock hides the com-
plexity of factors that influence communication in intercultural encounters,
so that power imbalances between self and other due to low socioeconomic
status or to a lack of sociolinguistic competence in the use of a dominant
language, are attributed to cultural difference. Therefore, when culture
becomes the principal explanatory category to understand intercultural
communication, the notion of competence is presented as a fix, a set of
tools that the individual can utilize to become tolerant and understanding
of other cultural beings in the context of a globalized neo-liberal market,
108 G. FERRI
which I understand in terms of the deterritorialized flows of global trade

illustrated in Hardt and Negri (2000), characterized by competitiveness
and the necessity to interact effectively. Crucially, this focus on cultural
difference prevalent in intercultural training, based on the notion of cul-
tural shock experienced by the individual, leaves unaccounted for the
aspect of globalization relating to power and cultural capital, or global
flows of ‘interested knowledge, hegemonic power, and cultural capital’
(Kumaravadivelu, 2006, p. 1). To this end, I suggest to focus on two
aspects that have been neglected in both models of competence, relating
to the complex and dynamic relation between self and other, and that
introduce the dialogic perspective that I discuss in the next section.
The first aspect is represented by hegemonic cultural representations of
the other. This aspect is underpinned by an essentialist attitude to culture,
which is taken at face value as a set of beliefs held by a particular group
that influences behaviour. In this essentialist conception of culture, the
role performed by the other in interaction is limited to that of represent-
ing a cultural being. Holliday (2011) ascribes this essentialism to the
dichotomy established between a Western self and a marginalized other.
This dichotomy creates an organization of knowledge in which perceived
Western and non-Western characteristics are distributed along a dichoto-
mous axis: industrial–rural, developed–underdeveloped, secular–religious,
modern–retrogade, individualistic–collectivistic. Organized along these
binary terms, essentialism creates hegemonic cultural discourses accord-
ing to which non-Western societies become a counterpoint to the West
and are viewed as monolithic entities characterized by rigid cultural values
(Hall, 1996; Nair-Venugopal, 2012).
Thus, the neo-essentialist dichotomy between a Western perspective on
the one side, and a separate cultural block that includes all non-Western
cultures on the other, reflects the relation proposed by Holliday (2011)
between the dominant, hegemonic discourses of the West and the process
of othering towards peripheral discourses emanating from non-Western
perspectives. In this process, hegemonic discourses position their own
production of knowledge in scientific terms, while alternative discourses
are labelled as cultural products of the other. As such, these peripheral
and non-Western perspectives are invoked in both models from a neo-
essentialist position in the name of the ideal of tolerance of the other.
In this modality, the mono-cultural self, expressed in terms of a Western
individual characterized by a specific cultural identity and informed by
the Kantian ideal of autonomy, encounters the non-Western other. The
dynamic of the encounter is reduced to the ability to recognize the cultural

traits of the other, demonstrating tolerance and sensitivity in handling the
resulting difference. In this way, the role of the other in intercultural com-
munication is reduced to represent a cultural standpoint.
The second aspect relates to the emphasis on appropriateness, effective-
ness and on the instrumental needs of the self in guiding communication,
which underplays the influence of the context of interaction. Koole and
ten Thije (2001) argue that the focus on cultural difference in the analysis
of communication in intercultural contexts leads researchers to overlook
other characteristics of discourse, such as power relations between domi-
nant and non-dominant groups, resulting in analytical stereotyping and
overgeneralizations. Thus, the a priori reliance on cultural difference in
the analysis of intercultural interactions highlighted by Blommaert (1991)
can be contrasted to other approaches that emphasize power relations and
the societal institutions within which the interactions take place, through
a situational and discursive approach (e.g., Gumperz, 1982, Koole &
ten Thije, 2001, Scollon & Scollon, 1995). According to interactional
sociolinguistics, the influence of culture is often inflated in determining
behaviour and communication while other factors are ignored, such as
socioeconomic inequality in multilingual contexts. In the context of IC,
the idea of cultural difference in communication is used in guiding com-
municative exchanges in elite situations, such as business and manage-
ment, in which recognition of the other is essentialized from a hegemonic
position:
Whereas the intercultural object—the Other—is usually pictured as caught in a

web of age-old essential and inflexible values and customs, those who have iden-
tified the other claim to be free of such determinism. (Blommaert, 1998, p. 3)
The recognition of the influence of cultural essentialism and of inequal-

ity in communication has important repercussions in the conceptual-
ization of a dialogic understanding of competence that emphasizes the
provisional and open-ended dimension of interaction (see Chap. 2, this
volume). Indeed, the analysis of context offered by research in the field
of sociolinguistics provides a starting point from which it is possible to
begin to unravel the complexity entailed in communication from an anti-
essentialist perspective.
With the critical reading of the pyramid model and the ICOPROMO
project I have highlighted the conceptualization of the relation between
110 G. FERRI
self and other based on an essentialist interpretation of culture, according

to which the other is the object of tolerance. In the next section I adopt
the notion of dialogism in order to reflect on the ethics of communica-
tion from the dimension of the ‘inter’ of interculturality, meaning the
praxis of interaction between self and other. I suggest that the challenges
that emerge in the course of intercultural encounters can be envisioned
in terms of an ethics of hospitality and deferred understanding. From this
ethical perspective, the complexity of intercultural communication sur-
faces when the ideals of autonomy and self-sufficiency of the self are desta-
bilized by the embodied presence of the other. What is revealed in this
instance is the tension experienced between hospitality as unconditional
welcoming of the other and the limitations of cultural tolerance, a situa-
tion expressed by Derrida with the aforementioned notion of hospitality.
Therefore, in rejecting a notion of intercultural communication that
relies too excessively on a static and essentialist interpretation of culture,
I suggest that intercultural interaction brings to the surface the endeav-
our, and often the failure, to negotiate meaning that characterizes human
communication, both inter-and intracultural. This existential dimension
is rooted in the unpredictability of interaction, when hospitality is tested
during the encounter with the other in dialogue. To this end, in order
to begin the task of reconceptualizing IC from the perspective of dialo-
gism, it is crucial to redefine alternative representations of the relationship
between self and other that focus on inter-relationality. In the next section
I discuss the broad features of Levinasian ethical engagement with the
other as a guide for intercultural theory.
DIALOGIC COMPETENCE AS DEFERRED UNDERSTANDING

Dialogism has been discussed in the context of intercultural theory as
an alternative to essentialist positioning of self and other along cul-
tural definitions. Heisey (2011), Orbe (2007) and Xu (2013) invite
researchers to include the contradictions, the tensions and the inequali-
ties that are manifested in communication, thus emphasizing multiple
perspectives and a deeper appreciation of complexity. In this regard I
maintain that, in order to allow the emergence of a dialogic moment of
communication, understanding is deferred in the praxis of engagement
between self and other.
For example, Yoshikawa (1987) employs the double swing model based
on the idea that communication is an infinite process in the course of
which participants undergo a transformation. This idea is based on the
Taoist teaching of the Yin and Yang, which expresses the notion of the
interdependence of self and other at the root of dialogism. If Western ratio-
nality is founded on a system of binary oppositions, defined by Derrida in
terms of a metaphysics of presence, the Taoist principle of Yin and Yang
incarnates the fundamental contradictory nature of the self and the co-
existence of opposites. The principle of Yin and Yang is accompanied by
the concept of bian (change), which in Taoism represents the fundamental
principle ruling the universe. In other words, the dialectical interaction of
the two opposites Yin and Yang underpins the dynamic nature of the real,
characterized by change and transformation (Chen, 2008).
With a similar approach, I propose an exploratory illustration of interac-
tion in Levinasian terms, which I suggest contributes to the development
of an understanding of competence in terms of dialogism, as opposed to
the ideal of ethical autonomy of the two models of competence examined
in the previous section.
A crucial aspect in this Levinasian perspective is represented by the
interdependence of self and other. This means that the self experiences
the ethical after the encounter with the other, as a result of interaction.
This ethical character of interaction is revealed when the self is somehow
thrown off balance by an unexpected encounter that upsets the cultural
parameters employed to categorize the other. Such an experience is the
result of an existential disposition that in Phipps’s (2007) terms develops
when the self is fully immersed in the messiness of intercultural encounters
and is open to challenge pre-conceived ideas of culture and identity. This
notion of messiness proposed by Phipps contrasts with the idea of culture
shock described in reference to the Pyramid model and the ICOPROMO
project. On the one side, the idea of culture shock expresses the experience
of intercultural encounters as a problem, a potential source of incompre-
hension and difficulty. On the other, messiness articulates the uncertainty
and the precariousness of interculturality in terms of an existential chal-
lenge in which the self discovers uncharted possibilities. As Piller suggests,
because context is an emergent and dynamic process that is negotiated
by all participants, this ‘messiness’ of actual interactions demonstrates the
limitations of attempts to understand and regulate communication using
the category of culture. This means that establishing dialogical relations
112 G. FERRI
lived in the immanent here and now requires an understanding of the com-
plexity of factors that constitute the context of interaction,
Paying close attention to actual interactions not only reminds us of the

importance of natural language and the complexity of human interactions;
it also demonstrates that interactants sometimes simply do not want to
understand each other and that misunderstandings arise not only because
of linguistic or cultural differences, but also because people fight and argue.
Put differently, in interactions there are often simply different interests at
stake and interactants may not actually want to understand each other.
Intercultural communication research often creates the impression that if
we just knew how to overcome our linguistic and cultural differences, we
would get on just fine with each other and the world would be transformed
into a paradise on earth. (Piller, 2011, p. 155)
In this sense, intercultural speakers are able not only to analyse the con-
straints that influence interaction and the role of language in the commu-
nicative exchange, but are also able to recognize and understand the ways
in which culture is being enacted and recreated. As a result, the concerns
relating to the use of the category of culture to explain when something
‘goes wrong’ in communication are addressed by the straightforward rela-
tion with the other described by Levinas, which relates to his notion of
responsibility intended as a response to the other that occurs through
engagement in dialogue. This notion of responsibility is described by
Bakhtin (1986) as the addressivity of language, the fact that all interactants
are active participants in communication.
The acceptance of the impossibility to reach this ideal of ‘a paradise
on earth’ (Piller, 2011, p. 155), meaning the idea of a promise of under-
standing in which all conflicting claims are pacified in the name of a higher
universal truth, brings about an important dimension of communication
between self and other. Accounts of critical awareness (see Guilherme,
2002; Tomic, 2001; Tomic & Lengel, 1997) describe the process in which
the encounter with the strangeness of another cultural perspective allows
the self to reflect critically on her own cultural standpoint and to discover
the other within oneself. From this perspective, the self understands the
cultural differences that guide the behaviour of the other, is able to nego-
tiate these differences, and can finally achieve a critical outlook regarding
her own cultural tradition through reflection. Although this is a desirable
outcome of interaction in intercultural encounters, I nevertheless point
at another aspect of communication between self and other that can be

interpreted within a dialogical perspective.
According to the idea of immigrancy of the self (Cavell, 1996), the self
is defined through the act of negotiating and translating meanings. This
means that, although we are born into a language community from which
we acquire social meanings, we live from the beginning in a process of
translation, in negotiating the modalities in which the language and the
conventions of the community are appropriated in unique ways. Adopting
this description of the self, I propose that in open-ended dialogue self and
other do not simply accept their reciprocal belonging to different cultural
traditions, thus becoming tolerant of the other, but through interaction
they discover the fact that they are both incomplete beings. This existen-
tial discovery creates an asymmetrical relation with the other (Levinas,
1985, 1998), meaning that the other is not simply a mirror reflecting
the otherness present within the self, instead both self and other find a
common existential state of incompleteness expressed in the inadequacy
of culture to explain the behaviour of the other interlocutor. Thus, inter-
cultural communication acquires a dialogic dimension, intended in terms
of a promise of deferred understanding that is ever receding and open
ended, requiring commitment and ethical responsibility from both self
and other, through interactions that are experienced in the here and now
of intercultural encounters.
SELF AND OTHER IN INTERACTION

Having delineated the theoretical underpinnings of dialogic competence,
in this section I illustrate the positions of self and other in interaction and
the respective underlying assumptions that underpin each framework.
Deardorff—The pyramid model
Self Knowledge and skills Other
Competence is understood as the ability to deal effectively with the other.

Knowledge about the culture of the other, and the skills to communicate effec-
tively are acquired before the interaction.
Underlying assumptions: effectiveness, communicative transparency,
tolerance, awareness of culture, rationality, autonomy, cultural sensitivity.
114 G. FERRI
ICOPROMO—A transformational model
Self Knowledge and skills Other Transformation/Intercultural personhood
IC represents the ability to develop critical awareness of culture in order to com-

municate effectively. As a result of intercultural interaction, the self is trans-
formed into an intercultural speaker who can communicate effectively with the
other and is able to assess cultures critically, showing high degrees of tolerance
of the other.
Underlying assumptions: effectiveness, critical awareness of culture,
autonomy, rationality, tolerance, sensitivity, responsibility.
Dialogic interaction
Self and Other Interaction Other and Other
Dialogism is developed in interaction: it is based on the interdependence

self/other and on the appreciation of context. Interaction results in the
recognition of a reciprocal and common existential state of incomplete-
ness. Intercultural encounters represent the opportunity to discover the
otherness in the familiar, and to accept the fact that both self and other
remain unknowable.
Underlying assumptions: culture as a discursive resource of all interlocu-
tors, reciprocal incompleteness of both self and other, heteronomy, sensi-
bility, ethical responsibility, dialogism.
In dialogic interaction, the development of existential attitudes brings
about the acceptance of uncertainty and the knowledge that both self
and other are incomplete beings. These attitudes, and their underlying
assumptions, challenge the implicit autonomy that characterizes the ways
in which IC is conceptualized in the other two models discussed in this
chapter. In dialogic terms, competence requires the development of inter-
cultural sensibility, meaning an embodied relation with the other, which I
contrast to the ideas of intercultural awareness and sensitivity promoted in
the pyramid model and the ICOPROMO project.
With the notion of sensibility, Levinasian ethics suggests an alternative
conceptualization of the relation with the other, based on the perception
of embodiment in the ethical encounter. Whereas awareness and sensitiv-
ity develop in the autonomous and self-sufficient dimension of the self,
sensibility represents the bodily aspect of experience and indicates pre-

reflective engagement, meaning that the self as a sentient being is affected
by the presence of the material presence of the other. This fact creates the
preconditions for the development of an ethical concern for the other
stemming from the here and now, meaning the immediacy of lived expe-
rience. The ethical, in other words, is embedded in the materiality with
which the self is engaged in everyday existence,
We live from ‘good soup’, air, light, spectacles, work, ideas, sleep, etc. These
are n from them. (Levinas, 2008, p. 110)
Taking this materiality into consideration, it is important to highlight

how this understanding of the ethical does not necessarily entail that
engagement with the other is devoid of difficulties. On the contrary, it
implies a traumatic element of discovery of the self as a sentient being who
is faced with the ethical choice to respond to the presence of an other. This
response, indeed, can assume the aspect of refusal of engagement, of fear
or of misunderstanding. The crucial point is that this material presence of
the other will pose ethical demands and ethical challenges that the self is
called to acknowledge.
To summarize, the following characteristics represent the broad fea-
tures that I suggest could contribute to the redefinition of competence in
dialogic terms:
• Asymmetry: I understand the asymmetrical relation between self

and other in terms of a lived experience of communication between
embodied subjects.
• Heteronomy: this aspect stands for the phenomenal world where the self
interacts with other selves. The experience of ethics is thus developed
in interaction, intersubjectively, and not only from universal maxims.
• Sensibility: being affected by others as an embodied ethical self.
Understood in this sense, I suggest the notion of intercultural sen-
sibility to illustrate the type of dialogic engagement with the other
that I propose in relation to the notion of competence.
• Promise as deferred understanding: this concept relates to the idea of
dialogue as open-ended engagement with others, and acceptance of
uncertainty.
116 G. FERRI
In reference to the notion of tolerance discussed in relation to Derrida,

the idea of deferred understanding presented here addresses these con-
cerns relating to a superficial embrace of cultural difference as tolerance
of the practices of the cultural other. Particularly, it addresses the dangers
of reification and totality that occur when the necessity to determine the
outcome pacifies the unpredictability of dialogue, so that the promise of
understanding is totalized in the search for a final dimension of reconcili-
ation of differences.
This dialogic reading of the ethical encounter informed by Levinasian
ethics reveals intercultural interaction in terms of unpredictability, open-
endedness and practical concern for the other. From this standpoint, I
highlight instances of intercultural communication in practice that are
documented in other fields of research, which illustrate complexity and
precariousness in communication. For example, the presence of a domi-
nant other in situations of clear inequality is documented in ethnographic
research on asylum seekers in the Belgian legal system (Maryns, 2006;
Maryns & Blommaert, 2002) and research on grassroots literacy with
African migrants and asylum seekers in Belgium (Blommaert, 2001,
2004). Similarly, Phipps (2014) proposes an interdisciplinary connection
with the field of Peace and Security Studies (e.g., Lederach, 2003, Schirch,
2004), emphasizing the challenge faced by intercultural communication
theory to address openly issues of conflict. These examples borrowed from
other academic fields point in the direction of a productive confrontation
with other disciplines that share similar concerns regarding human under-
standing and cooperation, presenting new challenges for future research.
CONCLUSION
The philosophical discussion conducted in this chapter reflects the state of
flux and theoretical development of intercultural communication research,
particularly in the formulation of non-essentialist approaches to the con-
ceptualization of intercultural understanding and ethical responsibility in
communication. This situation in research is exemplified by Martin and
Nakayama who, reflecting on their previous conceptualization of culture
and communication, argue that this particular field of research has cur-
rently not achieved a unified methodological approach,
After ten years, revisiting the contemporary terrain of Intercultural com-

munication seems warranted. The field has exploded in many different
directions that have opened up the very notion of ‘intercultural’ communi-

cation. In some ways, the term itself, ‘intercultural’, tends to presume the
interaction between discrete and different cultures. (…). Ten years later, the
very problem of conceptualising ‘intercultural communication’ remains as
vibrant and relevant as ever. (Martin & Nakayama, 2010, p. 59)
This proliferation of different approaches opens intercultural commu-

nication to theoretical interventions that offer new epistemological and
methodological frameworks. Indeed, the state of flux of intercultural
theory provides the opportunity to shift the focus from predominant dis-
courses related to business relations, intercultural training and language
learning in higher education to the development of viable alternative
perspectives that redefine the immanent and contingent nature of inter-
cultural dialogue (see Chap. 1, this volume). The latter aspect of com-
munication has been the central theme in this chapter, defined against
the autonomous idea of a self-governing individual that characterizes
dominant conceptualizations of competence. With the adoption of philo-
sophical argumentation, I have attempted to reconceptualize competence
from a dialogic perspective, emphasizing the provisional character of inter-
action between self and other in intercultural encounters.
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CHAPTER 7
Intercultural Polyphonies Against

the ‘Death of Multiculturalism’: Concepts,
Practices and Dialogues
Clara Sarmento
INTRODUCTION
The contemporary intercultural travel is a global journey, a circumnavi-
gation powered by the speed of digital technologies and this concept of
intercultural underwrites all the comings and goings, the transmission and
reception of information that are implicit in communication, diversity and
in the transit that the prefix inter suggests. Intercultural transits have always
been present, from the perverse intercultural dialogue of colonialism to
the current cultural heteroglossia of the Internet. This is why I propose to
examine the motivations, characteristics and regulations of cultural inter-
actions in their perpetual movement, devoid of spatial or temporal bor-
ders, in a dangerous but stimulating indefinition of limits. This reflection
approaches the topic of intercultural competence (IC) and the concept
of interculturalism (Abdallah-Pretceille, 2006; Costa & Lacerda, 2007;
Dervin, Gajardo, & Lavanchy, 2011; Ibanez & Saenz, 2006; Sarmento,
2010) as movement, communication, dynamics, but also encounter and
synthesis between cultures, with the purpose of discussing their pragmatic
C. Sarmento ( )
Centre for Intercultural Studies, Polytechnic Institute of Porto, Porto, Portugal

DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-58733-6_7
122 C. SARMENTO
consequences in academia and society. Ultimately, the objectives of this

chapter are both scientific and political because the intercultural stands at
the junction of knowledge and politics (Dervin et al., 2011, p. 1).
I start this reflection by discussing the differences between multicultur-
alism and interculturalism, before proceeding to a definition of IC as the
result of interdisciplinary dialectics, resorting to the concepts of hybridity,
cultural translation, contact zone, emergent/absent narrative, threshold,
and intersecting discursive fields. The discussion will be located within the
Western European and particularly Portuguese contexts, with references
to Portugal, France, Germany, USA, and the English-speaking world in
general. The author of this chapter assumes a Western-centric perspective
and a clear preference for Portugal-related issues, due to a long experience
in teaching, researching and fieldwork in this Portugal. Portugal is also an
excellent, albeit seldom explored (at least at the international level), case
study, as far as colonial and postcolonial narratives of dominance, hybrid-
ity and intercultural contact are concerned because of its recent and con-
temporary history. In fact, Portugal fits within Achille Mbembe’s image
of ‘interweaving logics in a continuous improvisation and negotiation’
(Mbembe, 1992, p. 5), since the country is still struggling with the recon-
struction of its post-1974 identity, as a former colonial power once central
within its own empire, though always peripheral in Europe.
Normative practices of modern research in the Humanities do not privi-
lege relations of permanence any longer, to the detriment of relations of
movement—a perspective that changed as a result of the endless mobilities in
the world today. As Stuart Hall (1994) states, the notions of belonging and
homeland have been reconceptualized in contexts of migration, deterritori-
alization, diaspora, virtuality, digitalization and other features of the global-
ized world, that make even more pertinent the principle by Hall that cultural
identities are not fixed but fluid, not given but performed. In this way, we
cross the first great border of intercultural transits—the frontier created by
the concept of culture itself—avoiding the commonplace notion of the inter-
cultural as a mere ‘us versus them’, and steering clear of the fundamental
error of a form of interculturalism that ignores the diversity contained in
its own definition. This approach generates an interdisciplinary dialogue
between fields that have traditionally ignored each other, such as translation
studies and anthropology, law and the sciences of language, history and liter-
ary studies, because IC entails the ability to understand the close relationship
between language, culture, arts, conventions and discourses, in a constant
process of problem solving and anticipation, adaptation and awareness.
INTERCULTURAL POLYPHONIES AGAINST THE ‘DEATH... 123
Moreover, this methodology is also intercultural at its source and subjects,

not only in the objects that are examined; because one should not fear the
alterity that, after all, one proposes to study. Hence, the present approach
to the notion of the intercultural functions as a sort of third space, to quote
Homi Bhabha (1994), a third space for hybridity, subversion and transgres-
sion. Hybridity—and cultural translation, which Bhabha regards as a syn-
onym for hybridity—is politically subversive. Hybridity is the space where all
binary divisions and antagonisms, typical of conservative political and aca-
demic concepts, including the old opposition between theory and practice,
critical reflection and politics, science and humanities do not work anymore.
They do not work in IC either, since I understand it as the capacity for
unceasing movement, communication and cooperation between cultures.
THE POWER OF DEFINITIONS: BETWEEN SCIENCE

AND POLITICS.
In contemporary cultural diversity, past and present, global and local, con-
verge in the analysis of concepts and objects closely related to ongoing
political, economic, social and cultural transformations. Scientific research
is also an area of intersections, of permanent cultural translation; that is,
of reinterpretation, of repositioning of symbols and signs within exist-
ing hierarchies. In this reflection on IC, I encourage critical readings
that attempt to look beyond arbitrary meanings, favouring contextual-
ized interpretations that, in their uncertainty, are likely to produce new
hypotheses, theories and explanations.
Present-day converging interests are evident in the expectations of
both publishers and the reading public and in the relations of power that
pervade Western academic life, with its tenure tracks, ‘publish or perish’
mantras, rankings and indexes, and general anti-humanities trends. These
notions and expectations persistently transform the output of researchers,
to the extent that they tend to adapt their practices and creative capabilities
to professional and economic pressures. However, many researchers
often respond to such pressure with their own strategies, innovations
and subversions, and seldom do they remain passive within the process of
incorporation in large-scale political and institutional systems. Networks
and echoes emanating from the international academic community spread
rapidly throughout the globe, and their multiple forms of cultural interac-
tion bring with them their own forms of manipulation and subversion of
power. These actions carried out in the peripheries—and which are, in turn,
124 C. SARMENTO
central in the lives and experiences of individuals—can be designated and

described, more or less metaphorically, as ‘borderzones’ (Bruner, 1996,
pp. 157–179), ‘thresholds’ (Davcheva, Byram, & Fay, 2011, p. 144),
‘intersecting discursive fields’ (Tsing, 1993), or ‘spaces on the side of the
road’ (Stewart, 1996), all of them reflecting the dialogic nature of culture
and IC.
This is why IC is the place where the overlapping of cultures occurs,
which is the characteristic of a site of cultural translation. Cultural trans-
lation—both as Judith Butler’s ‘return of the excluded’ (Butler, 1996,
pp. 45–51; Butler, Laclau, & Žižek, 2000) and as Bhabha’s hybridity—
is a major force of contemporary democracy, also in the academic field.
For Judith Butler, the universal—here understood as a synonym of hege-
mony, a Gramscian combination of power and consent (Gramsci, 1971)—
can only be conceptualized in articulation with its own peripheries, the
aforementioned ‘borderzones’, ‘spaces on the side of the road’ and other
metaphors. Thus, what has been excluded from the concept of univer-
sality forces this same concept—from the outside, from the margins—to
accept and include it again, which can only happen when the concept itself
has evolved enough to include its own excluded. This pressure eventu-
ally leads to the rearticulation of the current concept of universality and
its power. Butler calls the process through which universality readmits its
own excluded ‘translation’. Cultural translation may work as the ‘return of
the excluded’, pushing limits, bringing about epistemological changes and
opening new spaces for free discussion and independent research. Because,
for Bhabha, as well as for the Portuguese sociologist Boaventura de Sousa
Santos (2006, 2008), the potential for change is located at the periph-
eries. Peripheries marked by hybridity, where the ‘new arrivals’ (Santos,
2006)—‘new arrivals’ or ‘excluded’ such as polytechnics and universities
from peripheral countries and regions, but also unconventional research
groups, young female academics—are able to use subversion to under-
mine the strategies of the powerful, regardless of who they are.
When talking about intercultural experience, it is tempting to talk on
behalf of the others—a notion that is always contingent and relational,
as ‘we’ are the others’ other—but seldom do we grant a voice to those
‘others’ themselves (Cerqueira, 2013). However, the true intercultural
experience occurs when we are able to see ourselves and our work as if
we were those so-called others, whose otherness originates, for example,
from their nationality, gender, orientation, academic background or field
of research. Let us remember that Derrida (1981 [1972]) has shown how
the construction of an identity is always based on exclusion and that a vio-

lent hierarchy results from such dichotomous pairs, as in the binaries man–
woman, white–black, colonizer–colonized, straight–gay, elite–masses, and
nowadays also in science & technology–arts & humanities.
But local and global practices and knowledge—with their associated
discursive productions—do not form a dichotomy. Instead, their cor-
relation provides a stimulating dynamic tension, as the search for local
concepts generates new concepts, which encourage challenging epistemo-
logical and phenomenological adaptation, under a genuinely interdisci-
plinary and intercultural perspective. Any approach must be located within
the network of ideological and material contexts of a given region, which
is always an evolving territory. In a postcolonial world, the intersections
of past and present, global and local, define the guidelines to explore the
negotiation and evolution of concepts, as well as the material forces that
influence individuals, communities and nations. Postcolonial societies,
either Eastern or Western, Northern or Southern, are in a continuous
intercultural flow. This constant need to negotiate and construct identity
through a polyphony of narratives actually underlies life in most territo-
ries of the world. The concept of interculturalism explored here and the
related idea of IC also develop from polyphonic narratives of dynamic
tensions. This concept of interculturalism might be compared to the con-
cept of multiculturalism which I understand as a delimited space, within
which different cultures cohabit in a self-enclosed, stationary ignorance.
But in reality, the multicultural space exists as a result of intercultural,
multidirectional and reciprocal (random?) movements, and as such, will
be discussed here.
In general, multiculturalism has been analysed under an ontologi-
cal approach, as an existing or desired social reality. Multiculturalism
has also been widely subjected to a political-ideological lens, focusing
both on the dominant or host society, and on the migrant or (allegedly)
minority groups. Conversely, interculturalism is analysable as movement
with an underlying stream of consciousness, as manifested in critically
aware journeys, in mutual knowledge, understanding and communica-
tion. Interculturalism is then, and preferably, a hermeneutic option, an
epistemological approach, as Martine Abdallah-Pretceille emphasizes,
because no fact is intercultural per se, nor is interculturalism an attribute of
the object. Only intercultural analysis can give it this character, through a
paradigm of hybrid, segmentary and heterogeneous thinking (Abdallah-
Pretceille, 2006, pp. 480–483).
126 C. SARMENTO
Multiculturalism is a judgement of existence: in the same physical

or conceptual space, different people coexist, from different cultures
(in terms of memories, options, references, values, preferences, proj-
ects, expectations, experiences, practices and attitudes), but—under
ideal circumstances—they mutually recognize the right to live together.
Multiculturalism preaches not only the right to share a territory, but
also the obligation to live in it according to the cultures of those various
groups and communities. Thus, multiculturalism tends to assume a uto-
pian character, stripped of dilemmatic or conflicting aspects, ignoring all
impending cases of conflict of norms, values and practices. By following
this argument, and bearing in mind that utopias are by definition unreal,
it is tempting to pretend a shocked disappointment at the alleged failure
of multiculturalism and jump into the easy conclusion that it is in fact
impossible for different cultures to coexist. Therefore, when this discourse
becomes an actual practice, those who are identified as agents of difference
might be segregated or ultimately erased—through illegalization, depor-
tation, imprisonment, assassination—in the name of common sense, so
that a normal(ized) society may prevail.
In fact, there are political implications when distinguishing multicul-
turalism from interculturalism. The political exploitation and ideological
abuse of the concept of multiculturalism can be related to a polemical
speech by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who declared the ‘death of
multiculturalism’, without elaborating on the nature and causes of such
failure. Merkel was referring to the implicit illusion that Germans and for-
eign workers could live side by side, once German workers lost the hope
that ‘they wouldn’t stay’, ‘they’ being the gastarbeiters, or ‘guest work-
ers’, who arrived in Germany to fill the labour shortage during the eco-
nomic boom of the 1960s (The Guardian, 17 October 2010). In Merkel’s
speech, the representation of these groups and their competences is under-
pinned by a certain shared notion of culture, multiculturalism, and their
agents. The ‘death of multiculturalism’ implies that its agents, those who
have brought along multiplicity and difference, have also failed and are no
longer welcome, thus recalling Giuliana Ferry’s approach to ‘conditional
hospitality’ in this volume (Chap. 6). But recent history—in Germany as
elsewhere—has taught us that discursive categories and symbolic markers
of identity have actual and very dramatic effects in the everyday experience
of groups and individuals.
The apparent shortcomings of multiculturalism require the transition
to a more complex stage, that of IC, in the context of diversity that now
characterizes Western societies. The depiction of interculturalism as facil-

itating an interactive and dynamic cultural exchange is concerned with
the task of developing cohesive societies, by turning notions of singular
identities into notions of multiple ones. Based upon a deep sharing of
differences of culture and experience, interculturalism encourages the for-
mation of interdependencies, which structure identities that go beyond
nations or simplified ethnicities (Booth, 2003, p. 432). According to Meer
and Modood (2012), there are four ways in which conceptions of inter-
culturalism are being positively contrasted with multiculturalism. These
are, first, as something greater than coexistence, interculturalism is alleg-
edly more geared toward interaction and dialogue than multiculturalism.
Second, that interculturalism is conceived of as something less groupist or
more yielding of synthesis than multiculturalism. Third, that intercultur-
alism is something more committed to a stronger sense of the whole, in
terms of such things as societal cohesion and national citizenship. Finally,
that where multiculturalism may be illiberal and relativistic, intercultur-
alism is more likely to lead to criticism of illiberal cultural practices, as
part of the process of intercultural dialogue. Modood goes even further
to state that the multicultural framework has allowed the evolution from
biological racism to cultural racism, emphasizing the old dichotomy of self
and other, and producing an idea of culture that is naturalistic and essen-
tialist, through the homogenization of identities (Werbner & Modood,
1999, pp. 3–4). Indeed, racism can exist without race, operating through
reductionist discourses that favour the cultural explanation at the expense
of other levels of analysis, and approaching interactions in a mono-causal
way (Abdallah-Pretceille, 1985). Such interpretations posit that cultures,
in essence, occupy different, irregular spaces and that cultural belonging
explains mutually exclusive and incompatible behaviours.
Despite the obvious difficulty of the task, for the sake of argument it
is appropriate to establish here a brief diachronic perspective. The con-
cept of interculturalism emerged in France during the 1970s, due to the
need for the inclusion of immigrant children and consequent adaptation
of educational methods in the face of an increasingly multicultural society.
This simple chronological information contains two conceptions already
noted earlier: the use of the prefix inter assumes that two or more cultures
interact, while the prefix multi does not assume hybridization, but instead
the coexistence of various cultures, stratified and hierarchical. This model
of IC began to be defended in the francophone world and soon spread
throughout Europe. Actually, French interculturalism is less anchored in
128 C. SARMENTO
civil rights movements and more influenced by international organizations,

such as UNESCO and the European Council. Schools, as a means of inclu-
sion of different communities, were the first institutions to feel the need
for IC, through the practice of sociocultural mediation (Meunier, 2008a,
2008b, 2009, 2014). In Portugal, sociocultural mediation emerged in the
1990s, as a result of the country’s joining the then European Economic
Community. Through it, Portugal established further contacts with coun-
tries where sociocultural mediation was already an essential institutional
way to achieve inclusion. Portuguese policies of sociocultural mediation
are essentially performed by qualified communication agents, who pro-
mote dialogue between cultures and social groups, seeking to mitigate
differences by knowing and understanding them (ACM, 2014).
On the other hand, the multiculturalism concept prevails in the Anglo-
Saxon world, where groups of different cultural matrices are integrated in
public life in order to ensure social cohesion, but not inclusion. Integrating
or assimilating migrants is not part of the same national and societal proj-
ect as creating a society that offers similar opportunities to everyone. And
even if it is not made clear right away, not everyone of foreign nationality
is labelled similarly. Moreover, a ‘well-integrated’ person is one who has
become ‘like us’ and thus, implicitly, will never become ‘us’ (Dervin et al.,
2011, pp. 7–8). Ultimately, a ‘well-integrated’ person has rejected or con-
cealed those features that might be identified as foreign, thus rejecting or
concealing a significant part (if not all) of her own identity, the stable core
to one’s individuality and sense of personal location.
Interestingly, a significant part of the existing literature on multicul-
turalism in English is, in fact, an exhaustive list of differences between an
individual us shocked but full of good will, and a collective other, charac-
terized as homogeneous and hypersensitive to offences to their strange
traditions. This literature takes the form of empirical manuals with very
pragmatic purposes: to facilitate economic relations with exotic partners,
and/or become popular university toolkits. Departing invariably from
artificial situations of conflict, misunderstanding, lack of communication,
latent hostility and general embarrassment caused by exposure to the
cultural norms and practices of the ‘other’, seldom do the explanations
provided equate to the possibility of a certain action being dictated by the
individual’s conscience (see Dresser, 2005; Storti, 1994, 2007 [2001];
Trompenaars & Hampden Turner, 1997). For the authors who favour this
essentialist approach, it seems to be inconceivable that a non-Western (i.e.,
non-Anglo-Saxon) behaviour may derive from something other than the
simple dictates of tradition and culture, met without dissonance or place

for the agency of autonomous individuals. This rather deceitful naiveté
(see Chap. 1, and politically biased strategy that supports such ‘efficient’
models of IC.
When highlighting intergroup differences instead of intragroup and
interindividual differences, business, education, training and communica-
tion in general become strictly culturalized. Yet, it should be recognized
that the margin between the sheer refusal of the cultural dimension and
the overemphasis on culture as the determining factor of behaviour is nar-
row. However, any excessive focus on the different characteristics of others
leads to exoticism as well as to communicational void, and enhances, con-
sciously or not, stereotypes and prejudices, because all work representing
the other is political and expresses power relationships, as any labelling or
categorization does. When an individual—who is seldom the prototype of
a group—fails to be incorporated into the expected (prejudged) frame-
work, serious difficulties arise, because in reality people cannot be under-
stood outside a process of communication and exchange. Questioning
one’s identity in relation to others is an integral part of IC, as the work of
analysis and of acquiring knowledge applies to others as much as to oneself
(Abdallah-Pretceille, 2006, pp. 476–478).
A statement that marks the emphasis currently placed on IC can
be found on the seventh ‘Common Basic Principle[s] for Immigrant
Integration’ of the European Union (European Commission, 2004),
which argues that the frequent interaction between immigrants and citi-
zens of member states is a fundamental mechanism for inclusion, empha-
sizing the importance of communal fora, intercultural dialogue and
information about immigrants and their cultures. The key point here is
the inverse of a mere celebration of diversity of cultures as folklore or as
ethnic versions of classic multiculturalism. What is involved here is the
positive encouragement of actual encounters between different groups
and the creation of dialogue and joint activities. Of course this does not
mean that intercultural dialogue has not been part of the multicultural
philosophy and practice. But it becomes evident that the idea of multicul-
turalism has succumbed easily to an interpretation of ethnic cultures, with
strictly defined boundaries and static essential components, without inter-
nal dissent. In other words, multiculturalism has been oriented towards
essentialism, albeit tacitly or implicitly, as is the case of the above cited
‘manuals of intercultural communication’.
130 C. SARMENTO
Alongside multiculturalism’s seemingly neutral surface, there is a politi-

cal discourse that overstresses and may even produce difference between
groups while reproducing, justifying and obscuring oppression and
inequality. Mainstream multiculturalism, at its core, normalizes the idea
that there are different categories of human beings, ‘essentialized, pri-
mordial, and fixed. Furthermore, multiculturalism posits that it is natural
to “stick with your own kind”’ (Kromidas, 2011, p. 73). In her thought-
provoking work on multiculturalism, essentialism and critical cosmopoli-
tanism in New York primary schools, Maria Kromidas describes a new
accommodationist and routinized multiculturalism that has been hege-
monically incorporated as the perfect ideological counterpart to global
capitalism, very distant from any notion of social justice. This approach
to multiculturalism as folklore—where commodified cultures orderly dis-
play themselves for the comfort of dominant groups—entails a superficial
and acritical understanding of cultural diversity. Relying heavily on the
writings of Abdallah-Pretceille, Kromidas also contrasts a multiculturalism
that depends on a reified and static conception of culture, with an inter-
culturalism that deconstructs this homogeneous entity, seeking a complex
and dynamic multiplicity instead. The former stresses typologies and cat-
egorizations while the latter emphasizes mutations, fusions and relations.
Again, and as stated above, typologies and categorizations are expressions
of power, politically and historically constructed, and are by no means
universal truths. Hence, the ultimate goal of multiculturalism is a cautious
tolerance, while that of interculturalism is conviviality and, again, commu-
nication. The very borders that encapsulate the static taxonomy of the for-
mer become the object of critique of the latter (Kromidas, 2011, p. 75).
For Abdallah-Pretceille, interculturalism implies the shift from an analysis
in terms of structures and states to one of complex, changeable and arbi-
trary situations, processes and cultural phenomena, such as acculturation,
assimilation, resistance, identity or hybridity. In brief, culture in action,
instead of culture as an object: that is the aim of IC (Abdallah-Pretceille,
2006, pp. 479–481).
As it has been argued in this section, interculturalism is conceived
through the exchanges, interactions and alterities that take place when
cultures meet, and also through the transformations and processes of
communication that derive from it. I now discuss interdisciplinary and
intercultural dialectics, in order to underpin the dialogue between episte-
mological and cultural categories, while overcoming the risk of categoriza-
tion and exclusion that they would otherwise entail.
INTERDISCIPLINARY DIALECTICS FOR IC

The key skills for IC rely on interdisciplinarity and creativity, in order to
generate a productive intervention both in society and science. Creative,
interdisciplinary approaches to intercultural phenomena are, therefore,
likely to select unexpected fields of study, with their own hybrid method-
ologies. This will be the core argument of this section, as the relational and
even dialectic epistemology of our perception of IC is crucial for a study
that goes beyond meaningless cultural multiplicity. I use here the term
‘dialectic’ because, although conflict is a necessarily part of the intercul-
tural process—both in social practice and in academic research—synthesis
will hopefully emerge from it.
IC and the capacity for dialogue between cultures are not a mere passive
acceptance of the multicultural factor, nor the utopia of complete harmo-
nization, but rather an essential component of every culture that wishes to
assert itself as such. This type of dialogue occurs among individuals who
speak different languages and for whom words and objects have diverse
meanings. However, this does not result in a new Tower of Babel nor in
social chaos, because there is an attempt at communication, and there is
something that is actually shared, which is exactly what allows awareness
of, and openness to, differences. When differences are left aside and con-
sidered as non-existent, the result can be an insufficient understanding of
self and others. That is why it is necessary to understand the communica-
tive challenge presented by the unlimited amount of discourses and texts,
within the framework of IC (Ibanez & Saenz, 2006, p. 15).
Although identity and difference are not exclusively discursive, they
are contained in discourse, both framed within the broad scope of inter-
action. It is for this reason that language (or rather, the recognition of
the diversity of languages that can be used to express communicative
meanings) becomes a major factor when dealing with interculturalism.
Understanding the other and what he says requires a coincidence of
cultural horizons, along with the recognition of linguistic diversity. On
the other hand, linguistic diversity is also present within the boundaries
of a national language through intralinguistic social, regional and stylistic
differences, as well as through variations in dialect and register, thus call-
ing for an intracultural variety of IC. Some examples are the Portuguese
dialect Mirandês or the typical accent of Porto, that can be interpreted
either as marks of social background, statements of regional identity or as
everyday forms of resistance to the cultural centralism of the capital. The
132 C. SARMENTO
symbolic value attached to different languages or to variants of a common

language has to be interpreted in conjunction with other meanings shared
within social interaction, because cultural signs are polysemic and their
meaning can only be provided through a contextualized analysis that goes
well beyond the mere recourse to a dictionary.
Communicative competence develops at the intra- and intercultural
levels alike. In other words, speakers need to be aware of the variety of
registers and of the plurality of discourses that exist in a culture, either
their own or others’, following the principle of self- and hetero-analysis,
characteristic of IC. The richness of the worlds discovered through lin-
guistic diversity and communicable meanings is such that every translation
is necessarily imperfect. As a prerequisite for intercultural dialogue, we
must recognize the different languages used by other actors and know
their ‘hidden dimension[s]’ (Hall, 1992 [1966]), even if we cannot do it
other than through translation, in order to assimilate the unknown cul-
ture as a variation of our own. But practices and styles of translation that
are not truly interpretative may hinder rather than facilitate intercultural
communication. The hegemonic power of a culture can be enhanced if
we accept as natural a translation in which the voices of other cultures are
domesticated, without being understood as originated elsewhere. Cultural
polyphony can be both facilitated and stalled by academic discourse, so
great is the responsibility of the studies conducted on the coexistence and
interpenetration of voices from different cultures (Ibanez & Saenz, 2006,
p. 18).
If diversity is now more visible than ever, it is also more communicable.
This has gradually become obvious with the emergence of English as a
lingua franca in a globalized world and with the growing need for transla-
tion skills by individuals and institutions alike. This is why the work of the
translator acquires new dimensions: on the one hand, the translator estab-
lishes relationships that make knowledge more accessible and that bring
people and cultures together; on the other hand, she directly interferes in
her country’s textual production, to the extent that she recreates, accord-
ing to a pre-determined model, aesthetic shapes, ideologies and episte-
mologies to be included in her own tradition. The subversive nature of
translation creates a renewed vision of the figure of the translator, grant-
ing her an importance that was not evident before, because ‘translation
is one of the most obvious forms of image making, of manipulation, that
we have’ (Lefevere, 1990, p. 26). Thus, the study of translation can tell
a lot not only about the literary world, but also about the actual world
in general. In other words, translation is another path for the study and
acquisition of IC.
Resistance to the impositions of globalization is marked by the way local
communities preserve and transmit their oral traditions, dialects, founding
myths and precepts of common knowledge, whose cultural symbolism,
ethics and aesthetics may function as educational tools for IC. Such mani-
festations of memory as part of identity, both individual and collective, are
also a key factor for the essential sense of continuity, coherence and (re)
construction of communities. For the present chapter, the main relevance
of narratives of local and oral culture does not lie in their credibility as doc-
uments in the positivist sense, because, and according to Sidney Chalhoub
(2003, p. 92) on literary fiction, they search for reality, interpret and tell
true stories about society, but do not have to function as a glass window
over, or as a mirror of, the social ‘matter’ represented. Their relevance for
IC lies instead in the search for complex meanings, in the fact that they
allow us to analyse critically the discourses that guide the logic of identity
and the practices that move (and are moved by) current and retrospective
representations of reality.
The development and extension of the processes of mediatization and
migration, which characterize globalized modernity, produce a consider-
able intensification of deterritorialization, understood as a proliferation of
translocalized cultural experiences (Hernàndez, 2002). Deterritorialization
implies the growing presence of social forms of contact and involve-
ment which go beyond the limits of a specific territory (Giddens, 1990).
Consequently, since culture is intimately related to the practices, regula-
tions and values that structure life within a given society, then intercultural
competence should also be aware of how these conventions have been
influenced and hybridized by different cultures, as commonly accepted
institutions. Depending on the complexity of those regulations, intercul-
tural awareness may focus on everyday tacit rules—the so-called ‘common-
sense’—as well as on complex political, religious, economic, legal and
philosophical systems, because all these ideological processes act at the
subliminal and the conscious levels alike, and contribute comprehensively
to the construction and regulation of social identities. Systems of social
and cultural regulation offer multiple perspectives for understanding in the
present field of IC. Some possible topics for consideration are the politics
of intervention across borders, court interpreting, codes of conduct in vir-
tual social networks, localization of marketing campaigns, power relations
in global tourism, immigration and emigration laws, the unspoken rules of
134 C. SARMENTO
gender prejudice, or even the history of the laws of slavery and their power
over the fate of millions forcibly displaced around the globe.
Indeed, the transition from multiculturalism to interculturalism rein-
forces principles that emphasize the historical interconnectedness of cul-
tures. Societies have never been static throughout history, as they have
always adapted and changed according to the stimuli received from other
cultures. The main difference is that, nowadays, cultural contacts and
exchanges occur in a much faster and globalized way. When Antonio
Perotti writes that ‘the intercultural approach to the teaching of History
is critical for the understanding of cultural diversity in European societies’
(Perotti, 2003, p. 58). This statement has historiographical implications,
since intercultural understanding implies a search for syncretic expressions
that allow us to achieve a truly universal history, composed by all groups
in communication. Thus, the centrality of dialogue for a new ethics of
the intercultural requires not only respect for other cultures, but also the
understanding of how much they already have in common, how they have
interacted in the course of time, and how those similarities provide a basis
for the development of new shared insights.
Taking as a paradigmatic case the history of Portuguese expansion, it
becomes clear that even in a system of cultural dominance, the global
interaction provided by the decompartmentalization of the world was
made of reciprocal influences. Europeans left their mark in the world,
but while interacting with people overseas they have also experienced sig-
nificant cultural changes. One should note that contemporary Western
culture is in itself the result of hybridization, under the influence of the so-
called minority cultures, in a mutual exchange that should not be reduced
to mere conflict (Costa & Lacerda, 2007, p. 9). The Portuguese role in
the making of an early globalized modernity has to be taken into account
when the first steps towards full integration of the planet as ‘old world‘
and ‘new world‘ are brought into systematic conjunction. The creation
of a regularized, globe-spanning network from the early-fifteenth to the
late-sixteenth centuries involved the interpenetration of the commercial
and the political, the material and the imaginary, the elite and the popular
elements of the Portuguese experience. This experience forged particular
forms of global consciousness that came to affect not only Europe, but
also, through the means of the oceanic networks thus created, much of the
rest of the world. Thus, if we are to seek some of the most important pre-
cursors of present-day modes of globality and thinking globally, sixteenth-
century Portugal has to be considered (Inglis, 2010). The interactions of
Portuguese expansion took place not only throughout the empire, but
also at the metropolis back home, because of the way overseas people,
their objects, habits and beliefs merged into Portuguese society, leaving
indelible traces in various fields, from visual arts to erudite music, from
poetry to myth, from culinary to navigation instruments, from philoso-
phy to natural sciences. Although the crimes of colonial history are obvi-
ous, it would nevertheless be relevant to question—albeit carefully and
critically—the process of European expansion as a vehicle for the creation
of syncretism, with contributions from multiple sources, encompassing
similarities and differences, where fusions happened alongside segregation
(Costa & Lacerda, 2007, p. 21). And here we are talking about dialectics
and synthesis, once again.
As a result, the colonial and postcolonial world is a space of constant
translation, a permanent contact zone, to quote from Boaventura Sousa
Santos, a worldwide frontier where peripheral practices and epistemolo-
gies are the first to be noticed, though seldom understood. Intercultural
encounters and communication—or translation—bring the aspects that
each cultural practice believes to be more central or relevant into the con-
tact zone. Therefore, in intercultural contact zones, each culture decides
which aspects should be selected for translation, although there are ele-
ments that are considered as being untranslatable into other cultures, or
too vital to being exposed to the perils and doubts of a contact zone
(Santos, 2006, p. 121). The issue of what should or should not be trans-
lated is not limited to the selection criteria each group decides to adopt in
the contact zone. Beyond active selectivity, there is something we may call
passive selectivity, which consists of what has become un-nameable in a
given culture, due to long-term severe oppression. These are deeply seated
silences, absences that cannot be fulfilled but shape the innermost prac-
tices and principles of a cultural identity, such as slavery, racism, religious
intolerance, colonial oppression or the subjugation of women, to name
but a few.
Taking as an example again the Portuguese colonial space, it has often
been represented as a mere adjuvant or antagonist in the dominant narrative
of the quest for religious conversion, power, wealth and social promotion.
Contact zones thus created were never truly hybrid, as everything that did
not fit into this grand narrative had very little meaning for the actors on
stage. Similar processes of silencing and production of non-existence—
like the silencing of women, minorities, slaves, returnees from ex-colonies,
colonized communities and oppressed groups in general—have contrib-
136 C. SARMENTO
uted to the construction and strengthening of deep asymmetries between

cultures, individuals, societies and genders, characteristic of colonialism
and patriarchy. Because cultures are monolithic only when seen from the
outside or from a distance; when seen closer to, or from within, it is easy
to understand that cultures are constituted by many and often conflicting
versions of themselves (see Chap. 1, this volume).
More than ever, IC is to be practised both at home and abroad, since the
scope may encompass the relations between distant Eastern and Western
cultures, as much as between marginal and mainstream, youth and senior,
rich and poor, erudite and popular cultures, within the same society, which
is only apparently cohesive (for a similar defence of cultural self-analysis
see Chap. 8, this volume). Still, the need for intercultural understanding
among such diversity is often neglected in favour of issues facilitated by
distinctive ethnic markers, which in turn evoke the simplistic dichotomy
of the archetype white versus black, that is, light versus darkness. But then,
how to face the deep cultural rifts that exist between generations in a
WASP family, for example? Or the growing gap between rich and poor
in the receding Western economies? Or the stereotypes that underpin
the political dialogue between the countries of Northern and Southern
Europe? Michael Chapman argues that, unlike in his home country South
Africa, in societies where language, race, religion, class and comfort are
reasonably homogeneous, cultural memory hardly needs to be invoked
in the daily round. However, the more homogeneous a society, the easier
it is to conceal the manipulation of its cultural memory by the politics
of power (Chapman, 2005, p. 113). Likewise, within the only apparent
homogeneity of Portugal—if we leave aside the presence of the Roma
community throughout the country, or the racial variants that postco-
lonialism and immigration have recently brought into the major cities—
there are profound cultural differences between urban centres and rural
countryside, coast and inland, north and south, capital and periphery that,
although devoid of visible ethnic markers, require IC so that dialogue and
knowledge may emerge (see the studies by Cole, 1994 and Wall, 1998,
for instance). Only then is it possible to confront the contact zone, the
threshold between what we take to be the image of a culture and what is
in fact involved in that culture.
When IC is put into practice as we understand it, narratives gradually
emerge from a centuries-old silence, narratives that have been absent from
history, to adapt once more the concepts developed by Boaventura de
Sousa Santos (2008, pp. 11–43; 2006, pp. 87–125). Emergent narratives
grant a voice to subaltern groups, to all those ‘others’ history is slowly
recognizing. But the narratives of absence are also to be heard as, beyond
emergent voices, or maybe through (and because of) them, it becomes
possible to access otherwise silenced narratives of the everyday experience
lived in the margins of dominant social structures. These narratives gener-
ate a source of vital information that complements official history and is
absent from the canon of great narratives, with their underlying discourse
of power. It is then possible to understand the infinite diversity of human
experience as well as the risk it faces of—due to the limits and exclu-
sions imposed by strict isolated areas of knowledge—wasting fundamental
experience, that is, of seeing as non-existent or impossible cultural experi-
ences that are in fact available (the ‘absent’) or possible (the ‘emergent’)
(Santos, 2008, p. 33). Here we may recall the aforementioned thresh-
olds, borderzones, contact zones and intersecting discursive fields, as well
as Bakhtin’s spaces of enunciation, where the negotiation of discursive
doubleness—which is not synonymous with dichotomy—engenders new
speech acts (Bakhtin, 1981, p. 360). But while borders imply obvious
barriers to be challenged, thresholds emerge as subtle intellectual con-
structions, which—surprisingly or not—are rarely part of the academic
institutional routine. They imply access rather than a dividing line and
suggest a potential for making the academic territory more collaborative
and intellectually powerful, through new processes of identification and
interaction (Davcheva et al., 2011, p. 144), that is to say, through new
processes of IC.
However, if deprived of a careful critical analysis, the diversity of prac-
tices, knowledge and experiences that result from those narratives may
generate a diffuse plurality of self-enclosed discourses and identities,
devoid of any actual interaction, much similar to the concept of multicul-
turalism criticized above. Once again, IC should foster communication,
generate mutual intelligibilities between different worldviews, find con-
vergent as well as divergent points and share alternative concepts and
epistemologies, so that distant (in both space and time) cultures may
ultimately understand each other. Once more—and taking into account
that communication occurs through multiple, overlapping and even con-
flicting discourses—the communication model underlying the concept of
interculturalism used here is a palimpsest, a constant intertextuality with
other discourses and texts from the past and the present, that will, in turn,
be used in future discourses and texts, in a permanent translation and dia-
logue between cultures.
138 C. SARMENTO
CONCLUSION
In this chapter we have discussed IC in some non-traditional perspec-
tives, aiming at the emergence of interstitial spaces that refuse the binary
representation of cultural antagonism. The discourse of hybrid spaces
is based on a dialectic that does not imply cultural hegemony; instead,
hybrid spaces reposition the (necessarily) partial culture from which they
emerge in order to construct a sense of community and a cultural mem-
ory that grants narrative power to excluded groups. The condition of the
contemporary world, within which the social and cultural multiplicity of
the human being has become explicit and visible both in the streets and
through the media, makes the phenomenon of diversity ubiquitous and
necessarily open to discursive, ethnographic, anthropological, historical
and semiotic analysis, among endless other possible approaches. As a con-
sequence of such diversity, intercultural transits need a map drawn by dis-
ciplines that are seldom taken into account in a conservative approach to
the notion of culture. This is why IC should circulate across disciplines,
a line of thought that implies hybridization, dynamics and a permanent
challenge to itself.
Interculturalism, as we understand it, is a cohesive process of culture
making, rather than a mere encounter of inherent cultural characteristics.
It draws attention not to rules, structures or explanations, but to excep-
tions, instabilities and misappropriations (Abdallah-Pretceille, 1985).
Interculturalism focuses on processes. It is deeply involved with everyday
reality, changes boundary lines, negotiates conceptions and explores trans-
formative dynamics of communication. While questioning definitions,
we go further than Meer and Modood (2012) and, instead of contrast-
ing interculturalism and multiculturalism in equal terms, we claim that
multiculturalism, as a mere political ontology, is a subcategory of intercul-
turalism. Interculturalism, its study and respective competence go beyond
contemporary circumscribed issues, towards the understanding and foster-
ing of global communication, both past and present. Interculturalism and
IC are epistemological solutions to the political misuse of multicultural-
ism as a utopian ontology. As a political stance, multiculturalism becomes
anchored in a specific, therefore ephemeral, context. Conversely, as an
epistemology, interculturalism becomes atemporal and, if transferred into
the political arena, likely to function as an effective answer to the essen-
tialism of multiculturalism. Ultimately, if repositioned within alternative
academic strategies, it may lead to understanding and reconciliation.
Resorting to metaphors to summarize better our point, intercultural-

ism can be seen as the movement of the matter that multiculturalism is.
And, as there is no static matter in the universe, interculturalism becomes
a synonym for the history of humankind, where static, culturally pure soci-
eties have never existed. Interculturalism is the grammar that connects
the words of the global text and renders their juxtaposition understand-
able, communicative and eventually translatable. Conversely, these words
remain orderly—but meaninglessly—stacked, in parallel columns, in the
dictionary of multiculturalism, which is but a survival toolkit for those lost
in a strange culture. As it becomes evident, those who are willing to join
the intercultural dialogue must follow new paths across old challenges.
This renewed experience implies a dynamic force among cultures and dis-
ciplines, and this is the reason why we must question and reposition the
motivations, discourses, definitions, strategies and rules of cultural interac-
tion in their perennial movement.
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CHAPTER 8
Intercultural Competence: Multi-dynamic,

Intersubjective, Critical and Interdisciplinary
Approaches
Ribut Wahyudi
INTRODUCTION
Culture is a complex concept, as well as a dynamic one, so it is hard to
define. Furthermore, as people are now interconnected across the world,
through global mobility and the Internet, the boundary of culture is blur-
ring. This is especially true when culture is seen from a postmodernist
perspective rather than a modernist view, which sees culture as a national
attribute (Holliday, 2009). In a postmodernist perspective, any catego-
ries are ‘perspectival’ and are ideologically governed by the creator of the
categories (Dervin, n.d., Discourse of Othering). Holliday (2009) argues
that the notion of collectivism and individualism, native-speakerism and
language standards are ‘ideological acts within unequal worlds’ (Holliday,
2009, p. 144). Holliday (2010a, p. 175) points out that cultural complex-
ity has four dimensions:
R. Wahyudi ( )
State Islamic University Maulana Malik Ibrahim Malang, Malang, Indonesia

DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-58733-6_8
144 R. WAHYUDI
• A nation is often an external cultural reality that may be in conflict

with personal cultural realities.
• Cultural identities can mean diverse things, many of which are not
bound to national boundary, such as: religion, ancestry, skin-colour,
language, discourse, class, education, profession, skills, communities,
family, activities, regions, friends, food, dress and political attitudes.
• Cultural realities are attached to individuals as they move from one
cultural arena to another. Membership and ownership of culture is
fluid and thus individuals may have the sense of belonging to differ-
ent cultural realities simultaneously.
• Language can be many things—a cultural reality, a cultural marker,
an artefact, a cultural arena and the location of cultural universes. It
may or may not be strongly associated with nationality or nation.
Due to the above complexity, there is no consensus on how to measure

intercultural competence (IC).
The Definition of IC

Intercultural Competence (IC) has recently been defined as ‘having adequate
relevant knowledge about particular cultures, as well as general knowledge
about the sorts of issues arising when members of different cultures interact,
that encourage establishing and maintaining contact with diverse others, as
well as having the skills required to draw upon both knowledge and attitudes
when interacting with others from different cultures’ (UNESCO, 2013,
p. 16). While the above definition is broad, subjective judgement is inevitable
when judging the adequacy of relevant knowledge. Therefore, people may
have different interpretations of IC. Apart from that, the UNESCO defini-
tion seems to assume that learning other cultures progresses in linear and
additive ways (see Kumaravadivelu, 2006a). However, people may act in total
opposition to other cultures, as was the case where some teachers showed
total opposition to imported English Language Teaching (ELT) Methods
(Canagarajah, 2002). Thus, the definition of IC seems problematic, as cul-
tural learning in a foreign language can be unpredictable.
The Complex Nature of IC

Deardorff (2006, p. 258) asserts that IC ‘continues to be a complex topic
fraught with controversial issues’ and ‘continues to evolve’ and may involve
a ‘culture specific approach, identities, cyberspace, global and local nexus’
INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCE: MULTI-DYNAMIC, INTERSUBJECTIVE... 145
(Liu, 2012, pp. 273–274). The complex nature of learning IC is itself depen-

dent on the definition of culture. For example, when culture is defined as
an ‘integrated pattern of human behavior that includes thoughts, commu-
nications, languages, practices, beliefs, values, customs, courtesies, rituals,
manners of interacting and roles, relationships and expected behavior of a
racial, ethnic, religious or social group; and the ability to transmit the above
to succeeding generations’ (Goode, Sockalingam, Brown, & Jones, 2000)
then IC will cover the diverse aspects mentioned. Controversial issues
may be embedded in IC discussions when the topics under discussion are
acceptable in a particular society, but are considered socially inappropriate
in another society. For example, same-sex marriage is legal in New Zealand,
but not in Indonesia. Thus, the inclusion of same-sex marriage in the IC
course in Indonesian might be controversial. IC continues to evolve to
meet global demands, such as the fact that IC is required in business con-
texts, daily interactions, interfaith dialogues, political matters, technological
advancements and health communication. IC is then embedded in ‘turbu-
lences’ (Dervin & Tournebise, 2013, p. 532) as a clear stance on what IC is
and how to study it cannot easily be drawn by researchers. The turbulences
indicate that IC presents problematic issues for researchers. In light of these
issues, this chapter aims to answer the following two research questions:
1. What are the problems with the existing IC paradigms especially Byram
(1997), Deardorff (2006) and Bennett, Bennett, and Allen (2003)?
2. What framework can be proposed for IC in postmodern times?
METHODOLOGY
I wish to make sense of my own intercultural experience through auto-
ethnography and self-reflection (Holmes & O’Neill, 2010). I will tell my
own story of becoming an interculturally knowledgeable person through
analysing critical moments of intercultural encounters. Auto-ethnography
is an empowering methodology, adaptable for English as Foreign Language
(EFL) teachers as it provides space to write personal experiences, such
as struggles, failures, joys and delights, through the use of personal pro-
nouns ‘I’, ‘we’, and other people’s experience in a ‘live’ manner (Dyson,
2007). Auto-ethnography remakes power relations and allows unknown
social worlds to be studied (Denshire, 2014). However, auto-ethnography
is criticized for its lack of analytic outcomes, ethical problems and the
moral obligation, especially for funded research, to include field research
(Delamont, 2009).
146 R. WAHYUDI
This chapter will explore the former IC paradigm, propose an alterna-

tive IC framework and elaborate on my personal intercultural encounters
and learning trajectory that confirm my alternative framework. It is wor-
thy of note here that my IC and intercultural learning are closely related.
My intercultural learning refers to the process of understanding my own
culture and other cultures more deeply and in this process of understand-
ing, I gained some sort of competence (IC). The intercultural-learning
process takes place in intercultural encounters: ‘an important site where
self-knowledge emerged through communication with the other, enabling
people to explore both the individual and relational aspects of their inter-
actions, and therefore critically reflect on their intercultural competence’
(Holmes & O’Neill, 2012, p. 716). Therefore, intercultural learning and
IC are integrated and one cannot be discussed without the other.
Theoretical Framework
This chapter makes use of postmodern and poststructural literature as it
aims to explore IC from complex, dynamic, intersubjective, critical and
interdisciplinary approaches. The chapter employs scholarly works from
Foucault (1994) on subjectivity, Morgan (2007) and Pierce (1995) on
identities, Klein (2005) on interdisciplinarity, Ellingson (2009) on a post-
modern view of crystallization, Gorski (2008) on critical consciousness
and Kramsch (2014a) on multiple subject positions and other scholars.
The Problematic Issues of the Existing IC Paradigm

There are some problems with the existing IC paradigm. For example, a
positivistic point of view, which says that the measurement of competence
is possible, dominates (Deardorff, 2006). Deardorff (2006, p. 241) said:
‘it is best to a use mix of quantitative and qualitative methods to assess
intercultural competence, including interviews, observation, and judge-
ment by self and others’. Quantitative methods in this case are problematic
as they attempt to simplify the complex phenomena of IC to a set of mea-
surable objects, a typical of positivistic paradigm (de Sousa, 2010). While
assessment in terms of observation and judgement by self and others is
bound to the subjectivity of observers, so is judging yourself and other’s
judgment. Qualitative assessment underlines the notion of intersubjectiv-
ity promoted in this chapter. Deardorff (2006) aims to define and search
for ‘appropriate assessment methods of intercultural competence’, by
conducting a survey completed by recognized international scholars. It is

worth noting that the international scholars in the study predominately
held a Western and US centric view of IC, which sees that IC ‘resides
largely within individual’ (Deardorff, 2006, p. 245). Scholars from Asia,
who hold the view that IC is a product of group- or interpersonal relation-
ships made limited contributions (Yum, 1994 cited in Deardorff, 2006).
Deardorff presented five findings. The first finding was that there is no
consensus among administrators on the best way to define IC. The sec-
ond finding was that there is even ‘greater breadth’ of definitions among
intercultural scholars than administrators. The top rated definition was:
‘the ability to communicate effectively and appropriately in intercultural
situations based on one’s intercultural knowledge, skills, and attitudes’
(Deardorff, 2006, pp. 247–248). The third finding was that administra-
tors and scholars agreed that it is important to assess student’s IC. The
fourth finding was that the best way to assess IC is through a combination
of quantitative and qualitative measurement. The fifth finding was that, in
general, intercultural scholars and higher education administrators agreed
on the definitions, components (see Deardorff, 2006, p. 249) and assess-
ment methods for IC emerging in the study.
This chapter also questions the factors of intercultural communication
Byram (1997) proposed, which include: (1) savoir (knowledge of self and
others in social interaction), (2) savoir comprendre (skills of interpreting/
relating), (3) savoir appendre (skills of discovery and interaction), (4) savoir
être (attitudes of curiosity and openness), and (5) savoir s’engager (critical
cultural awareness) (Byram, 1997). Knowledge of self and others consists
of knowledge of one’s own social group and other cultures, as well as
knowledge of interaction processes on both individual and societal levels.
The skill of discovery is the ability to make sense of an important phenom-
enon in foreign language learning and relate it with other phenomena.
Byram discusses attitudes of curiosity and openness as the willingness to
examine one’s own assumptions, and beliefs alongside other’s meaning,
beliefs and behaviours and argues this positive attitude will not be achieved
without reflective and analytical examination of one’s own meanings,
beliefs and values with others. These five (savoir) factors seem to assume
that cultural learning occurs in a linear and progressive way. Furthermore,
culture is still viewed from a modernist definition: ‘tied to characteris-
tics of native member of a national community’ (Kramsch, 2014a, p. 70).
The cultural learning process is, of course, more complex than that as it
enables ‘instabilities’ and ‘processes’ (Dervin & Tournebise, 2013), opens
148 R. WAHYUDI
the possibility of the exclusion of discourse (Foucault, 1971) and enables

the negotiation of power relations (Gallagher, 2008). Specifically, Dervin
(2010) critiqued Byram’s (1997) savoirs as unconvincing as, according
to him, there is no guarantee that everybody ‘believes in them’. Byram’s
definition is also critiqued as his parameters of intercultural dialogue are
set by the other and thus there is imbalanced power between self and other
(Hoff, 2014).
Byram’s linear and additive factors of intercultural communication are
similar to that of Bennett’s (1993 cited in Bennett et al. 2003) develop-
mental model of IC in the language classroom. Bennett proposes that
intercultural sensitivity goes through six stages: (1) denial (2) defense (3)
minimization (4) acceptance (5) adaptation and (6) integration. Denial,
defense and minimization are classified as ethnocentric stages while accep-
tance, adaptation and integration are clustered as ethnorelative stages. The
linear and additive assumptions in this model can be seen from the last
three stages in which the language learners accept, adapt and integrate,
but there is no guarantee of progress in this way.
An Alternative Framework for IC in Postmodern Times

I would argue that IC needs to be framed within multi-dynamic, intersub-
jective, critical and interdisciplinary approaches. ‘Multi’ means that human
understanding about other cultures is constructed by many aspects: for
example, what’s considered good/bad in one’s own ethnic culture, reli-
gion, educational background, references (books, electronic media) and
cyberspace. ‘Dynamic’ means that people continuously re-construct their
understanding about culture they are in as the result of their interaction in
society, and subjectivity means that people’s understanding about culture
is shaped by the discourses in which they live (Danaher, Schirato, & Webb,
2000; Foucault, 1994).
As the discourses that shape people’s understanding about culture may
alter from one period of history (episteme) to another, so does people’s
subjectivity, they continuously reconstruct their subjectivity so that they
are in the state of intersubjectivity. Additionally, one’s subjectivity is the
result of one’s interaction with others who have their own subjectivi-
ties. Dervin (n.d.) asserts that the notion of intersubjectivity needs to be
explored, especially in discussions of ‘identity, representation, stereotype,
and Othering’. In this regard, intersubjectivity also implies the need to
be critical when discussing IC. For this critical aspect, I would suggest
that IC should consider Gorski’s (2008) seven points of consciousness

to decolonize intercultural education: (1) how culture and identity affect
one’s access to power, (2) how justice is prioritized over conflict resolu-
tion, (3) the rejection of deficit theory, ‘any approach that explains inequal-
ity by demonizing disenfranchised communities’ (Gorski, 2008, p. 522),
(4) the investigation of power imbalances on both individual and systemic
levels, (5) the acknowledgement of sociopolitical contexts, (6) under-
standing that the concept of ‘neutrality’ equals the status quo, and (7)
advocating speaking for truth and challenging hegemony and hierarchy
(Gorski, 2008, pp. 522–523).
IC is required to capture the complex phenomena of globalization
(Axford, 2013), from an interdisciplinary approach. Klein (2005, p. 64)
states: ‘interdisciplinary work encompasses a broad range of practices,
from simple communication of approaches to mutual integration of ideas
and approaches’. In this regard, IC should be seen from a variety of lenses,
not only from culture alone. IC may include perspectives from: sociology,
religion, politics and others. This chapter views IC from these constructs
and as situated, complex and dynamic (Morgan, 2007).
In a nutshell, IC should be viewed as the result of dynamic human
understanding and intersubjectivities, which people construct and recon-
struct after they engage in social interaction and/or virtual communi-
cation, especially when the interaction or communication requires their
critical understanding of processes and interdisciplinary knowledge.
My approach is similar to the liquid approach to intercultural discourse
(Dervin, 2011), which underlines the notions of intersubjectivity and the
dynamicity and contextual aspects of interculturality. This approach is a
rejection of the static nature of the classical approach, which views knowl-
edge in different cultures as accumulative and uses simple categorization
(McSweeney, 2002 cited in Dervin & Tournebise, 2013). In this approach,
six turbulences are proposed for Intercultural Communication Education
(ICE) (Dervin & Tournebise, 2013, pp. 534–535). Those are: (1) putting
an end to differentialist biases, (2) moving away from individualist biases,
(3) exhausting results is impossible, (4) looking at exceptions, instabilities
and processes rather than structures, (5) taking into account the impor-
tance of intersectionality and (6) placing justice at the centre of ICE.
The first turbulence rejects any effort to dichotomize the individualistic
and collectivistic nature of culture as this dichotomy is not natural and ‘is
always based on someone’s vision’ (Dervin, n.d., Research on Interculturality:
The Researcher’s Role). The second turbulence problematizes the individualist
150 R. WAHYUDI
bias of culture and advocates the need to see culture as a process of inter-
action, which is, therefore, intersubjective. The third turbulence contends
that research on IC is always dynamic and produces something and is never
‘exhausted’. The fourth turbulence scrutinizes surface values by looking at
instability, exception and processes. So rather than assuming a certain eth-
nicity and nationality, which tend to interact in a way that is predictable and
controllable, people are urged to look at any possibilities that occur in natural
contexts including contradictions, instabilities and also the role of power-rela-
tions between interactants in intercultural interactions. The fifth turbulence
is how the ‘co-construction of various identities’ (Dervin, n.d., Research on
Interculturality: The Researcher’s Role, p. 535) such as gender, age, profes-
sion and social class intersect in intercultural interaction. Thus intercultural
interaction involves interconnected, complex intercultural formations. The
last turbulence is to put ‘justice’ in the centre of ICE, combating every form
of inequality, discrimination, prejudice and oppression (Räsänen, 2009 cited
in Dervin & Tournebise, 2013).
Unlike the modernist positivistic tradition, which makes use of trian-
gulation, research in a postmodern context (such as this chapter) has its
own rigour regarding trustworthiness. Trustworthiness is seen as ‘crys-
tallization’ (Ellingson, 2009), which views ‘validity’ not as triangulation
but uses the imagery of crystals that ‘combines symmetry and substance
with an infinite variety of shapes, substances, transmutations, multi-
dimensionalities, and angles of approach’ (Ellingson, 2009, p. 934).
The imagery of crystals in this chapter is reflected through the different
substances, dimensions and shapes of my intercultural learning trajectory
and IC from scholarship, religion, politics, emotions and agency.
Redefining the Context of IC

I would argue that the five savoirs (Byram, 1997), identification and assess-
ment of IC (Deardorff, 2006) and the developmental model of inter-
cultural sensitivity (Bennett, 1993 cited in Bennett et al., 2003) are not
adequate to capture the complexity of IC under the influence of globaliza-
tion. Kumaravadivelu (2012) proposes that Language Teacher Education
(LTE) in a time of globalization should be tailored with interweaving glo-
balizing perspectives: postnational, postmodern and postcolonial. I argue
that these three ‘posts’ are relevant to the discussion of IC, because IC,
through the global mobility of people and borderless world and through
Internet contacts, facilitates the exchange of values (Kramsch, 2014b) and
should provide access to power and dismantle oppression (Gorski, 2008).
Postnationalism inevitably emerges as an effect of globalization and is

marked by three distinct characteristics: ‘shrinking space, time and disap-
pearing borders’ (UN Development Report, 1999 cited in Kumaravadivelu,
2012, p. 3). Postmodernism problematizes ‘the status of knowledge and
the understanding the concept of Self’ (UN Development Report, 1999
cited in Kumaravadivelu, 2012, p. 5). Postcolonialism interrogates the
colonial characteristics of English which still ‘lingers’ and discriminates
against other languages (Shin, 2006).
Following these three posts, in the postnational sense, IC is impacted by
global discourse, especially the countries with global power. The countries
in this group include the USA, China and Japan. Thus, people who have
future interests (e.g., business cooperation, bilateral relations, university
networks) with people from these and other globally powerful countries
need an adequate understanding about their potential partner’s culture so
that they are able to conduct better business negotiations, foreign policy
agreements, academic cooperation and so on. In a postmodern sense, IC
is viewed as unfixed and constantly evolving, self-defined and comprised
of multiple identities and intersubjectivities (Williams, 2006, p. 216). In a
postcolonial sense, IC should problematize the Western-centric definition
that IC resides largely in the individual (see Deardorff, 2006) and sees IC
as the result of co-construction between or among individuals in society.
In this chapter, IC is analysed through language learners’ multiple
subject positions (Kramsch, 2014a) as conflicting and subject to change
in different places and times (Wendon, 1997 cited in Kramsch, 2014a).
Furthermore, as identity is a key component of IC (Krajewski, 2011) and
IC is better seen as a process with complex entities (Krajewski, 2011) that
involve fear, emotion, confusion and agency (Holmes & O’Neill, 2012),
in the following, I will elaborate my identity formation as an EFL learner
through auto-ethnographical reflection.
Auto-ethnographical Reflection
I will now discuss the empirical dimension of my intercultural encounters,
which are multi-dynamic, critical, intersubjective and interdisciplinary in
nature and confirm my theoretical proposal for IC in postmodern times. As
I am multilingual, I speak Javanese (local language), Indonesian language
(national language) and English, I will also discuss multilingual references
relevant to my identity formation. Canagarajah (2009, pp. 17–20) high-
lights six points of multilingual strategies to negotiate English: multilin-
guals retain their linguistic distinctiveness in social encounters, multilinguals
152 R. WAHYUDI
co-construct intersubjective norms of communication, multilinguals com-

municate through hybrid codes, multilinguals are consensus oriented
and supportive, multilinguals exploit ecology for meaning making and
for multilinguals language use and language learning are interconnected.
Multilingualism itself has been a key issue in LTE in Europe whereby IC,
multilingual individuals, identity, profession, knowledge and values, are cen-
tral concerns (Ziegler, 2013).
The Multi-dynamic and Intersubjective Construction of Identities

In my junior and senior years of High School, I saw English as supe-
rior. In this phase, I valorized Britain and America. My understanding
of English was affected by the master discourse: the discourse taught by
English teachers in the classroom, which is common in the Indonesian
context (Lauder, 2008). The English discourse is widespread in our
country; the focus of learning was mostly on grammar and reading. My
understanding of other cultures was the result of my interaction with L
(Canadian), M (Australian) and N (German). My interaction with L took
place occasionally (when I was at Senior High School) especially when she
visited my boarding house. L married the son of the owner of my board-
ing house. This occasional interaction gave me few insights into Canada,
instead my confidence grew through conversing with a ‘native speaker’,
especially learning pronunciation and new words. With limited English
proficiency, I also became friends with M and N who married my neigh-
bour in the village. I met them, usually during Idul Fitri, and talked about
many things ranging from the mundane to the political. My contacts with
M and N took place annually especially during the Idul Fitri day, when
we celebrated the Islamic day after Ramadan. At this stage, my English
learning was a form of ‘colonial celebration’ (Pennycook, 2000) and I was
a ‘faithful imitator’ (Gao, 2014) where I still valued the ‘native speaker
norm’. The language identity I was experiencing, in my junior and senior
years of high school, was largely unexamined as I was not engaged in criti-
cal reflection or the exploration of the self (Rassokha, 2010). However,
as a multilingual, my linguistic distinctiveness (Canagarajah, 2009), for
example, my hybrid pronunciation, appeared when I was engaged in con-
versation with both the German and Australian friends. My pronunciation
was a mixture between Indonesian/Javanese and English.
During my undergraduate degree, especially in 2000–2004, I joined
and engaged with the Islamic Mysticism (Sufi) community. This deep
involvement with the community has shaped my understanding of life,

including how to value people from other cultures and religions. In this
community, the universal values of life religions shared was emphasized
more than the superficial nature of their differences. Also during my
undergraduate degree, I was active in an English student organisation at
a university in Jember, where I finally served as the Vice-President of the
student organisation. I actively engaged in the activities run by this orga-
nization, including representing the organization in the national debate
competitions. In the debate rehearsal and competitions, I was trained to
see one topic from different perspectives. These debates broadened my
open-mindedness. My knowledge also grew, not only of linguistics and
literature, but also my general understanding of economics, law, politics
and so on especially topics that were motions in the debate competitions.
My exposure to religious mysticism and university organizations helped
me construct my views on others in a way that was not easily trapped
in stereotyping. Thus in that context, I co-constructed the intersubjec-
tive norms (English and Islamic Mysticism) (Canagarajah, 2009) and
exchange of values (Kramsch, 2014b).
I then studied for a Master’s degree which was the first time I had been
overseas. My first-hand experience of Australian society, both academically
and socially, taught me a lot of things. For example, academically I learned
that the courses were carefully set up so that students could understand
particular subjects in detail, both in terms of theoretical understanding
and practical aspects. In addition to this, I learned that academic writing
should be concise, clear and detailed, as I was exposed to the concept
of writer’s responsibility (the writer is responsible for creating clarity so
that the piece of writing will not leave the reader with questions) (Mok,
1993). Furthermore, writing must be free from plagiarism. However,
despite the clear writing frameworks provided, to a certain extent, I still
could not escape my Asian way of thinking (especially in the first semes-
ter), which is described by (Kaplan, 1966) as indirect. Thus, my thinking
at that time was a hybrid (Canagarajah, 2009); I was trying to reconcile
both the Javanese/Indonesian and Australian styles of writing. In daily
life interactions, in some occasions, my first-language knowledge served
as the bridge for my English literacy (Kirpartrick, 2008). For example, I
pronounced the words ‘Panania’ and ‘Myra Road’ in Indonesian ways so
that the Australians I was speaking to took some time to understand my
intention. Socially, I learnt that Australian society values being punctual
(at least as I experienced it). Furthermore, I learnt that Australians will
154 R. WAHYUDI
say ‘thank you’ easily in daily encounters, for example, after getting off
the bus and after business transactions, which rarely happened in my own
country. In this regard, sociocultural knowledge helped me understand
why the word ‘thank you’ is uttered. Living with a friend from an Asia-
Pacific country, I learnt how to be assertive, firm and brave, especially
when my flatmate was late paying the rent several times. I threatened
to report him to the scholarship coordinator if he did not pay the rent
punctually. In this case, I broke Javanese values (my tribal values), where
people are supposed to prioritize compromise and harmony when solving
problems, rather than being assertive. This is similar to what Holliday
(2010b) narrated in his study; Parisa, an Iranian Moslem woman, breaks
the collectivist stereotype by performing individualist, critical and prob-
lem-solving actions when coming to international conventions. Despite
the tension that occurred between my Asia-Pacific friend and I, we also
shared some positive talks. My friend told me that in the Old Testament
it is said that Christians should not eat pork, as Moslems believe today,
which showed me that there is similarity between our religious values.
Another good moment was when a missionary gave me a Bible when I
was hanging around at a university in Sydney. I took the Bible with me
to my accommodation and gave the Bible I got from the missionary to
my friend. I said to my friend that the Bible was good for him and he
received it positively. In this regard, my language learning in the Sydney
context is an exchange of values (Kramsch, 2014b), where I was informed
of the values from the bible and I informed my friend about the Islamic
teaching with regard to pork. As I studied, I engaged in more exploration
and reflection of English in relation to my-self and others; my language
learning at the Master’s level became more meaningful. I became an active
explorer of meaning making in intercultural encounters.
My Critical Turn and New Positioning Toward English

My PhD study was the turning point where I learnt a lot about cultural-
studies literature, especially postcolonial and poststructural ideas. These
ideas helped me construct and reconstruct my views about other cul-
tures. Inspired by postcolonial and poststructural ideas and ELT scholars
such as Canagarajah, Kumaravadivelu, Pennycook and Angel Lin, who
have applied cultural-studies theory to ELT, my stance towards learning
English became a lot more critical. I concluded that English language
and culture should be positioned equally with Indonesian language and
culture. My learning of English is a means of gaining international access,

but concurrently I will advocate my own identities (Canagarajah, 1999;
Lin, Wang, Akamatsu, & Riazi, 2002). Thus, at this stage, my position
might be described as critical intercultural positioning. At the moment, as
a part of my PhD research, I am investigating how issues with ELT and
English in the classroom, due to its Western origins, might be negotiated,
resisted or implemented. At this stage, I am aware of the sociopolitical con-
text, the power imbalance, the access to power, and the rejection of neutral-
ity (Gorski, 2008) of ELT methods and English imported from Western
countries (UK and USA) (Canagarajah, 2002, 2006b; Hashim, 2007;
Kumaravadivelu, 2006c; Pennycook, 2000)
Under a similar framework, I also wrote an article that critiques
the critical-thinking concept offered by Massive Open Online Courses
(MOOCs) taught in the West (see Wahyudi, 2014) and worked
collaboratively with my students on Indonesian themes (Djayanti &
Wahyudi, 2015; Qadafi & Wahyudi, 2014). At this stage, my learning
represented ‘post-colonial performativity’ (Pennycook, 2000) or ‘play-
ful creator’ (Gao, 2014), as I attempted to gain access internationally
through English, but at the same time I performed agency and identi-
ties, an example of the global and local nexus that Liu (2012) proposed.
Similar to this, Le Ha (2009) reminds us that many of the stereotypes
of Asian international students are not necessarily true. Her participants
revealed that their identities were: ‘produced and reproduced in complex,
dynamic and sophisticated ways, around their negotiation of available
options and awareness of possibilities, and their creation of new self-con-
structions that were relevant and meaningful to their sense of self’ (Le
Ha, 2009, p. 212). Sung’s (2014) study also suggests similar findings
where some participants in the study foreground their local or global
identities as well as their hybrid identities (global and local).
In daily encounters, my intercultural interaction takes place with my
supervisors and other postgraduate students. For example, I was invited
by my supervisor to attend her pre-Christmas celebration. My understand-
ing of Islamic teaching did not prevent me from attending the celebration.
As far as I am concerned, celebrating Christmas (with the intention that
Isa was a prophet of God) and joining Christmas parties (not sermons)
is allowed in a moderate Islam. However, some Moslems believe attend-
ing Christmas celebration violates the Islamic doctrine. This intercultural
encounter reflects an interfaith understanding between my supervisor and
I: when inviting me my supervisor did not impose on me and I accepted
156 R. WAHYUDI
the invitation. This intercultural encounter reflects what Mutter (n.d.) said
about the importance of entering into ‘respectful dialogues with individu-
als from other culture and faith communities’.
Another example of intercultural encounters came through my living
situation. Australia and New Zealand have ‘specific systems of control
for the safety of people’ (Tong & Cheung, 2011, p. 59), such as fire
alarms in homes, special protective clothing for building and construc-
tion workers and the requirement for international students to obtain
health insurance (which in Indonesia is rarely required). They also have
clear regulations around renting property, which I did not experience
when renting a room in the Indonesian context. When I was in Australia,
my Asia Pacific friend and I negotiated the amount of bond deduction by
the agent at the end of our accommodation contract, as we felt that the
agent had claimed too much deduction on the bond. After heated nego-
tiations, the bond deduction claimed by the agent was reduced. When I
was in New Zealand in 2014, when I was making toast I was surprised
by the sound of the fire alarm. Instead of complying with the fire alarm
(which might be a safety indicator in New Zealand), I took the battery
off, so that it would never disturb me again. Instead of complying with
the rule, I disobeyed it. I changed my subject position from obedient
tenant to disobedient one.
The Internet and social media also play an important role in the way
IC is constructed and reconstructed. People from different parts of the
world join the same professional Facebook groups, for example: Teacher
Voices Professional Development (TVPD). In this group, English teachers,
researchers and practitioners from different countries share their articles,
discuss different ELT issues from their own countries, share teaching strat-
egies and discuss current issues (Wahyudi, 2015). This group, in short,
provides opportunities for the members to learn each other’s cultures
in the context of ELT issues and thus enhance each other’s academic
IC. This confirms Liu’s (2012) hypothesis that cyberspace is a medium
for IC, as people (from different geographical location) in TVPD share
their different academic and cultural experiences with each other. One of
the valuable insights that I got from joining the group is that I learned
how academic debate and discussion is performed. I have rarely seen hot
academic debate of this sort among Indonesian scholars.
I also learned about other cultures through the process of publication.
As I experienced rejections and acceptances of journal articles and a book
chapter, I got hands-on experience of publishing. Sending articles to journals
based in different countries, I noticed that some journals have very clear
procedures, while others have more flexible rules. Some of the journal edi-
tors are tolerant of non-native speakers’ writing styles while others require
that writing is edited by native speakers. Some journal editors are strict,
while others are encouraging and helpful. The process of journal-article
and book-chapter publication teaches me that we need to be aware of the
foreign culture of academic publishing rules and systems, including when
to accommodate or reject the reviewers’ feedback (Kubota, 2003), and be
aware of the non-discursive rules and the politics of knowledge produc-
tion behind publication (Canagarajah, 1996).
My experiences above underline some of the issues Liu (2012) brought
up about the future of IC research. The issues concerned are: identi-
ties as IC, cyberspace as an arena for IC, and global and local nexus. My
English language learning history indicates that my identity as a foreign-
language learner has shifted from ‘colonial celebration’ to ‘postcolonial
performativity’ (Pennycook, 2000) and from ‘faithful imitator’ to ‘play-
ful creator’ (Gao, 2014), from merely imitating native speakers to critical
negotiation of identities. This is typical of identities as understood from
the postmodern perspective, which sees identities as unfixed, contradic-
tory, fragmented and shifting (Hall, 2000).
Pierce (1995) explores identities in postmodern contexts and under-
lines that social identities are multiple, sites of struggle and change over-
time. Pierce used the example of Martina, who is an immigrant, a mother,
a language learner, a worker and a wife. Martina, as the caregiver, could
not rely on her family members all the time in her daily social practice.
With a restricted command of English, she had to deal with ‘strange looks’
from others. Instead of complying to ‘legitimate’ speakers of Canadian
English, Martina framed her relationship with her co-workers as a mother,
so that her young co-workers had no authority over her. Pierce (1995)
also discusses Eva, an immigrant working in an Italian restaurant. At first
she was happy, later she was concerned about improving her English so
she moved to an English restaurant. There she just did her job and nobody
initiated conversations with her. Finally, she committed herself to break
the habit of being an immigrant with the status of ‘illegitimate speaker of
English’. She started to greet others in English in her workplace. She chal-
lenged the position of being an illegitimate speaker of English by trying to
converse with others, despite criticisms of her accent. All the experiences
faced by Martina and Eva indicate that social identities are multiple, sites
of struggles and keep changing.
158 R. WAHYUDI
The Internet is another source of intercultural learning. It has provided

me with a rich exposure to broaden my academic and cultural experience.
From this cyberspace medium, I can learn how academics from Anglo-
Saxon countries respond to emails (straight and to the point) and from the
academic dialogues in the TVPD Facebook group. Further, I can expand
my knowledge of the current call for global and local dialogue on how the
global discourse of UK and US English should be used in the classroom con-
text (Canagarajah, 1999, 2006a, 2006b; Lin et al., 2002; Wahyudi, 2014).
Exploring interculturality online, Dervin (2014) found that students in his
study not only ‘defend’ and negotiate their national and ethnic identities,
but also construct each other’s perceptions through chat-room sessions.
Intercultural Encounters and Interdisciplinarity

The intercultural exposure elaborated above is interdisciplinary in nature.
This close relationship between intercultural encounters and interdiscipli-
narity is the real picture of human daily interaction in society, whether in
person or through computer-mediated communication. Interdisciplinarity
in IC is required as people need to collaborate with each other to fulfil
their needs. Thus IC is needed in business contexts, health communica-
tion, political bargaining, interfaith dialogues, academic exchange and so
on. These conversations do not only take place between institutions, but
also among individuals. My intercultural learning history and identities
have been going through dynamic changes over time as the result of dis-
courses I was exposed to in the school/university setting, experiences in
a religious community group (Islamic Misticism/Sufi), inspiration from
postcolonial/poststructural ELT scholars, discussions on Facebook, tak-
ing an online course and direct exposure to English speaking countries:
Australia and New Zealand. Moreover, my intercultural encounters have
been through interdisciplinary fields (Klein, 2005) ranging from scholar-
ship, religion, health, politics of ELT and sociology. These intercultural
encounters shape my intercultural understanding and also my IC.
DISCUSSION
Exploring our life experience is important in understanding IC including
self-reflection, reflecting on how we see others, challenge, discomfort and
difference. The discussion focuses on points Holmes and O’Neill (2010)
and Pierce (1995) suggested could be explored in relation to IC.
Reflecting on Self and Other

Individual and direct interactions with Australians encouraged me to
re-examine my former assumptions and knowledge that, as commonly
stereotyped, Australians are individualistic. For example, if we asked for
directions Australians might be more helpful than we imagined, as they
will not give direction if they do not know the place we are trying to reach.
In an Indonesian context, sometimes someone will provide an answer
even when they are not really sure. I also examined my assumptions about
religion. Many say that Australia is a liberal country that does not prac-
tice religion strictly. This might be true in terms of religious rituals, but
in terms of government practice, Australia might be much better than
a country which claims to be governed by religious symbols, in that in
Australia bribery and corruption are rare. In comparison, massive cases of
corruption and bribery are found in so-called ‘religious countries’.
Reflecting on Challenge and Discomfort

I experienced challenge and discomfort when I was studying towards my
Master’s at a university in Sydney. Once I made an appointment for one-
to-one tutoring. In the appointment, I was 5–10 minutes late; the tutor
got angry with me and told me that if I could not fulfil the appointment,
then I should not make the appointment. I felt very ashamed. Also, in
the first semester, I found it very hard to adjust to the academic system
in the university. Even though I worked hard when I was doing the
assignments, I still could not get the grade point average I expected. As
well as these challenges, I felt discomfort when I first saw people kiss-
ing and hugging each other in public, as it is uncommon in Indonesia.
But finally I regarded these interactions as mundane phenomena that
are a part of their culture. It also felt unpleasant when a group of male
teenagers, who appeared drunk, shouted loudly at me while driving very
fast in Wellington. Having said that, I am fully aware that I should not
stereotype New Zealanders.
Reflecting on Difference (Culture and Religion)

Cultural differences may or may not be problematic for me in relation to
others. When I was living with an Asia Pacific friend who was Christian
and a Sri Lankan who was Hindu, religious and cultural differences cre-
160 R. WAHYUDI
ated no problems. They respected the fact that I prayed more often than
them. With Australian and New Zealand friends, cultural and religious
different posed no problems, as we never discussed religion.
Intercultural Learning Trajectory as Multiple, Sites of Struggle

and Dynamic
In addition to the above reflections, understanding intercultural learning
in postmodern times requires us to see it as multiple, sites of struggle and
dynamic (Kramsch, 2014a; Pierce, 1995). The following is my intercul-
tural learning trajectory from that perspective. As highlighted by Pierce
(1995), when learning a second/foreign language, one’s social identity
is framed within multiple positions, stuffed with struggle and flexible to
change from time to time. In my context, I always performed multiple
identities. For example, when I joined a six-month course—English for
Academic Purpose (EAP)—at an English Academic Training Institute
(EATI, pseudonym) in Indonesia in 2008, I was a student of the EAP
course, the teacher of my own students and an awardee of an Australian
Development Scholarship (ADS), in each case I was a Javanese Muslim
interacting with other non-Muslim students and teachers.
An example of struggle in my English language learning at EATI was
when I replied to my teacher’s criticism of my English writing. I said to
the Australian teacher that if I were teaching Australians who were learn-
ing Indonesian, I would be able to provide comments as she did to me.
My intention was to communicate to the Australian teacher that she could
be more considerate and encouraging when giving feedback to non-native
speakers like me. My dissertation project is another struggle, which is voic-
ing our identities as non-native speakers and explores ELT Methods and
World Englishes in an Indonesian classroom context, using a poststruc-
tural approach. My dissertation studies how teachers in the EFL setting
consider not just accepting ELT Methods but also negotiating or resisting
them. In a similar vein, teachers may consider not only the ‘standard’ of
UK and US English, but also the possibility of using a variety of Englishes
in the classroom. In both cases, I changed my position as a subject. In the
first case I wanted the Australian teacher to see things from an equal per-
spective to foreign language learners so that she would be more thought-
ful in how she treats me as a student. In the case of ELT methods and
World Englishes, I wish to explore the possibility of teachers’ multiple
positioning (acceptance, negotiation or resistance) (Canagarajah, 2009;
Le Ha, 2009; Pennycook, 2000; Sung, 2014).
My students and I are participating in an ongoing struggle to get our

voices heard (researching Indonesian topics, for example, Djayanti &
Wahyudi, 2015; Qadafi & Wahyudi, 2014) in the global community, by
publishing the research in Asian and international journals. In my articles,
I want to re-define the concept of learning about the UK and USA as a
way of negotiating ‘global and local communication’. During the publi-
cation process, we have received a significant number of rejections and
critical feedback, one of which was that our paper should be edited by a
native speaker. This was one example of the way the idea of the superiority
of native speakers over non-native plays out.
The fact that there are elements of politics in ELT (Kumaravadivelu,
2006b; Pennycook, 1989), imperialism in ELT (Canagarajah, 2009;
Phillipson, 1992, 2008) and racism in ELT teachers’ recruitment of non-
native speakers (Mahboob & Golden, 2013), inspired me to negotiate
with those discourses and advocate my agency and identities by publish-
ing articles using our peripheral voices. In this way, we are hoping to gain
legitimacy over English, to gain equality in the ELT industry, to advocate
for linguistic rights (Skutnabb-Kangas, 2008), to engage in critical knowl-
edge dialogue and production (Canagarajah, 1996) and to avoid being
the passive object of the ‘master’ discourse!
CONCLUSION
The important lesson that I have learned from other cultures is that I will
always be in-between (Bhaba, 1996). I will never be able to be a native
speaker, as I imagined in my junior and senior years of high school when I
was initially learning English. As the times change, I have actively constructed
and negotiated identities: my intercultural third space (Kramsch, 1993).
My auto-ethnographical reflection has shown that my understanding
of English culture and other cultures follows a very dynamic route. I con-
structed and reconstructed my view of culture as the result of a variety of
things, such as my informal interaction with people from other cultures
(including tension, negotiation and co-construction), affiliation with reli-
gious groups, participation in debate competitions, academic reading, use
of online resources, correspondence with foreign professors, participation
in international conferences, the internet and social media, and efforts at
publication. Also the way I learn English has moved from acceptance to
critical negotiation, especially since I engaged with poststructural, postco-
lonial and postmodern cultural-studies literature (see Gao, 2014; Gorski,
2008; Le Ha, 2009; Pennycook, 2000; Sung, 2014).
162 R. WAHYUDI
The former paradigms of IC such as Byram (1997), Deardorff (2006)

and Bennett et al. (2003) and their critiques Dervin (2010), Hoff (2014)
along with my alternative framework require us to see IC as a process
(Krajewski, 2011), which advocates multi-dynamicity, intersubjectivity,
criticality and interdisciplinarity (religious, academic, technology, socio-
cultural, etc.). This new framework of IC is ‘more adapted to our times,
more meaningful and thus more beneficial to education’ (Dervin, n.d.).
Toward post-intercultural education in Finland?
Acknowledgements I’d like to thank my supervisors Professor Catherine

Manathunga at Victoria University, Melbourne, who has guided me on Foucauldian
Discourse Analysis in my PhD research and stimulated me on interdisciplinarity
research domains, and Dr Gillian Hubbard at Victoria University of Wellington for
her critical feedback on English Language Teaching issues in the research.
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CHAPTER 9
Living Intercultural Lives: Identity

Performance and Zones of Interculturality
Leah Davcheva and Richard Fay
INTRODUCTION
In this chapter, we reflect on our process of working inductively towards
and articulating an understanding of interculturality through an apprecia-
tion of individuals’ experience of it. That work is being informed by and
also captures the linguistically framed experiences of the participants in an
ongoing research project (Fay & Davcheva, 2014). Our initial focus—
as we narratively interviewed 14 Sephardic Jews living in Bulgaria about
their experiences of Ladino, the heritage language of their community, a
language brought from Spain by their forebears who were expelled from
the Iberian Peninsula at the end of the fifteenth century—was on their
understandings of this heritage language. However, quite early on in the
process we moved from an exercise in oral history celebrating an endan-
gered language (as in, for example, Annavi, 2010; Harris, 1994; Kaufman,
2010; UNESCO, 2002) to that of working towards an adequate state-
ment of what these individuals did and do with their diverse Ladino skills
and understandings.
L. Davcheva ( )
AHA Moments Centre for Intercultural Learning, Sofia, Bulgaria
R. Fay
The University of Manchester, Manchester, UK

DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-58733-6_9
168 L. DAVCHEVA AND R. FAY
Our study worked inductively towards a conceptualization of their

Ladino-framed identity performance. What we ended up with was, in
all but name, a freshly coined theorization of their experience of inter-
culturality, that is, how they lived their lives interculturally. Beyond our
initial intentions, we arrived at an understanding of their narrated lives
that was not framed in terms of existing models of intercultural compe-
tence (IC) (Bennett, 1993; Byram, 1997; CoE, 2009; Deardorff, 2006,
2009; Spitzberg, 2000; Chap. 6, this volume) but rather in terms of their
experience of interculturality. Our theorization arises out of the narra-
tively performed identity work of these, often elderly, Sephardim (ages
ranging from 43 to 93) whose lived experience with Ladino among other
linguistic-cultural resources (e.g., MacPherson, 2003) is located more in
the last century than in this, lived experience that predates the intense
globalization and technologization of our increasingly transnational
times. Our theorization has its roots in the past more than in the present
although we believe it has relevance for the present and the future and is
not simply a device with historical application.
Our narrators, chosen for their knowledge of Ladino from the relatively
few Sephardim still residing in Bulgaria, are otherwise unexceptional.
They are ordinary people. In everyday terms, they are not particularly
special vis-à-vis intercultural communication. Like so many other people,
they have lived their lives in a complex and diverse society, engaging in
numerous types of relationships and participating in ever-changing socio-
cultural and geopolitical landscapes. And yet, they attracted our researcher
curiosity and attention through the ways in which—drawing upon their
linguistic-cultural resources—they lived out their lives in eras when inter-
cultural training was largely unheard of (for recent developments in train-
ing and education see the three chapters in Part III of this volume), or
within the reach of only the few. In this chapter, we pause to reflect on
what we feel we have learned from these ordinary people and their expe-
riences over the last century near enough regarding identities and their
performance of interculturality.
Our discussion is organized as follows: first, we outline the context and
the dimensions of our study, which bear relevance to the main conceptual-
izing thread and then proceed to present our theorization of the partici-
pants’ performance of interculturality. In doing so we provide examples of
their narrated experience to both illustrate our discussion and support the
arguments we make.
LIVING INTERCULTURAL LIVES: IDENTITY PERFORMANCE AND ZONES... 169
THE STUDY
Before we present our ongoing theoretical work, we want to give a brief
outline of the research context, followed by foregrounding the narrative,
interculturally collaborative, and multilingual dimensions of our research
approach, and finally, sketch out the main research outcome—a five-zoned
framework—from which our theorization of interculturality has arisen.
Ladino and the Sephardim
Ladino is a Romance language with roots in Old Spanish. The language
travelled with the Sephardic Jews, the Sephardim, as thousands of them
headed east, across the Mediterranean, and found new homes around the
sea including North Africa and the Balkans (Gibert, 1995, pp. 50–51).
Ladino contains elements from Hebrew and Aramaic, reflecting its func-
tion as a Jewish language, and from languages such as Arabic, Turkish,
Greek, French and Bulgarian, reflecting the co-territorial status of Ladino
and other languages in the Ottoman Empire where many Sephardim set-
tled (Benbassa & Rodrigue, 2000; Michael, 2010). It played an impor-
tant cultural and communicational part for Sephardic Jewish communities
including those in Bulgaria (Kantchev, 1974; Moscona, 1968). At some
points in its history since 1500, it has been used mainly internally within
families, but, at others, for example, mid-nineteenth century, its stature
grew to include external functions such as media presence and literary
creativity (Benbassa & Rodrigue, 2000, pp. 110–114).
During the Holocaust, these Ladino-speaking communities were largely
destroyed. Now the language is very much endangered with perhaps as
few as 150,000 speakers scattered worldwide (UNESCO, 2002). At this
point, the youngest native-speakers are probably over 50 years old, and,
once they have gone, Ladino is likely to disappear as a native language.
Harris (1994, pp. 197–229) lists 24 reasons for the present endangered
status of the language including the often negative attitudes towards the
language and what it represented, the geographical dispersion of speakers,
their assimilation into other communities, and their decrease in number
after the Holocaust.
Bulgaria provides an interesting case because the Sephardim here
largely survived the Holocaust. When World War II ended, there were
some 50,000 Jews remaining in Bulgaria, many of them still familiar with
some Ladino. In 1948, however, most of them left for the newly founded
state of Israel and those who remained were circumspect in advertising
to the political authorities their Jewish affiliations, for example through
Ladino usage (Benbassa & Rodrigue, 2000, pp. 104–105; Cohen, 1998;
Moscona, 2004; Vasileva, 2000, pp. 117–171).
There are different names for the language commonly called Ladino.
While our storytellers tend to call it Judesmo, this language is also variously
known as Judæo-Spanish, Judæo-Spanyol, Djudeo-Kasteyano, Spaniolit,
among others. Our use of Ladino here reflects our initial practice when
we began discussing the topic. It was informed by works including Annavi
(2007), Alfassa (1999) and the lengthy history of English-medium usage
to refer to the language of Sephardic Jews in Bulgaria (e.g., Gelber, 1946,
p. 105).
The Narrative Dimension

Drawing on our previous collaborative projects (e.g., Davcheva, Byram,
& Fay, 2011) and mindful of the richness of the participants’ lives and
what might be their preferred way of personal expression, we decided
to approach their experience of Ladino through narrative. We generated
our data in face-to-face Bulgarian-medium story-generating interviews.
The stories were then transcribed, re-storied, and translated into English.
Re-storying is the process in narrative research of transforming the tran-
scripts of oral performances into reader-friendly prose narratives, allowing
at the same time the participants to speak for themselves, (e.g., Fay, 2004,
pp. 87, 101; Roberts, 2002). Ultimately, we built a body of Bulgarian and
English prose re-storyings of stories originally told in Bulgarian.
The Interculturally Collaborative Dimension

Working from largely differing institutional, professional, cultural and
linguistic backgrounds, we were critically alert to our alternate posi-
tionings as both insiders and/or outsiders to the worlds of Ladino,
the (inter-)cultural realities of the Bulgarian-Sephardim, English- and
Bulgarian-medium scholarship and research. And while we regarded our
different positionings very much as a given, we noticed and made use
of the opportunities our multiple perspectives afforded us to develop
new understandings of the ways the storytellers perform their own
interculturality.
The Researching Multilingually Dimension

Three languages—(comments about) Ladino, (interviews and re-
storyings in) Bulgarian, and (translated re-storyings in) English—mixed,
intermingled and interacted to give rise to our corpus of Bulgarian- and
English-medium re-storied narratives, inter-researcher communication,
and a growing bank of analytical texts and research presentations. At first
spontaneously, as we noticed things in the ‘natural’ flow of the study, then
as we progressed, more in awareness and by design, we welcomed the
freedom that the multiple language phenomena offered us to engage with
the data and see through the shades of meaning.
MAIN RESEARCH OUTCOME: FIVE ZONES

OF INTERCULTURALITY
Through a sequence of thematic analysis steps, we developed a five-zoned

framework which we used to make sense of the Ladino-framed intercul-
turality of our storytellers. As set against the Bulgarian context (in all of
its historical, national, social, political, cultural and linguistic complexity as
this has developed over their lifetimes), the storytellers can be understood
to be performing their identities in terms of five, to some extent, overlap-
ping, zones, namely:
1. the (intra-)personal, that is a zone of internal dialogue;

2. the domestic, that is a zone for the family;
3. the local, that is a zone for the Sephardic community in Bulgaria;
4. the diasporic, that is a zone for the wider Sephardic Jewish community;
and
5. the international, that is the international community of Spanish-
speakers.
The (Intra-)Personal Zone

Here, the storytellers reflect on what their knowledge and use of Ladino
means to them. Despite political and ideological restraints and despite
the state and societal ‘encouragements’ to integrate into a homogenous
understanding of Bulgarian society including an undisputable supremacy
of the Bulgarian language, they recognize Ladino as a special marker of
identity for them. Aron remembers the way he felt exceptional ‘when I
realised that I knew a language which was not typically spoken in Bulgaria’.
Similarly, for Andrey…
My sense of being an heir to this language is special. It enthuses and empow-

ers me with a kind of primary and fundamental force. […] We seek our
sense of uniqueness and find it in this language. It is a symbol, a token of
our otherness.
Prominent in this zone is the curiosity and the desire of the storytellers
to consider how Ladino makes them different and to seek for the answers
in an ongoing internal dialogue. They savour the difference and stand
their Ladino-marked identity ground, albeit aware of the risks it some-
times entails in the social reality they inhabit. Although they accept both
their Bulgarian-ness marked by the Bulgarian language and their special
Sephardic identity marked by Ladino, the texture of their performance is
evocative of heritage, of qualities that are distant and remote in time and
place but endow them nevertheless with a special voice.
No matter what direction their mindset takes—of pain or happiness—
significant for us is their position of acknowledging their multilingual
capacities and aligning, one way or another, their multiple linguistic iden-
tities. Importantly, they do so in full awareness of revolting against the
dominant image of the ‘typical’ Bulgarian national.
The Domestic Zone

It is at home that all of our research participants began shaping a sense of
themselves as Ladino speakers. Their stories tell us how they were exposed
to the language, how they acquired (whatever competence they have in)
Ladino, and how they experienced it in the home setting. Contrary to
expectations of an all-inclusive monolingual world, the picture they draw
of their home life is more like that of an arena where they perform mul-
tiple identities depending on who their interlocutors are, the interactions
they engage in, what they want to do or achieve, and ultimately, the influ-
ence of ever-changing circumstances outside the family.
For the more elderly ones (e.g., Ivet, aged 92), Ladino was a first lan-
guage: ‘Judesmo is my mother tongue. At home we spoke Judesmo. I
spoke Judesmo with my aunts, grannies, everybody’. For the less-elderly
ones, Ladino is less ‘present’ in their upbringing and did not become a
fluent first language but they all attribute meanings of intimacy, safety and
privacy to its use. While the ‘street’, the world beyond their house door,
was apparently a Bulgarian language domain, home life revolved around
Ladino. From an early age, Sephardic children and adolescents developed
the knowledge of which of the two linguistic identities to perform where.
They learned to gate-keep and hold the domains separate.
My Grandma always spoke to me in Ladino. When I was in my teens and

my friends were around, she would still do it. She very well knew that my
friends were all Bulgarian and could not understand a single Ladino word.
Invariably, my reaction was to respond to her in Bulgarian, and thus dem-
onstrate my disapproval—emphatically and strongly. This kind of response
destroyed the intimacy between us. We would often argue. [Andrey]
For most of our participants, life at home involved a complex naviga-

tion between different languages and ambiguities. The choice of whether
to use Ladino or Bulgarian at home was also influenced by the political
climate of the time in question. To suit the purpose of becoming a good
citizen of the newly established socialist society, Ivet and her husband
choose to perform not only their citizen-of-Bulgaria roles, but their family
and parenting roles in Bulgarian. We can see how, in this family context,
people move between languages and identities, depending on what their
resources are and how they are needed.
The Local Zone of the Sephardim in Bulgaria

This is where the identity performance of our storytellers tends to take on
some quite sudden and, often, dramatic turns. The complexity with which
they constitute themselves—nostalgic losers of their heritage language and
yet rebels and ardent revival missionaries; intercultural connectors and yet,
gatekeepers of their heritage language—is suggestive of an environment
strongly influenced by significant political changes and social transitions,
fertile ground for identities in a flux.
As the Sephardic community in Bulgaria dwindles, the storytellers
experience a sense of loss and nostalgia for the times when Ladino was
used for daily communication by their relatives, friends and Jewish (and
also sometimes Bulgarian) neighbours, ‘All their jokes, curses and playful
bantering was done in Judesmo’ [Eli].
However, even in those distant times, in the 1930s and 1940s, ‘the ver-
sion of Ladino they used was interspersed with Bulgarian words’ (Sami).
This usage signalled affiliation to both the (Jewish) community and the
Bulgarian society. Some of the younger members of the community went
further and questioned the taken-for-granted richness of their inherited
language and asserted their new, ‘modern’ (non-Ladino) identities in the
community of Sephardic Jews:
When she was young, my paternal Grandma Blanca regarded herself a mod-
ern young woman and tended to speak Bulgarian only. In those times, they
apparently believed that speaking Ladino was something that only the lower
classes did, or just old women anyway. [Andrey]
Competence in correctly spoken literary Bulgarian was highly valued

and younger members of the community experimented, consciously and
consistently, in order to ‘pass’ as Bulgarians, and do so even within their
own community, ‘We did not like sticking out like this and did our best
to get rid of the accent—so that nobody could tell’ [Aron]. They played
around with their identities, deliberately stepping beyond the linguistic
line which, for centuries, used to define them as Sephardic Jews.
In spite of the prevailing sense of having become losers of the most
significant marker of their Sephardic identity, the ‘inhabitants’ of the
local zone of the Sephardim have taken it upon themselves to rescue the
language from its slide into oblivion and preserve its distinctiveness and
beauty. They sing in Ladino heritage choirs, set up Ladino speaking clubs
and some of them, missionary-like, teach the language to keen members
of the community.
What is striking in this local-community zone is the transition its mem-
bers have made from using the language naturally for the purpose of run-
ning their daily lives, through willingly, or less so, dropping it from their
linguistic agenda, to becoming its proponents in the name of keeping it
for posterity.
The Diaspora Zone of the Wider Sephardic Community

The wider Sephardic community transcends national borders, time and
history. Not experiencing themselves as the ‘other’ in this zone, and not
having to act out what they see is necessary to be recognized as good
Bulgarian citizens, our storytellers narratively produce themselves as com-
petent speakers of Ladino, interculturally confident individuals, and val-
ued insiders of an inclusive community.
With Sephardim from countries such as Turkey, Greece, France and

Israel they use Ladino as a lingua franca and their stories do not dwell on
broken or unsuccessful communication but rather speak of easy moves
between languages and cultures.
Ladino-based diasporic encounters with complete strangers, long-time
friends, business partners, and fellow professionals point at a commonality
experienced with confidence and self-esteem. Ladino provides entrée into
an inclusive international community and differences turn out to be less
salient. Even a small degree of fluency in Ladino grants the right of entry
and a sense of belonging.
Here, the storytellers seem no longer to be the nostalgic losers of their
linguistic and cultural heritage as they were in the previous zone. Instead,
they become active members of the wider Sephardic community.
The International Community of Spanish Speakers

The visible horizon widens even further here as the storytellers move—
physically, linguistically and culturally—beyond the boundaries of their
Sephardic community. They connect, in a variety of ways, with mem-
bers of transnational Spanish-speaking communities from countries such
as Cuba, Spain, Argentina, Mexico and Chile and develop relationships
underpinned by the discovery that modern Spanish and Ladino are mutu-
ally intelligible. Monitoring and self-aware of their linguistic performance,
our participants position themselves along a Ladino-Spanish axis and in
doing so they are able to extend their inherited ownership of Ladino and,
in varying degrees, take ownership of modern Spanish. Some of the par-
ticipants just stay with Ladino and do not attempt any of the distance
between the older language and Spanish. They understand and make
themselves understood. Others mix and mingle the languages creatively
and carry their linguistic practices from Ladino to Spanish:
I expressed myself by capturing the root of a word and then attached dif-
ferent things to it. The result was a mongrel-like language, a mixture of
everything. But I managed to get around through this approximation of the
Spanish language. [Gredi]
Still others take it upon themselves to learn modern Spanish. Friendships

with Spanish-speaking people are more easily developed in Spanish than in
Ladino and it is the desire to connect and dialogue freely that drives them
towards learning the new language. In some ways, they seem to have made
a leap across time to transition from the Spanish of the end of the fifteenth
century to its contemporary version.
Having briefly reviewed the performance of our storytellers in each of
the five zones, we shall now stand back from the detail of it and reflect on
how we have conceptualized their Ladino-framed accounts of their lives.
ZONES OF INTERCULTURALITY
As noted above, the five-zoned framework, which we use to present how
our storytellers lived their Ladino-framed lives, evolved as a by-product of
our main focus on their narrativized understandings of Ladino. It was also
a framework that developed largely inductively rather than being framed
in existing models of IC. However, we did not start from an entirely blank
sheet and like other intercultural scholars we were familiar with many of
the existing models such as those summarized in the opening chapter of
Deardorff’s edited book on IC (2009).
In an earlier narrative study (Davcheva et al., 2011), we explored UK
supervisors’ experiences of working with international doctoral students,
and our discussion of this area of educational experience was presented
partly in terms of zones of interculturality in which we considered—through
a thematic analysis of the supervisors’ stories—how interculturality was
operationalized. We spoke of ‘Place and space’, and ‘Borders, boundaries
and thresholds’ as the constituent ways in which we understood the nar-
ratives of their supervisory experiences. Further, in that study, we located
interculturality in zones of dynamic interaction and negotiation between
supervisors and their PhD students (Davcheva et al., 2011, p. 162). In
these zones, interculturality was operationalized in ways we thematically
identified as stepping over borders, dividing lines and thresholds.
That earlier analytical work, although also largely inductive, nonethe-
less flowed from our shared comfort in theoretical frameworks including
Holliday’s (1999) small culture approach, Singer’s (1998) understanding
of the individual as culturally complex and culturally unique, Bhabha’s
(1990) third space and Kramsch’s (1998) intercultural space.
To the later research project, we brought with us a combination of
(i) a shared set of favoured ways of working and understanding the
intercultural—ways that challenge the all too often essentializing and
reductivist but nonetheless dominant and often-used models for under-
standing cultural difference and IC (e.g., Hofstede, 1991; Thomas &
Inkson, 2003; Trompenaars & Hampden-Turner, 1997; UNESCO,

2013), and (ii) an initial attempt to work with zones of interculturality.
Through this latter study, we also added a sense of identity-work through
narration (e.g., Clandinin & Connelly, 2000; Lieblich, Tuval-Mashach, &
Zilber, 1998) understood through the notion of performativity (Butler,
1991). The outcome was the five-zoned framework we re-present next.
Here, we will now reflect on that outcome in order to move from a
framework which, we believe, accounts for much of what we find telling in
the storytellers’ accounts of their Ladino-framed lives, to a more generally
applicable conceptualization that might have explanatory power for other
studies of other lives.
Figure 9.1 presents a first attempt to develop such a conceptualization.
It captures a number of key elements from the framework we developed
for our Sephardic storytellers but it also modifies and extends them. Just
Fig. 9.1 Zones of interculturality

as the five zones move from the very personal to the broadest zones
of human interaction, so too the visual is focused on zones from the
intrapersonal to the transnational. However, to highlight how the delinea-
tion of the zones will vary for each person and context, we have expanded
the number of zones from five to seven, and in practice, in any study the
number of zones might increase or decrease, but can probably be mapped
against this spectrum from the most personal to the most global. The lack
of hard lines between these zones also serves to indicate the great fluid-
ity we suspect will be evident if the conceptualization is applied to other
researched lives.
Our ongoing study is linguistically- and culturally oriented and for that
reason we have attended to what linguistic-cultural resources the story-
tellers have and how they strategically bring them to bear in the different
zones in which they lead their lives (for a similarly oriented discussion of
the linguistic experience of interacting across cultural boundaries see Chap.
1, this volume). The arrow covering the full range of zones is labelled to
reflect our focus. It may be that other researchers would, as they consider
the experience of interculturality presented by others, choose to label the
arrow differently.
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
In this chapter we have set out an approach to recognizing the richness and
personal diversity of the Ladino-framed lived experience of the Sephardim
in Bulgaria. Instead of looking at their narrated lives through the lens
of IC we develop a conceptualization of performed identities in zones
of interculturality. Two discernible intentions run through our current
work. First, we move entirely away from prevailing learning models of IC
(e.g., Belz, 2007; Byram, 1997; Jackson, 2010; Shaules, 2007). Second,
we advance further our first formulation of zones of interculturality, a key
point in our previous study of international PhD supervision (Davcheva
et al., 2011). Presenting a list of zones and making visible what happened
in them, our purpose then did not extend to the development of a gen-
eralizable conceptualization. The ongoing study, however, is taking us in
this direction and in Fig. 9.1 our work-in-progress towards this end is
newly articulated. In it, the notion of zones of interculturality is becom-
ing a foundational defining characteristic, one which has, we believe, both
explanatory power for the particular experience of interculturality we read
into the stories of our storytellers as well as for other studies. We could, for
example, use this model of expanding zones to present a perhaps clearer

conception of supervisor understandings of international supervisions than
we had presented previously. If we were to do so, we might change the
focus from the strategic use of linguistic-cultural resources to the dynam-
ics of interaction and negotiation across a number of zones. In a similar
way, we hope that other researchers might conceptualize interculturality
as the zones in which individuals perform their ordinary lives against the
complex geopolitical and linguistic-cultural backdrop of their times.
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PART III
Renewed Intercultural Competence

in Practice
CHAPTER 10
An Interactive, Co-constructed Approach

to the Development of Intercultural
Understanding in Pre-service
Language Teachers
Robyn Moloney, Lesley Harbon and Ruth Fielding
INTRODUCTION
As three former language teachers, now language teacher educators, we
have been active in the exploration of intercultural language pedagogy
and scholarship for over ten years. Over time, however, we have been chal-
lenged to reflect critically on our work with teachers, and what we have
seen in classrooms. We have reflected that regardless of engagement and
critical reflection upon interculturality within teacher training, publica-
tions and curriculum materials produced, ‘interculturality does not seem
R. Moloney ( )
Department of Educational Studies, Faculty of Human Sciences,
Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW, Australia
L. Harbon
School of International Studies, University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, NSW,
Australia
R. Fielding
University of Canberra, Canberra, ACT, Australia

DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-58733-6_10
186 R. MOLONEY ET AL.
to have been entirely integrated into language teaching and learning’

(Dervin, 2011, p. 1). This critical reflection has shaped our questioning
of whether intercultural underpinnings have truly been embraced in lan-
guage classrooms, and in consequence, our agreement with the proposi-
tion of this volume. That is, a new approach is demanded that re-examines
the nature of the learning involved in classrooms where an intercultural
stance is an intended outcome. In our responsibility for facilitating the
development of relevant skills in pre-service teachers, we have observed
the mixed nature of responses to exploration of intercultural material in the
pre-service-teacher classroom and the many varied interpretations of
the ‘intercultural’, from static culture learning at one end of the con-
tinuum to open reflective questioning at the other. This has pushed us
to reconsider new ways to facilitate understanding of an intercultural
approach with pre-service language teachers.
In earlier research (Harbon & Moloney, 2013), authors 1 and 2
employed an applied linguistics approach, using examination of the
Initiation–Response–Evaluation (I–R–E) discourse model, to analyse
school language classroom transcripts. We were interested in how inter-
cultural learning can occur through open and well-designed teacher ques-
tioning in language classrooms. In working with our pre-service language
teachers, among a range of other activities designed to explore intercul-
tural learning, we designed a task drawing on this earlier research, to high-
light the teacher role in this process. This chapter reports the unexpected
additional learning that emerged from this task which we believe shows
some possibilities for co-constructed and interactive approaches to inter-
cultural understanding. Through observation of pre-service teacher col-
laborative dialogue on the task, we became aware that the task offered the
pre-service teachers a productive opportunity to critically examine cultural
assumptions, both within a transcript of the classroom discussions, and for
themselves. Such critical examination has been identified as an essential
learning activity in teacher education (Dervin & Hahl, 2015). It offers
the possibility for pre-service teachers to co-construct understandings
of the intercultural, perhaps aligned with Davcheva and Fay’s (Chap. 9,
this volume) ‘zones of interculturality’. The study presented in this chap-
ter thus underlines what we believe now is the necessity of a collabora-
tive co-constructed critical approach to the development of intercultural
understandings in language teacher education, one that is based on the
groundedness of social constructivism in pre-service teacher education
(Beck & Kosnik, 2006).
AN INTERACTIVE, CO-CONSTRUCTED APPROACH TO THE DEVELOPMENT... 187
LITERATURE REVIEW: PROBLEMATIC UNDERSTANDINGS

A number of elements have contributed to the problematic understand-
ings, and, in our view, the often mixed outcomes, of ‘intercultural’ language
learning. As teachers attempt to implement an intercultural approach, a
number of troubling elements can be seen in some classrooms. These have
been identified as (i) the treatment of cultural differences as objective data,
leading to stereotypes, (ii) the essentializing of experience, in the research
field, and (iii) (even within well-intentioned ‘intercultural’ research) con-
fused adherence to national and ethnic categorizations (Dervin, 2010).
Such issues shape how the ‘intercultural’ and its related concepts are
theorized and put into practice. We recognize many research studies and
classroom activities, including our own, that have, albeit unintentionally,
reflected these three elements.
We identify that our concerns about the limitations of some forms of
enactment of intercultural language teaching can be classified into two
connected areas. These resonate with Dervin’s criticisms as the concerns
can be described first as a representation of intercultural competence (IC)
being a fixed (‘solid’) asset of cultural capital, creating an essentialization
of IC itself, reflecting essentialized notions of culture. Second, the con-
cerns can be seen as an over-simplification of intercultural pedagogy that
occurs in language classrooms.
We acknowledge and critique the trajectory in our own development
as intercultural researchers and teachers. To this end, we briefly sketch the
literature of influence which we believe has contributed to some of the
limited understandings being replicated in classrooms. We then decon-
struct how we have worked with our pre-service language teachers to
build both awareness of the role of classroom discourse and critical recog-
nition of over-simplified and stereotypical notions of culture, constructing
alternative ways of teaching interculturally.
An early influence on the current practice of intercultural education
was the writing of Ned Seelye (1994). Seelye strove to provide classroom
strategies for intercultural communication. As a scholar from the US ‘mul-
ticultural education’ discourse, Seelye offered teachers cultural activities
and quizzes for classrooms. Seelye’s intent was to ‘teach’ culture, through
the eliciting of cultural curiosity and empathy, to create critical awareness
of stereotyping and anti-racism initiatives. Seelye argued that if culture
can be taught as concrete items, then those items can also be assessed,
and thus he included tests to assess achievement (1994). Moran (2001)
included so-called instruments of intercultural testing, and models of ‘cul-

ture learning’ in the Appendix to his volume, as ‘etic’ cultural perceptions,
used in fixed and static ways (Moran, 2001, pp. 157–169).
Other such models claiming to measure or assess intercultural under-
standing include for example the Developmental Model of Intercultural
Sensitivity (DMIS) (Bennett & Hammer, 1998). While the DMIS may
have been a first step in awareness of developmental change in response
to cultural interactions, its use without a larger frame of reference has
contributed to teachers acquiring linear, objectivist and ‘culturalist’ under-
standings, which promote fixed notions of what intercultural development
might be. Such models suggest that the individual is solely responsible
for his upwardly mobile successful acquisition of IC, as a result of his
actions. Considering the individual as the sole star of the process has been
described as the ‘absence of the interlocutor’ in definitions of intercultural
competence (Ruben, 1989, p. 234), that is, as Dervin describes it, ‘mono-
logical and individualistic’. Such definitions only mention the ‘user’ of the
competence and ignore the influence of the interlocutor and the context
in which interaction may be taking place. Many intercultural researchers
and teachers would recognize Dervin’s amusing portrait of the individual
who is ‘interculturally competent but … easily troubled by the lack of
motivation of the other, her/his bad intentions, his/her language skills’
(2010, p. 7). We would argue that ‘intercultural’ might be better under-
stood if it incorporated understandings of how community and individu-
als reciprocally co-contribute to the development of cultural belonging.
We argue that the notion of ‘investment’ as explored by Norton (2000,
2006, 2014) shows such a reciprocal relationship that notions of intercul-
tural understanding also need to embrace. Norton’s work (2000, 2006,
2014) showed that to become a member of a new culture requires the
investment of not only the individual themselves, but also the commu-
nity around them in fostering linguistic and cultural growth. We argue
that similarly the construction of intercultural understanding cannot solely
take into account the individual, but must also attend to the role played
by the context and the surrounding participants in this process. It must,
therefore, become a co-constructed and interactive process rather than an
individual experience.
In our work in teacher professional development, we have observed
that many teachers have been reluctant or unable to engage with what
they perceive to be abstract and irrelevant intercultural enquiry in lan-
guage classrooms. Teacher training about the theoretical nature of the
intercultural approach has not always been embraced by teachers, because

the unfamiliar, abstract and often alienating language of the discourse is
hard to reconcile with everyday practice. In addition, one well-known
model is conceptualized in French and therefore may be unclear to teach-
ers with no knowledge of the French language (Byram & Zarate, 1996).
In the prevailing pedagogic discourse, ‘invisible’ assumptions as to learner
and teacher roles have similarly made comprehension difficult for some
language-teacher communities (e.g., Moloney, 2013; Orton, 2008).
Teachers retain beliefs as to their responsibilities to deliver knowledge
about the particular national ‘culture’ of their language. Indeed, from our
knowledge of Australian teacher education, we can anecdotally report that
teachers frequently believe that they are ‘doing intercultural’ if they are
teaching static culture thus essentializing both culture as an entity and
essentializing the activity of intercultural pedagogy. Scholars have recog-
nized the limited abilities in teachers to understand and adopt new peda-
gogy of critical thinking within language learning (e.g., Kramsch, 2006;
Sercu, 2006). In the effort to ‘concretize’ intercultural learning to make it
more ‘teachable’, there has been a trend to simplify and reduce the inter-
cultural notions for language classrooms. Most commonly, activities have
been devised to facilitate thinking about comparison of cultures.
The newest wave of language-learning textbooks admirably features the
inclusion of activities and questions to stimulate critical cultural aware-
ness (for example, Burrows, Izuishi, Lowry, & Nishimura-Parke, 2010;
Comley & Vallantin, 2011; Goonan, 2011). Frequently however when
such cultural comparison is enacted, it is up to the teacher whether these
comparisons are handled as thoughtful, collaborative open enquiry or as a
concrete set of exercises of stereotypical comparative point-scoring with-
out deeper enquiry. Where intercultural learning exists only at the level of
simplistic comparisons, it may continue inadvertently to promote fixed,
essentialized notions of cultures (Holliday, 2010; Young & Sercombe,
2010, p. 182). At a more concerning level it can lead to ‘othering’, a pro-
cess by which comparisons lead to over-simplification and over-emphasis
of difference, which may in fact increase the generalization and stereotyp-
ing of groups and disregard the complexities of cultures (Holliday, Hyde,
& Kullman, 2010).
The analysis in this study thus turns to an approach prioritizing and
modelling co-constructed learning through social interaction, as we
explore how it might be possible to address some of the reductionist pat-
terns occurring in intercultural practice. The key role of social interaction
within learning is long established, with much educational writing of the

past 40 years having been built on Vygotsky’s (1987) work on the social
construction of knowledge. Vygotsky established that movement from the
‘social plane’ of functioning to the ‘internal plane’ of functioning requires
active engagement by students, peers and the teacher (1987). For such
engagement to occur, it is essential to use talk and other mediation to
regulate attention, explore conceptualzsation, integrate experience, stimu-
late recall, and explain. Structured social interaction enables students to
transform their thinking (Wells, 2000).
Essentially the social constructivist notion is that learners learn ‘through
social interactions involving both peers and teachers’ (O’Leary, 2014,
p. 15), which develops into a partnership and ‘promotes conversational
interaction, collaboration and reflection’ (O’Leary, 2014, p. 16). In dis-
cussing how such learning might occur, O’Leary also builds on the theory
of Williams and Burden (1997, p. 46, cited in O’Leary, 2014, p. 18) that
talks of a ‘dynamic social constructivist model of the teaching and learning
process where “the learner(s), the teacher, the task and the context inter-
act with and affect each other”’.
In our study we became interested in noticing acts of co-construction
of discourse and interaction in relation to intercultural approaches among
individual pre-service language teachers participating in small group col-
laborative tasks. Dynamic understandings of culture and the ‘intercul-
tural’, are created when individuals encounter one another in relationship.
Our work is informed by Abdallah-Pretceille’s (2004) identification that:
‘La question n’est pas tant la culture de l’autre, mais tout simplement la
question de la relation à l’autre’ [The question is not the culture of the
other, it is very simply the question of the relationship with the other]. To
this end, in this work we look for evidence of Ogay’s (2000, p. 53) term,
‘dynamique interculturelle’ [an intercultural dynamic] between our par-
ticipants, rather than competence, in exploring the participants’ mutual
responsibility and engagement.
Turning to the context of our study, in the broader university setting
graduate attributes today commonly include the capacity for critical, ana-
lytical and integrative thinking and for global cultural competence (Barrie,
2004, 2007). In pre-service teacher education programmes, the ability to
reflect critically requires pre-service teachers to move beyond the acquisi-
tion of knowledge towards developing active questioning of perspectives,
assumptions and values (Mayer, Luke, & Luke, 2008). In pre-service lan-
guage teacher education, there is mindfulness that the teaching and learning
of additional languages has a broader societal significance. Language edu-

cation and critical literacy have the potential to contribute to understand-
ing of citizenship, human rights and anti-racism (Andreotti, 2011; Byram,
Gribkova, & Starkey, 2002; Starkey, 2005, 2007). In this way, facilitating
the development of interculturally aware teachers also assists these pre-ser-
vice teachers to meet many of the desired graduate attributes.
There have been a number of different approaches to the development
of intercultural capabilities in teacher education, for example, through
curriculum intervention (Jokikokko, 2005; Mushi, 2004); international
exchange opportunities (Harbon & Atmazaki, 2002; Olmedo & Harbon,
2010); use of reflective narrative (Moloney & Oguro, 2015); and use of
postintercultural strategies in teacher education (Dervin, 2014; Dervin &
Hahl, 2015). We recognize the struggle for intercultural understanding
encountered by teachers when they engage in overseas postings, which
has been shown to be only solvable through collaboration with local
peers (Ye & Edwards, 2014). We are mindful of research contexts that
have remarked on the limited success of intercultural development in pre-
service and in-service teachers, either working in isolation, or in a pas-
sive knowledge-delivery learning model (for example, Kinginger, 2008;
Moloney, 2013). Therefore, intercultural pedagogy involving collabora-
tive construction needs to be explored.
As noted, in our pre-service teacher workshops, among other learn-
ing activities, we have sought to raise awareness of intercultural possibili-
ties arising from the ‘linguistic turn’ literature, especially the I–R–E turn
(Harbon & Moloney, 2013; Sinclair & Coulthard, 1975, 1992). In this
way we encourage consideration of how interaction in the classroom may
have the potential to open up collaborative dialogue about intercultural
notions. Tsui (1995) and Dashwood (2004) have examined language
teaching and learning in classroom interaction. Tsui’s work in 1995 con-
cluded that ‘studies conducted on classroom interaction have shown that
student talk accounts for an average of less than 30 per cent of talk in
“teacher-fronted” classrooms’ (Tsui, 1995, p. 81). Dashwood’s (2004,
p. 20) Australian research found how the language teacher ‘invariably
reclaims the “turn”, thus reducing student opportunities to talk on task’.
Hall (2002, p. 80) has written of the I–R–E pattern that:
The pattern involves the teacher asking a question to which the teacher
already knows the answer. The purpose of such questioning is to elicit infor-
mation from the students so that the teacher can ascertain whether they
know the material.
In examining conceptions of interactive pedagogy, Smith and Higgins

(2006, p. 499) present evidence that teachers can facilitate a more inter-
active learning environment ‘by careful use of the feedback move in the
I-R-F exchange … inviting peer reviews and agreements/disagreements …
[as well as encouraging] backchannel moves’ as an alternative to the famil-
iar I–R–E or I–R–F [Initiation–Response–Follow up/Feedback] patterns.
Nassaji and Wells (2000, p. 376) referred to the I–R–E discourse patterns
as ‘triadic dialogue’, and although ‘essential for the co-construction of
cultural knowledge’, note its limitations in that it is also ‘antithetical to the
educational goal of encouraging students’ intellectual discursive initiative
and creativity’.
Harbon and Moloney (2013) demonstrated that where teachers can
devise patterns of communication involving inclusive open-ended enquiry,
there is potential to inform construction of intercultural understanding
between learners in classrooms. This has, thus, remained as one of our
pedagogical tools, in our language teacher education workshops, to ask
pre-service teachers to examine interaction patterns in school classroom
transcripts. This chapter however involves a re-examination of the task,
in noting a second layer of learning evident, of which we were not ini-
tially aware: that is, the pre-service teacher discourse as they made sense of
the classroom transcripts. In our exploration of the discourse pre-service
teachers engaged in while examining classroom interaction, we noticed
the opportunities for co-constructed intercultural understanding. This is
the focus examined in this chapter.
What then are our criteria for recognition of the intercultural dynamic
occurring in the pre-service teachers in this study? We are in agreement
with Dervin and Dirba’s (2006) study of Finnish and Latvian pre-service
teachers, which concluded that students are operating interculturally
when they demonstrate willingness/ability to communicate with indi-
viduals, when they make an effort to decentre from their own culture,
when they develop an awareness that ‘national culture’ can be an over-
simplistic explanation of culture, and when they develop an awareness that
all individuals are diverse, and shift identities according to interlocutor
and context. Thus in this chapter we explore the unexpected ways that
some pre-service teachers de-centre, critically analyse culture, and develop
a dynamic together in a workshop class through ‘talk’.
It is our responsibility both to refine our practice and to facilitate the
development of interculturally aware teachers, knowing that the nature of
intercultural communication can be challenging, even uncomfortable and

confusing (see Chap. 4, this volume). The goal of this study is to examine
whether a learning task can afford the growth of an intercultural dynamic
within language-teacher education.
METHODOLOGY: PRE-SERVICE TEACHERS

CO-CONSTRUCTING
Our participants are pre-service languages teachers. As part of a methodol-
ogy workshop conducted in two different university contexts, following a
short introduction to the I–R–E discourse model and its role in classrooms,
pre-service teachers worked in pairs, to read three classroom lesson tran-
scripts from a secondary school in Sydney, and to identify the functioning
of the I–R–E in the lesson transcripts. The transcripts are, respectively, one
Japanese, one Italian, and one Spanish lesson. The teachers featured in
these three lesson transcripts were all engaged in what they considered to
be an explicit ‘intercultural’ approach. In the case of Japanese and Italian,
the transcribed lesson focused on the topic ‘festivals’, and in the Spanish
class, the focus was upon the analysis of behaviour at a dinner party in a
Spanish home. Ethics permission had been granted to video-record and
transcribe the teacher and student discourse in a number of school lessons
in those languages. We subsequently obtained ethics permission to audio
record the pre-service teacher interactions as they explored the transcripts.
While all enrolled pre-service teachers participated in the university
workshops, informed consent for the audio-recording and research par-
ticipation was given by 37 students in University A, and 35 in University
B. Those who gave consent were audio-recorded during this task.
Participants were all multilingual and most had background experience
of travel, exchange or immigration. Some participants had engaged in
lengthy practicum experiences while others had limited classroom experi-
ence at the time of the study.
At the time of the study the first author taught in the pre-service lan-
guage teacher education programs at University A. The second and third
authors taught in the pre-service language teacher education programs at
University B. Approval of ethical considerations were sought and approved
in both universities. We acknowledge the influence of the ideology and
physical presence of the three researchers in the task (Guba & Lincoln,
2005; Gubrium & Holstein, 1997).
One sample of language classroom discourse text was first examined

together by all class participants as a whole group, identifying and label-
ling the I–R–E features, and introducing the possible limitations of the
labels and the need for other possible discourse labels, such as Follow-up,
and Feedback. This was followed by the small group analysis activity.
Transcripts of actual Italian, Japanese and Spanish language lessons from
schools (published in previous research, see Harbon & Moloney, 2013)
were provided to the groups of pre-service teachers for analysis. Sample
classroom transcripts used are included as Appendices A and B.
Pre-service teachers participated in a Concurrent Verbal Reporting
protocol (Jääskeläinen, 2010), whereby the researchers used the audio
recording function on flip cameras to record the ‘stream-of-consciousness
thinking and reflecting’ dialogue between the pair (or group) of pre-
service teachers as they grappled with this task. Participants examined the
transcripts, identifying and labelling the I–R–E turn in the transcript dis-
course, and questioning whether the teacher and students were success-
ful in constructing any intercultural enquiry. The transcribed data from
the Concurrent Verbal Reporting protocols were read, re-read, and ana-
lysed using a constant comparison method of content analysis (Denzin
& Lincoln, 2008; Ryan & Bernard, 2000). Using a grounded thematic
approach by successive researchers’ readings, common themes were high-
lighted and data grouped according to the themes emerging from the
data. Data were reduced through content analysis, enabling more concise
themes to be derived.
Our pedagogical intent, and the design of the learning task, was to
raise our pre-service teachers’ awareness of linguistic patterns in classroom
discourse, and how such discourse patterns might affect learning and
opportunities for intercultural consideration. The task was thus preceded
by instruction about I–R–E patterns of classroom discourse (Sinclair
& Coulthard, 1975, 1992) and the role of mixed patterns of discourse
in encouraging greater inclusion of learner response. The task was also
embedded within a sustained engagement with intercultural pedagogy,
as mandated by our local syllabuses, and, therefore, students had already
engaged with key ideas underpinning intercultural approaches to teach-
ing languages. We were initially less concerned, and, in fact, less critically
aware ourselves, about noticing differences in the school transcripts in
how the teachers had designed their lessons and variously sought to enact
intercultural learning in their classrooms.
As we listened to the audio-recordings of the pre-service language

teachers’ small group discussions, and later examined the transcripts of
these recordings, it became clear that the pre-service teachers had moved
beyond the demands of the task, in their critical comment. They offered
collaborative identification of the patterns of questions and answers, as
demanded by the task, but they also offered co-constructed critique of
the lesson content, and the teacher behaviour, with considerations of
how the interaction opened up or stifled opportunities for intercultural
engagement. They brought to the discussion their own rich backgrounds
and prior learning, and from this, constructed their interpretation of the
school teacher and learner behaviour.
FINDINGS: PRE-SERVICE TEACHER COLLABORATIVE

DISCUSSIONS
Sample 1: University A, Group of Three Participants
In order to examine the flow of interaction in a group of three participants,
two extended extracts from the transcript are offered below. The three
participants, of different cultural backgrounds, are examining the tran-
script of the Italian lesson, (which had been conducted in Italian, which
accounts perhaps for the simplicity of the question/answer format). In
the Italian lesson, after some initial discussion about festivals in Italy, the
teacher had asked groups of learners to prepare written answers in Italian
to a number of questions about festivals in both Italy and Australia. For
readers unfamiliar with the Australian context, Anzac Day commemorates
the World War I landing by Australian and New Zealand Army Corps at
Gallipoli, Turkey. Extract 1 is a transcript of pre-service teacher discussion.
S3: (reads from the translated teacher line within the transcript)
‘what do young Italians and Australians like to do on festivals?’
S1: if you had a class full of kids who weren’t native Australians,
they might not actually know … wouldn’t know what the
typical Australian things were. They would genuinely have to
look things up, find out what Australians do.
S1: (reads translated teacher line) ‘Anzac day is an emotional day’.
S3: if you just said that, you’d have to explain what Anzac day is.
S1: you’d have to explain it to lots of kids … Imagine if you had

international students, you’d have to explain everything.
S3: I’m sorry, but Anzac day is touchy, it’s also so uniquely
Australian. I don’t know any other country that celebrates a
war day like Australia does. It’s very strange to me, coming
from my background. It’s a very strange concept, very strange
concept.
S2: same for Italians.
S1: oh, that’s a good perception.
S1: (reads translated teacher line) ‘What is the most important fes-
tival in Australia?’ Again—it’s too typical—we have a broad
spectrum of nationalities here, if your background is not
Australian … you will have other days that are important too.
S2: You can’t really say we eat lamb, if you have Muslim kids in
the class … It’s culturally insensitive.
S1: It’s very stereotypical. Exactly.
S3: The teacher should be saying ‘Australia Day means dif-
ferent things to different people’. Because we are such a
multicultural…
S2: It’s also in fact the day Australia was discovered, not just that
we eat lamb.
S1: But it’s a good way to bring those things up, to find out, like,
whose family celebrates what, their religions. Like I wouldn’t
even know the different countries, it’d be interesting to find
out from the kids.
S2: But then you’d have to talk about Aboriginal history and
what Australia Day might mean to them. It’s definitely not as
nice and happy for them as for others.
S1: It’s more a way to show a broad range of what’s different. It’s
a good way to include, you should show as many different
things as possible. I mean, ‘Australian’, what is that?
S3: Yes, what is that?
Across this extract we can see various examples of the progressive co-
construction of what may be identified as an intercultural dynamic. In
addition to identifying Initiation–Response elsewhere in the transcripts,
the three participants identify and criticize the culturally ‘solid’ nature
of the teacher questions. They identify that the questions used by the
teacher may fail to incorporate the practices of many Australian families.

However, the pre-service teachers also show some tendency toward ste-
reotyping and limitations themselves, in S2’s assertion that Australia Day
is the day Australia was discovered, when it had in fact been occupied for
40,000 years by Indigenous Australians.
They are critiquing the strategy of over-simplification in the school
task, using their prior knowledge from their in-school practicum and
their knowledge of the high representation of students with a language
background other than English, in Sydney classrooms. When it comes to
Anzac Day, S3 strongly expresses her individual consternation as to the
Australian celebration of a war commemoration, supported also by S2
from her own experience, and this appears to prompt a surprising new
perception in S1 about what it actually means to be ‘Australian’. A dis-
cussion of Australia Day (26 January, commemorating the arrival of the
British Fleet for settlement with the first convicts) follows. This has been
offered by the classroom learners as the answer to the translated teacher
question ‘What is the most important Australian festival and why?’ The
eating of lamb on this day has been commercialized by the meat industry
as an ‘Australian’ thing to do. S1, S2 and S3 attack the inadequacy of the
culturally generalized question for its production of simplistic answers.
They are able to construct an alternative, what the teacher could have
said, to have positioned it differently. S2 moves to counterbalance her
previous statement as to the ‘discovery’ of Australia, by contributing to
the perspective of Aboriginal Australians (some of whom refer to the day
as ‘Invasion Day’). Finally, they come to the conclusion together that the
classroom task may still be a useful one if conducted in a much more fluid
complexity, to engage the idea of ‘what is Australian?’. They move towards
a collaborative conclusion by throwing up the entire question of essential-
ized and generalized culture, (‘I mean, ‘Australian’, what is that?’) in the
face of the multiplicity and individuality of school students’, and their
own, identities and experience.
In this extract, we see pre-service teachers building co-constructed
diverse perceptions which lead them to critique and challenge assump-
tions evident in the lesson transcripts. Their relationship is represented
in their willingness to contribute and respect individual perspectives and
backgrounds, and their expressions of concern. Together they collaborate
to criticize the reduction of national culture, and construct an understand-
ing of complexity.
Sample 2: University A, Group of Two Participants

While in Sample 1, the extract has shown the co-construction taking place
at the pre-service teacher level in this task, and their criticism of the Italian
lesson strategies, the Sample 2 extract shows their awareness of the posi-
tive co-construction taking place between the teacher and students in the
transcript of the Spanish lesson, which was an analysis of language and
behaviour at a Spanish dinner party. The teacher is encouraging learners
to notice that the guests do not say the word for ‘thank you’ at the end
of the party.
S1: She’s giving them some information. But she asks ‘what else’
‘what’s missing’?
S1: She’s getting them to give her what’s missing, so she can give
them feedback, so they are already then on the track.
S2: Response, feedback. There’s lots of feedback.
S1: Feedback and initiation, she is following on with a question
from that feedback. She’s asking them to make a judgement,
as to whether this is culturally appropriate.
S1: The kids make a guess then she affirms.
S2: Students respond again, feedback… It’s not a yes/no answer,
it’s going deeper.
S1: They are questioning the teacher, seeing if they are on the
right track, and she can say yes…
S1: So she is setting it up. Getting them to think about their con-
nection with the situation… This is a really good lesson, the
way she has gone into the text, getting them to think about it
culturally, and use what they know. She’s making them con-
struct everything
S2: She uses open-ended questions.
S1: She’s really only added one point, no, two points, to the
actual cultural information. The kids guess, she is getting it all
out of the kids.
This sample shows that the pre-service teachers recognize, through

their collaborative analysis of the communication patterns in the transcript,
that this teacher is facilitating a discussion in which the classroom learn-
ers themselves co-construct intercultural understanding of the behaviour
in the Spanish dinner party. It suggests that here the classroom learners
are involved, not with information about ‘the culture of the other’, but
with constructing their ‘relationship with the other’ (Abdallah-Pretceille,
2004). This stands out for them as exceptional, in contrast to the other
lesson transcripts. We thus see the co-construction process occurring at
two levels in this sample.
Sample 3: University B, Group of Three Participants

The three pre-service teachers in this group similarly appear able to easily
identify and label the I–R–E in action, and also critique the stereotypes
they perceived in parts of the lesson, layering their observations as they
spoke over the top of each other, to construct a conclusion. This group is
discussing both the Japanese and the Italian lesson transcripts. They also
judged that the teachers in the transcripts missed opportunities for further
intercultural exploration.
S1: Well I think much of the topics have come up in these dia-
logues… They could be developed further. It’s sort of like a
selection of different topics as we see the conversations hap-
pening. For example, the specific reference to the Japanese
festivals discussion. A lot of words come up like sausages,
watermelons, which people link to a certain culture. And I
think it’s good to have that kind of intercultural understand-
ing coming through the things that we use in our daily rou-
tines but it’s good to have a focus
S2: Yeah
S1: And as pre-service language teacher, I would say …it’s very
good to brainstorm but I don’t want to keep it at a superficial
level.
S3: Yeah, well they seem pretty superficial to me.
S1: Compared to the Spanish ones.
S2: Yeah, because like things like, you know, the Italian ones,
what is it? Italians like New Years because there is [sic.] fire-
works? You know that’s not really true, is it?
S1: There’s a lot of unjustified stereotypes. And these stereotypes
don’t really help to…
S1: I think it’s kind of creating an intercultural barrier as opposed
to promoting the exchanges of knowledges [sic.] that are
valuable to each of the cultures. To say that something is a
typical Australian thing or a typical Italian thing—I mean ste-

reotypes are good, they give us awareness of who we are, like
identity, but…
We observe a confidence in S1’s statements about cultural stereotypes,

confirmed in turn by her classmates. The criticism about reduction of
‘national culture’ is termed ‘unjustified’ by S1 and also an ‘intercultural
barrier’. This reflects what Holliday et al. (2010) call ‘othering’, which can
lead to the over-simplification of understanding about cultures.
The group cohesion that is established among the three participants
here shows evidence that the pre-service language teachers are now confi-
dent to actively apply the terms and notions learnt (such as labelling parts
of the transcript as ‘Initiation’, or ‘Response’ or ‘Follow-up’). However,
beyond this they are engaged by the active learning, which differs from
previous exposure to the intercultural notions through lecture/textual
information. In other words, the pre-service language teachers are now
‘experiencing’ the classroom discourse seeing a language teacher trying to
take an intercultural stance, not merely reading about it. We note the role
of pre-service language teachers’ individual prior knowledge in interpret-
ing the transcript and its dialogue with their peers. Through this process
they co-construct their understandings of what is intercultural and what
is stereotyping.
In the analysis of the following short extract from the same three par-
ticipants commenting on a section of the Spanish lesson that dealt with
punctuality in Spain, we see further examples of the engagement with
intercultural language learning on a deeper level. The school class tran-
script showed that the learners wanted to know exactly how late you could
be in Spain. In the pre-service teachers’ discussion, we see this partici-
pant’s ability to recognize the learners’ involvement in the question, and
we observe her ‘de-centring’ as she engages in reflecting on her own inter-
est in it, shedding light on her own intercultural understandings and cul-
tural knowledge.
S2: Yep, you have to find something that sparks their interest. I
think that was what was really good with the Spanish one,
coz they were all, like, ‘They get there late’ and they were all
interested in it, you know. I’m interested in it. I hate waiting
two hours.
We can see that S2 extends the individual nature of the student’s

question about lateness protocols in Spain, by providing her own emo-
tive response to the notion of lateness. The other members of the group
interject throughout the extract, building upon the perceptions that
they each provide and demonstrate collaboration, peer confirming and
co-constructing of understanding. The methodology appears to allow
the group a certain engagement and enjoyment of the multiple peer
perspective-sharing, allowing them to display enjoyment of identifying
cultural differences.
The following extract shows one of the pre-service teachers demon-
strating that ‘we’ (assuming this represents ‘her Australia’) don’t have any
festivals. She is caught in what some have observed to be normative, or
‘invisible’ Australian culture (Lo Bianco & Crozet, 2003). She is inter-
rogated by S1, however, on this comment, thus exhibiting their co-con-
struction of understanding.
S1: Mmm. Yeah, like in the Italian lesson they could have talked
about the fact that most of the public holidays are like
religious…
S2: yeah.
S1: whereas in Australia most of the public holidays aren’t. There
are a lot of things they could have expanded on. But you
could start off first with Italian festivals as opposed to talking
about the Australian ones.
S2: Well we don’t really have any, so I think that…
S1: Is that right?
S2: Well….
S1: is it?
S2: Well, I’m saying they have so many in Italy, like festivals and
holidays, and it’s so much more exciting than what we do on
Australia Day.
S1: Yeah, like every weekend is like the Festival of Bean, or like
the Festival of Pork. [All laugh]
The task appeared to give the participants the chance to hypothesize

and second-guess what might have been intended and how the class-
room learners responded. They were able to discuss freely any aspect
of the transcript that took their attention, in their small group. The
seemingly ‘off topic’ reference to little towns in Italy that have what
may appear to them to be absurd-sounding festivals—celebrating some-
thing which may never be celebrated in Australia—seems to be a catalyst
for intercultural curiosity. There is evidence that these students, while
able to notice some of the limitations in the transcript, still themselves
exhibit some essentialized notions of the ‘other’ where they see the
Italian festivals as innately fun because of their ‘difference’. In doing
so, they indicate what Gorski (2008) discusses as unintentional rein-
forcing of stereotypes. As Gorski says: ‘despite overwhelmingly good
intentions, most of what passes for intercultural education practice …
accentuates rather than undermines existing social and political hierar-
chies’ (Gorski, 2008, p. 516).
Nevertheless, we see in this dialogue some challenging of ideas. Within
the group dynamic we can see one student taking on the role of the ‘initia-
tor’ of questions, and the others, the ‘responders’. What could also occur,
therefore, is a modelling of the form of questioning that might be used in
an intercultural exploration in her own classroom later on.
Then returning to the prescribed pedagogic task, the final conclusion of
the three pre-service teachers appears to consist of a statement of what
they have learned, again confirming their critical understanding of the
intercultural shortcomings in the lessons examined through the task.
S3: Actually if you look at these ones, then it’s all like just
I–R. There’s not even an Evaluation. Teacher asks a question,
Initiation. Student gives an answer. Another student gives an
answer. Another student gives an answer. Teacher makes a
statement, that’s it.
S1: So it’s about analytical skills as well that they can transfer into
other subject areas. That’s what we should also be looking at.
That’s what’s missing in all of these conversations.
We see here that the students themselves construct an understanding

of what they perceive is missing in these transcribed attempts at intercul-
tural pedagogy. The three pre-service language teachers have determined
what they might need to add to their pedagogical repertoire to make their
classrooms more intercultural—that is expanding the forms of question-
ing and facilitating students to build on prior knowledge and link to other
subjects.
Sample 4: University B: A Group of Four Participants

This group provides further evidence that together the pre-service teach-
ers undergo a process of co-construction in their analysis of the extract.
This example shows the pre-service teachers analysing the I–R–E patterns
in the transcript. The group indicate that they have the ability to decentre,
and put themselves in the position of both the students and the teacher
in the classroom as they empathize with what is occurring in the tran-
script. In this extract, participants are considering learner answers to what
has been a closed question from the teacher, to which there was a ‘right’
answer. Participant S4 in this group considers her own communicative
practice in her university classes:
S4: I think that student gave that comment as an answer

(Response), but you know, when you’re a student sometimes
if you’re not sure, your tone goes up, it’s more like a question.
S2: yeah if you’re not sure.
S4: so she [the teacher] probably didn’t catch her tone so she
thought it was a statement not a question.
S2: but these students are not sure of the answers.
S4: because as a student, I remember doing a similar thing. As
a student you’re not supposed to know, or you don’t know
if you have the right to, like, make a statement, because it’s
more of a question. You’re not supposed to be perceived as
having the most knowledge. So generally you try to answer
a statement but naturally sometimes your tone goes up. And
you try to get confirmation from the teacher.
In this extract we also see S4 offering a personal reflection from her

own experience of classroom interaction. Together the pre-service teach-
ers construct a critique of the power structure of the I–R–E classroom
discourse in which a student either lacking in confidence, or in interpret-
ing the classroom power dynamic, may feel she does not ‘have the right to’
participate and contribute. Their suggestion that a student may not feel
entitled to be perceived ‘as having the most knowledge’ indicates the pre-
service teachers’ perception of the coercive power relations in the class,
where the teacher is the expert with the answers. The construction in this
excerpt may refer to young pre-service teacher perceptions that it is not
cool to be seen as knowledgeable. The participants show their curiosity to
notice and reflect as they jointly critique the work of the teacher:
S4: She’s (the teacher) having her own conversation!

S2: She switches topics too quickly. Shouldn’t she, like, ask what
do you do?
S3: Yeah.
S2: Like give some comparison. But then she just switches to
another topic.
S4: Yeah like every one of her comments is like that.
S2: She should switch to another topic after the comparison. She
doesn’t give them any new information at all.
S3: There’s no linking. There’s no linking between the two, it’s
just stating.
The pre-service teachers show in their discussion of this lesson extract

that they have awareness of diversity and complexity in terms of what the
students in the transcript might have had the potential to contribute to the
class discussion. The pre-service teachers exhibit some belief that a more
collaborative classroom dynamic is needed, which would enable students
to contribute to, extend and build the interaction. They argue that the
teacher is limiting the discussion by not enabling a full range of responses
to each question to be put forward by different students. They believe
the teacher moves too quickly from one topic to the next without fully
exploiting the opportunities for intercultural exploration.
We also can see this group of pre-service teachers’ awareness of the
notions of self and other. They critique the discussion of ‘Australian’ cul-
ture as being monolithic when Australian culture is often interpreted as
what they call ‘Caucasian Australian’:
S2: (reads translated teacher line) Young Australians like to watch

the march on Anzac Day
S3: Is that true?
S4: laughs
S2: Not particularly
S3: That’s what young Australians do?!
S4: Maybe if you’re, like, five years old… they’re really talking
about Australian things like barbecues, Anzac day you know
they’re really stereotypical like Caucasian Australian things.
S2: I guess she’s just asking questions and letting a few people
answer.
The pre-service teachers, therefore, indicate the ability to construct

their own understandings of what an intercultural stance might look like
through the task of critiquing other teachers’ attempts at intercultural-
ity, and recognizing their own perspectives. This, therefore, appears to
be a useful prompting task to help pre-service teachers critique their own
beliefs about what effective intercultural classroom pedagogy might look
like in practice.
DISCUSSION: VIEWING THE ‘INTERCULTURAL’ IN LESS

CONCRETE WAYS
A number of themes have emerged from our analysis of the pre-service
language teachers’ discussions about intercultural aspects of language
classroom discourse. These themes, echoing Dervin and Dirba’s (2006)
identification of elements of intercultural ability, support our assertion
that this is a useful task, which provides a context in which an intercultural
dynamic may be experienced among pre-service teachers. It is also a task
in which new teachers can see how a limited interpretation of ‘intercul-
tural’ in the language classroom may in fact have a detrimental effect upon
learners’ critical and intercultural development. The pre-service teachers
spotted and critiqued limitations in the intercultural teaching within the
transcripts, and in this way could explore the ‘essentializing’ and ‘stereo-
typing’ that ensued. We believe tasks such as this afford the opportunity
for the pre-service language teachers to engage with intercultural peda-
gogy in a new way. Whereas previously they had explored intercultural
pedagogy in more traditional ways and through the academic literature,
through this task the pre-service language teachers together observed,
reflected, brought to it their own experience and co-constructed a per-
sonal understanding of an intercultural approach to language teaching.
We thus argue that the task exemplified in this chapter indicates how a
co-constructed pedagogy might be employed in teacher education.
Setting the expectation of collegial co-construction in the transcript
task, we believe offers the pre-service teachers an active opportunity to
analyse the communicative patterns in the classroom and reflect on the
role of such communicative patterns in opening up, or closing down,
critical enquiry among language learners in classrooms. All groups per-
ceived the differences in communication patterns in the lessons and were
able to identify the positive and negative effects that these patterns had
on classroom enquiry. By providing pre-service teachers these concrete

examples of classroom transcripts and the many instances of the teacher-
focused I–R–E discourse patterns, pre-service teachers appeared to feel
equipped to deconstruct the classroom teacher–student interaction. By
engaging with classroom interaction transcripts they were able to explore
and critique how the language teacher can open up classroom dialogue for
a stronger intercultural stance. The pre-service teachers may have drawn
upon their understanding of the intercultural notions, from earlier reading
of the academic literature, and applied this to produce an active engage-
ment with the task. Although the task is based around a concrete set of
examples, the nature of the critique and discussion enables the pre-service
teachers to move beyond narrow interpretations of intercultural discourse.
The transcript task affords the pre-service language teachers a col-
laborative opportunity to identify, label and critique not only the less-
positive teacher and student stereotyping in some of the lesson content,
but also the positive strategies of a teacher facilitating a collaborative,
co-constructed discussion in the classroom. Viewing the lessons through
transcripts, as voyeurs at a distance, rather than first hand in an actual
classroom themselves, the pre-service teachers showed the ability to criti-
cally observe another teacher. It is possible that the reading and decoding
necessary to make meaning from a transcript actually enabled these pre-
service teachers to analyse the teacher and student interaction in more in-
depth ways than they had exhibited through observing teachers in action
during their practicum periods.
With the exception of the Spanish lesson transcript, the pre-service
teachers indicated how they observe the teachers in the transcripts unin-
tentionally involved in the reduction of ‘national culture’ as they go about
their daily language teaching. The pre-service language teachers are able
to read the transcript and observe an unwitting perpetuation of stereo-
types, through the language teachers’ over-simplification. In the process
of attempting to introduce an intercultural stance, some language teach-
ers have unintentionally become purveyors of the process of ‘othering’ as
argued by Holliday et al. (2010), leading to an over-simplification of cul-
ture. They have, as Gorski (2008) argues, engaged unwittingly in accen-
tuating stereotypes and the hierarchies underpinning those stereotypes,
rather than challenging them.
The pre-service language teachers show recognition that simplistic
comparisons of cultures can lead to even greater stereotyping. The tran-
script task may thus facilitate perceptions, in pre-service teachers, that their
future role and responsibility, as intercultural language educators, teachers
and community members, needs to focus more on combating, rather than

unwittingly supporting, stereotypes and xenophobia. Such a development
may prove to be a critical element in the formation of teachers’ identities.
Pre-service language teachers need to be aware of the potential pitfalls
associated with the over-simplification and use of comparison inherent in
many intercultural approaches (Holliday et al., 2010). The collaborative
discussion transcript task which we provided for our pre-service teacher
groups can be considered a pivot point that requires collaborative dialogue
for the deconstruction of meaning from the I–R–E exchange. The pre-ser-
vice teachers are empowered to make collaborative suggestions from their
prior knowledge and their own perspectives. They are encouraged to accept,
reject or modify peer perceptions. Wells (2000, p. 56) has written that:
particular occasions of situated joint activity are the crucible of change and
development … in joint activity, participants contribute to the solution of
emergent problems and difficulties according to their current ability to do
so; at the same time, they provide support and assistance for each other in
the interests of achieving the goals of the activity.
The collaborative group nature of the task enables the pre-service language
teachers to contribute their individual prior knowledge, both indepen-
dently and interdependently, in their own interpretation of the transcript
and in their dialogue with their peers. They become aware of their co-
construction of knowledge because the lecturer/researcher has devoted a
particular focus to the task, underlining its importance in the development
of an intercultural stance. The pre-service language teachers appear curi-
ous to notice and reflect, and to bounce ideas off each other. Learning
is constructed as a collaborative activity. The pre-service teachers appear
respectful of the diversity and complexity of self and peers. The nature of
the task encourages pre-service teachers to form their own definitions of
what is intercultural within each of the transcripts and develop their own
critique of what limitations are shown.
The study demonstrates social-constructivist learning in action, and an
intercultural dynamic in the development of learning with peers. The pre-
service teachers show the ability to de-centre, highlight their own practice
(for example, critically noting their own linguistic behaviour in university
classes, making connections with their own practicum teaching, and in
interrogating what it means to be Australian). In this way they exemplify
the elements of intercultural stance that require teachers to be able to cri-
tique their own assumptions.
CONCLUSION: COHERENT CO-CONSTRUCTION

OF THE INTERCULTURAL DYNAMIC
Like McConachy and Liddicoat (Chap. 2, this volume), our work has
examined the interpretive aspect of intercultural mediation. We believe
that the pre-service teacher interaction explored in this chapter represents
in microcosm a new collaborative practice in teacher education which is
needed to develop new approaches to intercultural language education.
While our original focus was to encourage pre-service teachers’ explora-
tion of questioning patterns to facilitate intercultural dialogue, their col-
laborative enquiry took the task to another level, as an unexpected but
positive outcome. Engaging in what we see to be a ‘dynamique intercul-
turelle’ the pre-service teachers took a group initiative to de-centre and to
construct understandings. In light of the need to shape beginner language
teachers’ abilities, and their need for models to imitate, Wells (2000) has
described a process of development within a group, where, ‘it is not nec-
essarily the most expert member(s) of the group who are most helpful in
inducting newcomers … in many situations, there is no expert; in the case
of the invention of radically new tools and practices, this is self-evidently
so’ (Wells 2000, p. 57). Thus we can see how the community-of-practice
hierarchy can be altered through co-constructive practice to enable new-
comers to contribute to shaping understanding.
This two-level study (we studied the pre-service teachers studying the
classroom teachers) thus demonstrates that within a co-constructed class-
room model students have the opportunity to voice different perspectives,
pursue curiosity, to critique and respect multiple perspectives in collabo-
ration, and to take initiative in challenging perceived stereotypes. This
applies equally in the school-language classroom and in teacher educa-
tion. Much is revealed to pre-service language teachers about how this
process may similarly occur in school classrooms through management of
classroom discourse. With no ‘expert’ evident in the process at either the
school or the university level, the school students, the pre-service teachers,
and the teacher educators, take forward an un-fixed yet coherent con-
struction of an intercultural dynamic. At a time where the intercultural has
been diminished in some contexts to static and essentialized comparisons
of culture, a new co-constructed pedagogy is essential to revive the core
aims of the intercultural approach. We have highlighted how one task
might work towards teachers and teacher educators developing a more
collaborative and co-constructed stance in their intercultural approach to
teaching a language.
APPENDIX A: SAMPLE OF ITALIAN CLASSROOM TRANSCRIPT,

WITH I–R–E LABELLING ACTIVITY
Festivals What’s going

on? IRE?
Teacher Durante i periodi di feste che cosa piace fare ai giovani in

Italia? E ai giovani australiani?
What do young Italian and young Australians like to do
on festivals?
Student 1 Ai Giovani italiani piacciono stare insieme e scambiare i
regali per natale
Young Italians like being together and exchanging
presents for Christmas.
Student 2 Ai giovani australiani piace fare un BBQ per la festa di
Australia
Young Australians like having a BBQ on Australia Day.
Student 3 Ai giovani australiani piace assistere ad una marcia il
giorno di ANZAC
Young Australians like to watch the march on ANZAC day.
Teacher ANZAC e` una giornata emozionante
ANZAC day is an emotional day.
APPENDIX B: SAMPLE OF SPANISH LESSON TRANSCRIPT,

WITH I–R–E LABELLING ACTIVITY
A Spanish dinner party IRE?
Teacher “Vale. Nos llamamos y citamos—we’ll ring you. And we’ll fix a date.”
So, what’s not in here? What’s missing?
Student 1 Bye!
Teacher Adios, yep. What else is missing?
Student 2 Thank you.
Teacher Thank you. There is no way of thanking. No hay palabra que dice
‘muchas gracias’. Hay ‘mucho gusto’ y ‘encantado’ que son muy
respetuosos. Pero en ningun momento se dice ‘gracias’. (muffles) Que.
mas no hay? (What else is not there?)
Student 3 Por favor.
Teacher Si. ‘Por favor.’ No hay ‘por favor’, no hay ‘gracias’. Pero os pregunto,
pensais que esta gente esta amable o que no tiene educacion? No
‘please’, no ‘thank you’. Do you think they are like polite or impolite?
A Spanish dinner party IRE?
Student 4 Polite.
Teacher Ya. Polite. But they don’t say thank you and they don’t say please.
So, how do they express the politeness and the respect?
Student 5 Compliments.
Teacher Compliments. Hacen complimentos. Que. mas?
Student 6 They invite them to their house?
Teacher Yeah. So they invite them over. That’s very typical in Spain. Before
you leave you say ‘Oh how about you come to our house in two
weeks? Nos vemos en dos semanas’.
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CHAPTER 11
Challenges of Teaching Intercultural

Business Communication in Times
of Turbulence
Annelise Ly and Kristin Rygg
INTRODUCTION
The globalization of business (Søderberg & Holden, 2002) has led to an
increasing need for companies to understand and manage cultural diver-
sity at the workplace. Managing this diversity is seen as a key to meet
demands of a global market, improve productivity and achieve corporate
competitiveness (see Lorbiecki & Jack, 2000 for a definition and a dis-
cussion of the concept of diversity management). Courses and seminars
have, therefore, been implemented in many companies, but also in busi-
ness schools in order to equip students with the necessary intercultural
competences (ICs) (Blasco, 2009; Eisenberg et al., 2013). Such courses
and seminars aim to help students develop cross-cultural skills to ‘become
competent global managers’ (Blasco, 2009, p. 176) who are able to work
in an international business environment.
A. Ly ( ) • K. Rygg
Department of Professional and Intercultural Communication, Norwegian
School of Economics, Bergen, Norway

DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-58733-6_11
216 A. LY AND K. RYGG
While business environments in reality are becoming more complex

and multifaceted, many courses on intercultural communication still tend
to teach and assess students in a traditional way, based on the accumula-
tion of knowledge about different cultures, often reduced to the concept
of nations (Dervin & Tournebise, 2013; Fang, 2006; see also Chap. 12,
this volume). Course curricula in business schools frequently rely on theo-
ries such as Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, sometimes supplemented by
Hall’s high and low context theories. These frameworks, however, have
largely been criticized (see for instance Fang, 2003; McSweeney, 2002;
Piller, 2011 for Hofstede and Cardon, 2008 for Hall) mainly because
they lead to simple and stereotypical categorizations of cultures, instead
of reflecting on the complexities and paradoxes inherent to all cultures
(Fang, 2012; Osland & Bird, 2000).
New theoretical frameworks for teaching and assessing intercultural
communication and competence are appearing in research (Abdallah-
Pretceille, 2011; Dervin, 2010, 2012; Dervin & Tournebise, 2013;
Holliday, 2013; Holliday, Hyde, & Kullman, 2010) causing ‘turbulences’
in the field (Dervin & Tournebise, 2013). Thus, lecturers of intercultural
communication are urged to find alternative methods, frameworks and
activities that respond to the complex and dynamic multicultural world
that the new theories reflect. As Szkudlarek, Mcnett, Romani and Lane
(2013, p. 478) sum up, ‘we are just beginning to understand the enormity
of this challenge and to initiate the reflection and discussion on how our
teaching should address this complexity’.
Although many scholars tend to criticize and reject the traditional
approach to intercultural communication, little has been said on how the
subject should be taught and what activities should be implemented in its
place. This chapter aims to give some suggestions in that regard, but also
to discuss the challenges involved. It draws on our experiences and reflec-
tions of implementing a course on intercultural business communication
with focus on East Asia at the Norwegian School of Economics (NHH).
Three objectives were chosen for the course: (1) develop students’ skills in
observations, (2) train students to handle complexity, and (3) encourage
students to reflect on and be critical of existing theories and texts. To fulfil
the three objectives, we implemented different activities that turned out
to be complementary; reflection texts, role-plays and case studies. In this
chapter, we start with a presentation of our course and its objectives fol-
lowed by examples of the activities we have implemented. Last, we share
our reflections on the process and discuss the outcome in relation to the
demand for new approaches in the field.
CHALLENGES OF TEACHING INTERCULTURAL BUSINESS COMMUNICATION... 217
COURSE DESCRIPTION
The Course
In 2011, a student survey conducted at the Norwegian School of
Economics (NHH) in Bergen, Norway, called for a course on East Asia,
with a focus on business culture and communication. The authors, who
specialize their research on China and Japan, were asked to create and
implement a course that could cover the topic.
The course is designed as an elective course targeting both Norwegians
and international students studying at bachelor level, and is taught in
English. It started in autumn 2012. The course stretches over 12 weeks,
with 4 hours of teaching per week and is offered as a 7.5 ECTS course.
Profile of the Students
The course gathers about 30 students each year, from about 10 different
countries. The majority are international students, mostly from Europe
(the largest groups being from Norway, Germany, Italy and Finland) but
also from Asia (mainly China and Japan).
Most of the students in the course have international experience or
an international background. Some are binational, some have grown up
in different countries abroad, and some have worked or studied abroad.
Some of the Norwegian students have taken three semesters of Japanese
prior to this course.
We perceived this diverse group as a great opportunity to foster inter-
cultural interactions and experience sharing. It also presented pedagogical
challenges that we detail in our discussion part.
The Lecturers’ Motivation

Creating and implementing a course offered us the opportunity to deter-
mine the objectives, the content and the methodology of the course our-
selves. Thus, it allowed us to tailor the course on the basis of our research
and personal interests. Our personal backgrounds and experiences, for
instance, (Kristin is from Norway but has lived in England and Japan,
and Annelise grew up in an overseas Chinese family in France and has
lived in China and Norway) made it difficult for us to work with the the-
oretical frameworks offered by the traditional approach to intercultural
communication (see Chap. 1, this volume). In addition, our previous

research has led us to look at theories such as Hall’s contextual model
(Rygg, 2012) and Hofstede’s cultural dimensions (Ly, 2013) with critical
eyes, and we realised that they could not be used without also discussing
their limitations.
To the best of our knowledge, teaching methods where consultants
reduce differences ‘to minor hurdles which could be easily overcome if
the right steps were taken’ (Lorbiecki & Jack, 2000, p. 21) are still pre-
dominant in intercultural communication seminars in business schools
and companies. In this perspective, handbooks that are frequently used to
teach the management of diversity in companies (Gesteland, 2002; Lewis,
2006) were considered too simplistic and essentialist and were hence not
beneficial for the purpose of our course.
Further, we questioned the traditional way of teaching and learning
in business schools that mainly rely on academic lectures and that usu-
ally do not challenge students ‘to engage in much thinking or reflect-
ing on course material’ (Cockburn-Wootten & Cockburn, 2011, p. 45).
Instead, our wish was to encourage students to be reflective, and also, ide-
ally, reflexive (Cunliffe, 2002). Examples of reflective activities are when
the students discuss and analyse case studies and texts. These activities
‘can be important in processing learning, because they help us make sense
and develop new understandings of situations’ (Cunliffe, 2004, p. 413).
This may later on lead students to become more critically reflexive and
‘explore how [they] might contribute to the construction of social and
organizational realities, how [they] relate with others, and how [they]
construct [their] way of being in the world. Critically reflexive questioning
also means exposing contradictions, doubts, dilemmas, and possibilities’
(Cunliffe, 2004, p. 414).
This, of course, was sometimes seen as a challenge in itself when we
met students that systematically wanted to apply theories to every situ-
ation, failing to consider the unique and complex issues at stake in an
encounter. Other challenges include the fact that the course objectives
were not very clear when we started out in 2012. Teaching this class has
allowed us to think critically about intercultural communication teach-
ing, try out new activities and, sometimes, fail in reaching our students
or our initial objectives (see in Chap. 1 of this volume how failure can be
inherent to the teaching of IC). We develop and illustrate this point in
the discussion part.
Course Objectives
The course objectives, however, have become clearer over time, and are
listed below together with the theoretical framework that has been influ-
ential to us.
Develop Students’ Skills in Observations

Holliday et al. (2010) and Holliday (2013) reject the traditional way of
investigating culture (which he calls the ‘top-down approach’) that starts
with large assumptions about national cultures followed by observation of
intercultural encounters. In his opinion, such assumptions will later colour
all cultural observations and are ‘associated with stereotyping’ (Holliday,
2013, p. 30). Instead, he promotes a ‘bottom-up approach’ in which one
begins with direct observation of cultural practices.
Holliday provides the following advice when working with a ‘bottom-
up approach’:
• Be aware of the influence of theories, profiles and stereotypes and try

to put them aside.
• Begin with a feeling of acceptance. Try to imagine oneself in the
shoes of the person or people one is engaging with, acknowledging
that it is possible to feel like them.
• Be prepared to engage with complexity that cannot be explained eas-
ily. (Holliday, 2013, p. 41)
Although Holliday is engaged in observing real life encounters, we

have implemented a ‘bottom-up approach’ in the classroom through the
use of case studies. Case studies present the students with an opportu-
nity to discuss diversity while not focusing directly on their own assump-
tions. However, in talking about the characters’ perspectives, students also
gain insight into their own thinking on the situation (Guo, Cockburn-
Wootten, & Munshi, 2014, p. 179). We discuss further why we found that
casework in class had better outcome than fieldwork outside the classroom
in part four.
Case studies are activities associated with the Harvard business school,
where the analysis and the discussion of cases is the predominant mode
of learning (Heath, 2006). In our course, we used what Heath calls ‘inci-
dent cases’, defined as short business cases describing a single incident that
is used to raise an issue for discussion. Teaching and working with case
studies is widespread in business schools and the students are normally

familiar with the teaching method (i.e., first read a case and later discuss it
in groups). In many management courses, the main objective of case stud-
ies is to illustrate a theory. Thus, cases are usually presented after a given
theory. In our course, however, we have adopted a ‘bottom-up approach’
to case studies. In practice, this means that an ‘incident case’ is first pre-
sented and the students are asked to observe and reflect on it. Thereafter,
it is followed up by theory beneficial to understanding the case. Example
three (3.3) below is a good example of this. We used authentic business
cases, either collected through our research work (see for instance Rygg,
2012) or published by others. However, the cases staged characters and
situations that are at their level of responsibilities. The characters were
often junior executives put in a situation that was easily identifiable and
understandable.
Train Students to Handle Complexity

Traditional textbooks, as those mentioned earlier, focus on knowledge
about others and skills to avoid culture clash. However, the uncertainty of
unfamiliar intercultural situations outside the classroom may cause people
to act on ‘auto-pilot’ forgetting what they have learnt and resorting to
old prejudices (Gudykunst & Kim, 2003). Thus, we agree with Spencer-
Oatey and Franklin (2009, p. 1) that intercultural training should include
training to tolerate the psychological demands and dynamic outcomes
that result from intercultural interactions. Above, Holliday stresses similar
issues when he suggests being ‘prepared to engage with complexity that
cannot be explained easily’.
Cunliffe (2002) argues that emotions do not only cause anxiety and
defence, but might also lead to positive effects of heightened awareness
and sensitivity. Applied to classroom learning, lecturers should not expect
learning only to occur cognitively through theory but possibly more
importantly, encourage learning through ‘aha! Moments’ (Cunliffe, 2004,
p. 410), which are emotional embodiments of learning.
To accommodate both objects above, many researchers advocate the
use of experiential exercises (Blasco, 2009; Fleming, 2003; Spencer-Oatey
& Franklin, 2009; Szkudlarek et al., 2013) where the students are affec-
tively as well as cognitively engaged in a situation (see also Chap. 3, this
volume). Rygg (2014) maintains that role-plays and simulation games
can help students ‘see the other from the inside’, which means to be able
to place oneself within the experience of the other and to feel, in some
measure, what it is like to be him. The same exercise may also cause the
students to see ‘themselves from the outside’, which implies to see one’s
own subconscious values from the other’s perspective. However, unre-
strained imagination based only on a person’s intuition and feelings is
cautioned. Instead, imagination should be verbalized in order to create
conscious awareness. As Guo et al. (2014, p. 179) sum up, ‘learning to
identify and see a situation from another’s perspective is a crucial com-
petence for management students and teaching this skill is a vital part of
management education’.
Encourage Students to Reflect on and be Critical of Existing Theories

and Texts
Business students (and executives) are often provided with knowledge on
intercultural communication through either general textbooks that offer a
list of dos and don’ts across cultures (e.g., Gesteland, 2002; Lewis, 2006)
or through books that focus on region-specific knowledge and cultural
etiquette (for China, see e.g., Ambler, Witzel, & Xi, 2008; Ostrowski
& Penner, 2009; Zinzius, 2004, and for Japan, Condon & Masumoto,
2011; Hodgson, Sano & Graham, 2000; Nishiyama, 2000).
Most of these books have several limitations: First, they reduce the con-
cept of culture to national culture, taking for granted that cultures, within
the political scope that a nation represents, are homogeneous. Second,
most of these books present the Chinese and the Japanese cultures from
an etic perspective. Thus, the authors only relate cultural attitudes and
behaviour from an outsider’s perspective without explaining the reasons
for such behaviour, causing the Other to appear diametrically different
and strange. As we see from the references above, it does not always help
to include East Asian authors in the hope that they will present a more
nuanced picture of their own culture.
Furthermore, from a semantic point of view, when these authors try to
explain ‘culture-laden’ (Wierzbicka, 1997) concepts, such as guanxi (for
China) or amae (for Japan), they usually use Western culture-laden words,
translating guanxi into ‘relationships’, or ‘network’ and amae into ‘inter-
dependence’. Such translations are incomplete. As Wierzbicka points out,
the uncritical reliance on Western words to explain Japanese concepts may
lead to the misinterpretation of the Japanese culture. The Japanese value
amae, for instance, has been described with adjectives such as ‘manipula-
tive’ or ‘juvenile’ by Western scholars, and even though they ‘describe
Japanese cultural patterns rather than condemn them [the Japanese] …
this doesn’t alter the fact that these words are inherently pejorative and
that they suggest to the reader a negative evaluation of what they purport
to describe’ (Wierzbicka, 1997, p. 236).
With this in mind, the third course objective is to encourage the stu-
dents to acquire a critical view of established theories and texts (see exam-
ple 3.1).
EXAMPLES OF ACTIVITIES THAT RESPOND TO THE COURSE

OBJECTIVES
In the following part, we explain through concrete classroom activities
how the course objectives mentioned in 2.4 were implemented. Our
reflections on the process and discussion of the outcomes are discussed
further in part four.
Example One: ‘The Chinese are…, They Like… and Dislike…’

Chinese, especially those from the northern part of the country, speak
softly. They avoid interrupting other people, since this would be rude. It
is important for visiting negotiators from more expressive cultures to avoid
loud talking and wait patiently until their Chinese counterpart has finished
speaking before saying their piece. Another feature of Chinese paraverbal
behaviour is that a laugh or a giggle may signal stress, nervousness or embar-
rassment rather than amusement. (Gesteland, 2002, pp. 173–174)
As in the example above, books describing Chinese business behaviour

often use sentences such as ‘the Chinese are…’, ‘the Chinese like…’ These
statements picture all individuals from a nation as alike and thus their cul-
ture as homogeneous.
Students tend to accept such generalizations without further criticism.
In our experience, to develop a critical mind cannot be learned from
one activity alone but needs activities that help develop and sharpen the
reflection skills in a gradual process. One such activity in this course was
the production of a so-called reflection text in which the students would
critically read and comment on two texts describing Chinese or Japanese
business behaviours. The ongoing process was implemented in two ways:
first, through classroom exercises and discussions, and second, through
written feedback on a first draft.
In our first lecture, for instance, we implemented a short oral exercise

in which the students were asked the following question: ‘What is your
culture?’1 The students were given a couple of minutes to formulate their
answers that were then written on the blackboard. The answers showed
that some students defined themselves by their national culture ‘I am
German’; others had to include several nations in their answers such as
‘I am half Norwegian, half Thai’. Other students felt the need to nuance
their answers with a regional difference such as: ‘I am from the South of
Italy and unlike people from the North, we are more…’. Some students
also identified themselves with the business school culture such as ‘most
Norwegians are like this but at NHH, the students are rather…’. This
activity made the students start to reflect on their own cultures and on
what it feels like being reduced to a stereotyped national culture. If they
cannot be labelled by their national culture; neither can the Japanese nor
the Chinese. Such activity set the tone for the rest of the course and was
a quick leap for the students to understanding that the framework they
would be presented with in the course could not tell the whole story.
Writing the reflective text was a continuous process during the first half
of the semester. By looking at the positioning of the author, the objec-
tive, the intended audience and the choice of vocabulary, most students
managed to discuss critically the different points of view conveyed and the
advantages and limitations of such texts. We provided the students with
written feedback on their draft so that they could sharpen their reflection
skills further before handing in the final result. The reflection text was part
of their written assignment grade. The reason why some students needed
more help than others in order to think critically and reflectively is dis-
cussed further in part four.
This example illustrates how activities could raise the criticality and the
reflectivity of the students towards existing texts, but also, later on, of
existing theories, in response to our third course objective.
Example Two: ‘What is Tanaka’s Point of View?’

The following example has two different objectives. First, it aims to por-
tray how our methodology changed from a traditional approach to a ‘bot-
tom-up approach’. Second, it gives an account of how a role-play inspired
by the ideas outlined earlier was implemented.
In the first year, we introduced the topic of communication styles by pre-
senting some central theoretical concepts in intercultural communication;
high and low context communication (Hall, 1976). High context com-
munication was illustrated by Japanese examples. The lecture was a typi-
cal example of a traditional ‘top-down approach’, where the Other, in
this case, the Japanese, ended up being portrayed as different, static and
inadaptable. The first thing we noticed was that the four Japanese students
in the class felt awkward. Even though these four had quite different inter-
cultural experiences (for instance, one whose father’s occupation had led
him to spend most of his childhood in the USA), they found themselves
not only being ‘simplified’ as human beings but also contrasted to and,
thus, isolated from the other ‘low context communicators’ in class. In this
perspective, Lorbiecki and Jack (2000, p. 22) also point out that such an
approach—that originally aimed for greater tolerance—ends up creating
‘resentment from those who had been subjected to the scrutiny of differ-
ence’. The experience made us question our own approach, and led to
a change away from the traditional lecture format towards a bottom-up
approach with active student participation.
The following lecture started off by asking the students to work on an
‘incident case’2 that we have named ‘Marianne and Tanaka’. A Norwegian
businesswoman, Marianne, was sent to Japan to work as the project man-
ager for a group of international computer programmers. The project
task was to install a new program for a large Japanese firm. According to
Marianne, the Japanese client was unreasonably demanding:
I have tried to tell them that ‘this is not necessary, we just waste time doing
it’, ‘yes but you have said you would do it’, the client tells me, ‘yes, but that
was before I knew how much time it would take and now my opinion is that
we should not’, ‘yes but you said so’, period.
Marianne was frustrated and at loss of what to do. The Japanese were
definitely not as polite and indirect that she had heard that they would be,
and she felt that they demanded things that European customers would
handle themselves. Next, the students read a transcribed interview with
Marianne’s Japanese colleague, Tanaka:
It happens that Marianne explains too much, ‘no, that is not right, not right,
not right’, she says but, well, it is simply how the customer feels so […] to
say ‘ah, I see’ or ‘maybe it is better like this?’ increases the possibility of a
good relationship with the Japanese client. Especially Japanese customers
don’t like debate very much and, well, in Japan the customer is above and
the vendor is below, aren’t they?
After reading and reflecting on the content and the communication

styles of both texts (the students’ texts were longer, with more fillers etc.
than those presented here), the students debated solutions to the problems
by taking on the roles of Marianne or Tanaka. One of the great advantages
of this was that the Japanese students in class were just as likely to take
Marianne’s stand, which relieved them from having to defend themselves
or their fellow nationals, and thus, made them less isolated from the rest
of the class.
Using the incident case with role-play responds to the first course
objective by asking the students to reason from the given situation instead
of attributing people’s intentions or behaviour from theories, and to the
second course objective by having the students engage both cognitively
and affectively in learning. However, as cautioned earlier, the exercise can-
not end here. Feelings and thoughts that have come up during role-play
must be verbalized in order to create new awareness, and in this particular
case, we provided conceptualizing tools from intercultural communica-
tion and management literature after the play. The exercise found several
causes to Marianne’s problems; different perceptions of the roles of sellers
vs. buyers, different views of what a project manager’s tasks are, and dif-
ferences in how opinions are expressed depending on those roles. Thus,
as also noted by Ogbonna and Harris (2006), theories on national culture
differences are not always enough to explain differences in organizational
structures, processes and cultures. However, the students who had expe-
rienced being both Marianne and Tanaka through role-play and found
commonalities in the opinions of both, also found the theories in general
to be too simplistic (objective 3), something which, in turn, resulted in a
general scepticism towards the course literature (more about this in 4.2
below).
Example Three: ‘Should We Conduct 200 Tests?’

The third example is another illustration of an activity that implemented all
three course objectives and especially portrays the ‘bottom-up approach’
to case studies based on observation before theory.
The activity is constructed around a case study inspired by two inter-
views of a Norwegian manager conducted by Rygg (2012), and is
composed of two parts. The first part introduces the setting, the incident
and a narrative told by the Norwegian manager at the Japanese branch of a
Norwegian company manufacturing reverse vending machines. A reverse
vending machine is a machine for recycling bottles and cans. Even though
the problem is observed through the eyes of the Norwegian branch man-
ager, his 17 years’ of experience in Japan means that his comments also
offer the opportunity to see the case from a Japanese perspective. In fact, in
this particular case, the manager had struggled more with the Norwegian
head office and their unwillingness to understand the Japanese partner’s
logic than with the Japanese, whose view he sympathized with. However,
this was information that we initially did not share with the students. The
second part describes how the Norwegian manager solved the incident.
The students started by reading the following narrative told by the
Norwegian manager:
We are about to install a new type of reverse vending machines in a large

number of stores in the Tokyo metropolis. With the new machines, the
customers will be able to use an IC card (card with a chip), which they
also use to buy groceries at the store. However, before the new machines
can be placed at the various locations in Tokyo, we have been asked by our
Japanese partner to perform as many as two hundred tests on them. These
tests include such things as what happens if you have put the IC card in the
machine and the electricity in the supermarket shuts down, or what happens
if the customer forgets his card in the machine and leaves without it? Some
of the Norwegians are very frustrated.
Then, the students were asked to discuss in groups how the company
should respond to the demand for two hundred tests and to justify their
answers. Many of the students made comments such as: ‘This tactic is not
efficient! The company is not responsible for the electricity in the store! If
someone forgets his card in the machine, well, that’s bad luck, but nothing
to do with the company. Those Japanese waste a lot of time on unneces-
sary details! Why can’t we just try and see how it goes?’
After the students had discussed the problem, the second part of the
‘incident case’ was presented to the students. In this part, the Norwegian
manager, interviewed one year after the machines had been placed out
on locations, explains what the company had done. His narrative can be
summed up as follows:
• The company did, in fact, conduct all the two hundred tests.
• The machines have been in use for one year, and they have yet to
receive a single complaint or a single reported error.
For the first time, this information might have triggered the students
into considering a possible rationality to the Japanese way of thinking
when they demanded the two hundred tests.
So far the students had had to simply cope with the fact that they were
in a situation that they did not fully understand. From this point on, we
decided to include theories on Japanese decision processes (Nishiyama,
2000), with comments on Norwegian decision processes from the
Norwegian branch manager. Figure 11.1 gives a simplistic representation
of the contrast in Japanese and Norwegian decision processes.
The Norwegian decision phase is short compared to the Japanese.
The manager explained that what they usually did in Norway and other
countries in Europe was to test the machines until they were roughly ok,
then place them out on location, and later adjust them if necessary. He
realised that a lot of adjustments would be bad for the company’s reputa-
tion in Japan, where the implementation phase is expected to be short and
problem free (cf. Fig. 11.1). In addition, to travel around in a metropolis
like Tokyo to adjust machines, would be enormously time consuming. In
the aftermath of such a thorough planning phase, there were few adjust-
ments that had to be made at all.
Norway
Decision phase implementation phase
Japan
Decision phase implementation phase
Fig. 11.1 Contrast in Japanese and Norwegian decision processes

Adopting a ‘bottom-up approach’ to the ‘incident case’ presents several

advantages. First, the students, who at this stage of the course have very
little knowledge of differences in decision-making processes, are forced to
observe a situation without prior theoretical knowledge and are thus less
prompted to cultural stereotyping (objective 1). Second, the students are
trained to tackle frustrating intercultural situations (objective 2). After read-
ing the first part of the ‘incident case’, many students face frustration as they
do not understand the Japanese way of thinking. After reading the second
narrative, however, the students in class realised that the Japanese partner’s
demand for the two hundred tests might not be so inefficient after all. Thus,
the focus had shifted from a self-oriented perspective to an other-oriented
one. This is what we referred to as ‘seeing the other from the inside’. At the
same time, the students realised, by seeing their own assumptions from the
Japanese perspective, that their own idea of efficiency by making quick deci-
sions might have some limitations too. This is what we referred to earlier
in this paper as ‘seeing oneself from the outside’. Third, by presenting the
theory on decision-making processes after the case, the students have the
chance to reflect critically on existing theories and nuance their point of view
(objective 3). Instead of thinking that the Japanese decision-making process
is inefficient, for instance, they realise that the total length of the two phases
is equally long in both decision processes (cf. Fig. 11.1).
DISCUSSION
To fulfil our three course objectives, we implemented different activities
that turned out to be complementary: reflection texts, role-plays and case
studies. These activities represented the core of our teaching. Traditional
lectures were also integrated in the course, but we reduced their number
to a minimum, and they always functioned to sum up a sequence of lec-
tures over a similar theme, not to start one.
Below, we reflect on the implementation and the outcomes of our
course and describe the positive aspects, but also the challenges we have
faced. We divide our discussion into two parts, the teachers’ perspectives
and the students’ perspectives.
Teachers’ Perspective
In this part, we discuss four topics: first, how our teaching has evolved,
second, the use of theories in our teaching, third, the challenges of teach-
ing in a culturally diverse classroom and finally, the use of English as a

lingua franca in the classroom.
First, our course is the result of a ‘critically reflexive teaching’ (Jack,
2009) in which the notions of teaching and learning are inextricably
linked. Thus, based on earlier successes and failures, the activities we have
implemented as well as the assessment form have been modified from one
year to the other. The first year, the students were partly assessed by a final
3-hour exam. We realised, however, that such a form of assessment was
not efficient in order to develop the reflection skills of the students. The
second year, the assessment type was, therefore, changed into a portfolio
assessment, where the students handed in papers that were commented on
throughout the semester, so that they may have time for their reflection
skills to mature.
An aspect of the bottom-up approach is direct observation of situation-
bound practices. One might wonder why we focused on observation
through casework in the classroom instead of fieldwork in the business
world. We did, in fact, try out fieldwork. Originally, we wanted the stu-
dents to observe directly and record business interactions among East
Asians and Westerners. However, access to such data is challenging for
experienced researchers, let alone bachelor students (see the discussion
on the challenges to collecting naturally occurring data in companies (Ly,
2015). Thus, we asked the students to interview an East Asian or European
business executive with experience of doing business with/in Europe/
East Asia. However, we encountered several problems: First, when inter-
viewing their informants, the students often found themselves observing a
business executive living in ‘an expatriate bubble’, unable to see the Other
from the inside as the students themselves had been encouraged to do.
Thus, the students were frequently met by simple stereotypes about the
Other; East Asians and Europeans alike. Second, in spite of the fact that
the students were developing their critical thinking towards existing theo-
ries and texts, they remained rather uncritical when listening to their infor-
mants. In our opinion, this can be explained by the fact that many of our
business students had the tendency to admire their informants, usually a
successful businessman working in an international company. Observation
through casework in the classroom, on the other hand, gave the lecturers
a better opportunity to stir the focus towards the course objectives and
avoid ending up with essentialist notions of culture.
A second point of our discussion is the use of theories in our teach-
ing: Should we put them aside? In his ‘bottom-up approach’, Holliday
suggests that one should start by being aware of the influence of theories,
profiles and stereotypes and try to put them aside. We understand the
notion of putting theory aside not as abandoning theory, but as postpon-
ing its introduction until after observation, and then examining it and
using it critically and reflectively. We believe that our students already have
(potentially stereotyped) ideas about East Asians from other academic or
popular sources, exchange programmes, travel, friends and so on prior to
the course. Rather than setting all theories aside, we encourage the stu-
dents to acquire a critical distance to established theories/ideas through
the activities presented above such as the reflection texts.
We agree, however, that theories should be introduced after observa-
tion, and that is what we have strived to do in this course, even though we
have sometimes experienced getting trapped in old habits (see the essen-
tialist trap, described by Ferri, Chap. 6, this volume), as elaborated on in
the first part of Example 2. Had we started a new topic with a theoretical
introduction, there is a chance that the students would have forgotten, as
people frequently do, that theories are simplistic representations of real-
ity. As explained above, existing literature on intercultural communica-
tion often depicts the other as strange, lacking abilities or qualities that
the Westerner possesses. De Mente (referred to in Holliday et al., 2010,
p. 136), for instance, an acknowledged specialist on Japanese business cul-
ture, claims that:
From an American viewpoint, one of the most irrational and frustrating of

these cultural chasms is the difference between the Japanese and American
view and use of logic – ronri in Japanese […]. The main point of difference
in Western logic and Japanese ronri is that in its Japanese context logic
does not necessarily equate with rationalism. It can, in fact, fly in the face of
reason so long as it satisfies a human or spiritual element that the Japanese
hold dear.
If the students in Example 3 had started to read De Mente’s text before

solving the problem, there is a real danger that the Japanese demand for
200 tests would have been put down to Japanese lack of logic, and that
would have been the end of discussion. Thus, the students might no lon-
ger have been motivated to look for or be able to see that there is more to
the Japanese way of thinking than the theories suggest. Contrary to the
impression gained from De Mente’s text quoted earlier, the fact that the
students found sense in the Japanese way of thinking, made them think of
the Japanese as sensible people, that is, sharing a common ground (Guo
et al., 2014, p. 170). Some of the students may even choose the Japanese
approach when having to make job-related decisions in the future, because
they have seen its benefit. In this sense, we acknowledge that people re-
construct their own ‘culture’ throughout life and that a course in intercul-
tural communication also can make its contributions in this respect.
However, if we had not supplied any theory after the case, the students
would have had few tools other than their own (ego/ethnocentric) intu-
ition and common sense to interpret other’s behaviour. Thus, we believe
that theories provide the students with a wider range of interpretation
tools to understand and conceptualize their experiences as long as they
also are taught to use them with caution.
A third point of our discussion is related to the challenge of teaching
intercultural communication in a classroom that is culturally diverse. Some
students appreciated the course format based on interactions and discus-
sions more than others who are more used to traditional lectures. The
critical aspect in our teaching method has also appeared to be challenging
for some students who are not used to criticizing theories. One of our
exchange students, for instance, came to us at the end of the semester and
asked us: ‘Is it OK not to agree with Hofstede?’
Finally, our teaching was centred on oral activities using English as
lingua franca. However, in order to participate, the students needed to
be able to understand the many different ‘Englishes’ in class and also to
have a good proficiency themselves. Sometimes, this hindered participa-
tion. Some exercises to break the ice and get acquainted (from the second
lecture, everyone knew their classmates’ given names) were necessary to
decrease the stress related to having to speak up in front of their peers.
Students’ Perspective
We have received oral feedback from students during the whole semester
and at the end of the course, a final course evaluation (to be filled out
voluntarily and kept anonymous) was made available online. Besides stu-
dent comments such as ‘I appreciated the interactive approach’ or ‘you
encouraged us to see that there is no right or wrong in terms of cultures’,
there are no comments that show that they are aware that they became
more reflective. However, if we look at oral feedback during the course, it
seems that they did. At the end of the first year, many students complained
about a textbook on Japanese business culture that was part of the reading
list. This was a textbook that had been used without complaints on sev-
eral courses on Japanese language and culture before. It contained much
practical information about how to communicate with Japanese business
executives, and was even written by a native Japanese. Two randomly cho-
sen quotes from the book are:
Since the Japanese are extremely concerned about interpersonal harmony

and protection of each other’s ‘face’ in face-to-face encounters, they
use a variety of ingenious tactics of interpersonal communication […].
(Nishiyama, 2000, p. 13)
Japanese businessmen value the use of all five human senses. In addi-
tion, they rely even more heavily on their sixth sense (kan) or ‘intuition’.
(Nishiyama, 2000, p. 71).
After experiencing being Tanaka (Example 2) and other Japanese indi-

viduals through casework, the textbook’s perspective seemed to cause
offence. In retrospect, it seems that through casework, the students had
gained insights that collided with the textbook’s essentialist perspective.
The textbook seemed to be perceived as ‘a return’ to seeing the Japanese
from an outsider’s perspective and too stereotypical to the students who
had experienced ‘walking in Japanese shoes’ through role-play. The text-
book was discarded from the reading list the second year.
It is also fair to say that the ‘bottom-up approach’ has been perceived
as challenging and sometimes frustrating for students who could not free
themselves of the idea that theories can and should predict people’s behav-
iour. Thus, we agree that it is hard to get rid of ‘the Hofstedian legacy’
(Holliday et al., 2010, p. 7) as the systematic, precise and predictable
nature of theories remain attractive when dealing with national cultures.
Some scholars also argue that to categorize people in an essentialist man-
ner is a natural human process (Barrett, 2001; Brumann et al., 1999).
Thus, a couple of times, we have gone through all the different activities
only to have a student ask: ‘so, how are the Japanese, really?’ as if they
were still craving for simple answers.
However, all in all, we have received encouraging feedback from our
students who enjoyed our pedagogical approach. Thus, in 2014, our course
was elected by the students as one of the four most innovative and engaging
at NHH. Following this, we presented our teaching methods in a pedagogi-
cal seminar ‘Best Practise at NHH’ organized for the teaching staff of the
school. Preparing the presentation became the starting point for this article.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
Intercultural business communication lecturers often hear criticism of the
traditional approach to intercultural communication, with little assistance
on how to implement training that responds better to the complex and
dynamic multicultural world that many of us experience today. Starting a
course from scratch in a field that has recently undergone so many ‘tur-
bulences’ (Dervin & Tournebise, 2013) has been an opportunity, but has
also presented many challenges. In this chapter, we have described and dis-
cussed the creation, implementation and outcomes of our course on inter-
cultural communication, focusing on the activities we have implemented.
After teaching the course for three years, trying new activities and
reflecting on the pedagogical and theoretical issues involved, we feel that
we have gained a good idea of what the objectives of our course are and
how they should be implemented. We have decided to limit the number of
course participants to 40 mainly because of the workload related to giving
individual feedback on the reflection texts. We also think that students are
more eager to participate when they are in a smaller group. This course,
however, could probably be taught to larger classes. However, in order
to encourage student participation and discussion in a non-threatening
environment, we suggest that larger classes be divided into smaller groups
(see for instance the course structure related by Cockburn-Wootten and
Cockburn (2011).
NOTES
1. This activity was inspired from Piller (2011).
2. The cases in this article are from 42 in-depth interviews with Japanese and
Norwegian business executives interviewed in Tokyo in the autumns of
2007 and 2008 about their work experiences from Rygg (2012).
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CHAPTER 12
Intercultural Competence: Value

Disembedding and Hyper-flexibility
Karin Zotzmann
INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCE: VALUE DISEMBEDDEDING

AND HYPER-FLEXIBILITY
In this chapter I want to explore, critically, what kind of human being

we aim to prepare when we adopt ‘intercultural competence’ (IC) as our
educational objective in higher education. This self-reflective question is
essential, I argue, if we want to arrive at justified and ethically sound deci-
sions in our academic and pedagogical practices. To be sure, I do not want
to suggest that through intercultural education we educate sociopaths or
even that ‘sociopathy’ exists as a clinical condition, like M. E. Thomas in
the following quote. Nor do I subscribe to the rather sexist portrayal of
women the author perpetuates in her self-description:
You would like me if you met me. I am quite confident about that because I
have met a statistically significant sample size of the population and they were
all susceptible to my charms. I have the kind of smile that is common among
television show characters and rare in real life, perfect in its sparkly-teeth
dimensions and ability to express pleasant invitation. I’m the sort of date
you would love to bring to your ex’s wedding. Fun, exciting, the perfect
office escort—your boss’s wife has never met anyone quite so charming.
K. Zotzmann ( )
University of Southampton, Southampton, UK

DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-58733-6_12
238 K. ZOTZMANN
And I’m just the right amount smart and successful so that your parents
would be thrilled if you brought me home. (Thomas, 2013: Confessions of a
Sociopath, p. 5)
What the description above, however, brings to the fore is the relation-
ship between values—understood here as reasons for action—and actual
behaviour, a nexus that is central to any theoretical perspective on, or ped-
agogical approach to, intercultural learning. As the self-diagnosed socio-
path M. E. Thomas (the name is poignantly chosen) explains, she does
not necessarily behave in socially undesirable ways but is rather motivated
purely by instrumental reasoning. As others and their well-being are of no
interest to her, her deliberations are devoid of social or moral concerns.
Her highly successful adaptation to different expectations, interpersonal
relations and circumstances, as described in the quote above, is thus driven
by the sole purpose of enhancing her own personal gains. M. E. Thomas
behaves like a self-centred, rational calculator.
I assume that academics and teachers who work in the area of intercul-
tural communication and education care about the welfare of their students
and those they come into contact with. Despite the variety of theoretical
and pedagogical approaches in the field, there seems to exist a normative
consensus that tolerance, open-mindedness and self-reflectivity—to name
but a few qualities—are to be fostered in order to counteract the ills of ste-
reotyping, prejudices and ethnocentrism. Instrumental reasoning, how-
ever, effectively overrides and distorts attempts for mutual recognition and
increased understanding as it takes its own premises—strategic goals that
are external to the communication process—as a priori. As M. E. Thomas,
who situates herself at one end of the spectrum, puts it, ‘to have the ability
to measure with such stark precision the utility of a person—just as any
other thing—made it senseless to regard that person in any other way’
(Thomas, 2013, p. 29).
The question I pursue in this chapter is whether the concept of IC is
actually conducive to the humanistic endeavour we seem to set out in our
academic discourses or whether it frames our academic and pedagogic
practices in a way that is detrimental to these pursuits. Intercultural educa-
tion is, as many authors (Blommaert, 1995; Dervin, 2010; Holliday, 2011;
Lavanchy, Dervin, & Gajardo, 2011; Risager, 2011) have pointed out,
never a neutral practice, instead it is always based on particular assump-
tions and shaped by epistemological, ontological, normative and political
commitments. I take the competence approach to intercultural learning
INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCE: VALUE DISEMBEDDING... 239
to be part of a wider strand of Competence-Based Forms of Education

(CBE), which are based on a set of premises that draw our attention
and pedagogical efforts to the creation of particular kinds of knowledge,
behaviours and disposition, and thereby unavoidably marginalize others.
The chapter begins with examples of how ‘IC’ is articulated on univer-
sity websites that promote postgraduate degrees in intercultural educa-
tion/communication in the UK. Given the limited space of this chapter,
the selection is necessarily constrained but nevertheless indicative of the
discourse higher-educational institutions in the UK and elsewhere employ
in order to justify and promote degrees, or parts thereof, in this area. I
then set these outward-facing promotional texts in relation to the diversity
of academic perspectives that can inform such programmes.
The following section, ‘Globalization, the Global Graduate and IC’,
historicizes the trend towards CBE in education in general and out-
lines its general features. It provides answers to the question of why we
conceptualize the outcomes of intercultural learning as ‘competence’ at
higher-education institutions at this moment in time. The output and
performance orientation of CBE stands, I argue in the third part of this
chapter, in stark contrast to the idea of intercultural learning as a reflective
engagement with difference, and hence with the reasons we and others
have for being, acting and relating to each other the way they do. The last
section draws the different threads together and explores an alternative
and potentially more desirable view of intercultural education.
GLOBALIZATION, THE GLOBAL GRADUATE AND IC

Curricular objectives are commonly justified in relation to the contem-
porary demands of society, however these may be defined. Intercultural
education, in particular, is usually legitimized by references to ‘globaliza-
tion’ or, to a lesser extent, ‘internationalization’. Students, it is argued,
should be prepared for the exigencies of a rapidly changing and intercon-
nected world and labour market. The University of Durham, for instance,
describes on its website how the MA in Intercultural Education and
Internationalisation will provide students.
with the resources for reflecting on and responding to the growing need
for intercultural education and communication in an increasingly intercul-
tural/international world. […] Throughout the programme you will be
encouraged to reflect on your own knowledge and experience of education,
240 K. ZOTZMANN
and the challenges of developing learners who are interculturally competent

for the contemporary world.
Likewise, the University of Manchester emphasizes the need to

‘function effectively’ in the ‘global era’ for their MA in Intercultural
Communication:
The global era has stimulated transnational cultural flows (of people, prac-
tices and products) and local cultural complexities that were inconceivable
even a generation ago. Nowadays, individuals increasingly recognise not
only their own cultural complexity but also the need to function effectively
in culturally diverse contexts ranging from the home and neighbourhood,
to places of worship and recreation, to organisations and workplaces, and to
societies and regions.
The aim of the MA in Intercultural Communication at the University

of Sheffield is, according to the departmental website, simply ‘to prepare
you for work. We look closely at best practice and show you how to apply
theory to real work situations’. A similar pronouncement can be found
on the website of the University of Warwick, which justifies their MSc in
Intercultural Communication for Business & the Professions by claiming:
‘Employers need graduates who can compete in global marketplaces and
meet global challenges’. Their website provides a wealth of information,
partly based on a collaborative eLearning project staff members conducted
with Chinese partners (http://www.echinauk.org/intro.php). According
to the Global People Competency Framework developed on the basis of this
project, IC includes ‘knowledge and ideas’, ‘communication skills’, the
ability to build and maintain ‘relationships’, and ‘personal qualities/dis-
positions’. The personal qualities, for instance, revolve around flexibility
and adaptability, balanced by coping strategies and closely tied to strategic
goals:
We need to have the motivation to seek out variety and change (spirit of
adventure) while having a strong internal sense of where we are going
(inner purpose). Emotionally we need to possess well-developed methods
of dealing with stress (coping) as well as remaining positive when things go
wrong (resilience). We also need to be conscious that are [sic] own behav-
iour, while normal for us, may be considered strange in another cultural
context (self-awareness) and positively accept different behaviours that may
immediately seem to go against our sense of what is normal and appropriate
(acceptance). We thus need to be willing to adapt our behaviour to suit

other cultural contexts, and to sustain trust with key partners. [emphasis in
the original]
Websites of other post- and undergraduate programmes in intercultural

education/communication in the UK and other Western European coun-
tries show a similar argumentative pattern (see, e.g., Zotzmann, 2011).
‘Globalization’ or a variant of the term is presented as a quasi-natural
cause that generates change and requires an immediate educational
response: vocationally relevant and applicable knowledge that is delivered
in the form of ‘competence’ and its subcomponents. Given the limited
space of this chapter it is not possible to analyse these representations and
their rhetorical function but we need to bear in mind that globalization
is a highly contested term that can refer to a multitude of different, often
contradictory developments in the domains of business, politics, society,
culture, technology, media, and the environment. As Jessop (2013, 1999,
see also Hirst & Thompson, 2009) has pointed out, there is actually no
single causal force that cuts across changes in all social spheres on a global
scale and produces the same effects on people in different locations. The
idea of an acceleration and intensification of global interaction, communi-
cation and mobility in particular—as articulated in the above pronounce-
ment and many academic publications (e.g., Ehrenreich, 2011; Jenkins,
Cogo & Dewey, 2011, p. 303)—seems to reflect only the reality of rather
privileged segments of society. In the wake of the ‘Great Recession’ and
concomitant austerity regimes, international travel, higher education and
high levels of consumption have receded into a dim distance even for
many in the ‘Global North’.
Instead of illuminating the nature of social change, the term ‘globaliza-
tion’ is hence often employed as a short-hand rhetorical device or ‘imagi-
nary’ that legitimates particular courses of action: For the case of higher
education, it is used to justify the claim that students shall be enabled
to act and to function effectively in contexts characterized by diversity.
Again, it is important to remind ourselves that human diversity is neither
new nor a ‘by-product of globalization’ (Cogo, 2012, p. 288), instead it is
part of the human condition (Parekh, 2000). What is, however, relatively
new and contentious is the emphasis on competent performance, which
links the concept of IC with the current employability and international-
ization strategies of universities. These strategies in turn are largely driven
by the marketization and privatization of higher education.
242 K. ZOTZMANN
Despite the discursive similarity of university websites, the pronounce-

ments regarding the specifics of IC and its sub-components vary. This is
mirrored in the academic literature: IC can include attitudes and disposi-
tions (such as self-reflexivity, respect, tolerance, curiosity, flexibility, open-
ness, empathy), knowledge (for instance of foreign languages, or about
similarities and differences in communicative conventions and practices),
and behaviours, skills and strategies (related to communication and the
effective interpretation and negotiation of meaning, for example). Models
of IC can either be ‘compositional’ (specifying individual components
without necessarily clarifying the relationships between them), ‘devel-
opmental’ (emphasizing the sequence of acquisition), ‘causal’ (focusing
on causal relationships between different components and stages), ‘co-
orientational’ (stressing the procedural aspects) or adaptational (accentu-
ating the adjustment of attitudes, understanding and behaviours towards
others (Spitzberg & Changnon, 2009).
The respective view of what IC actually exists of depends on a range
of decisions taken on the theoretical, methodological and political-
normative level (for overviews see Risager, 2007, 2011; Zotzmann, 2014).
Theoretical assumptions about underlying concepts such as culture, iden-
tity, language and communication and their interrelationship can be artic-
ulated from rather essentialist perspectives at one end of the spectrum to
postmodern or poststructuralist (anti-essentialist) understandings at the
other. Whereas proponents of the former (e.g., Hofstede, 1991, 1994;
Trompenaars & Hampden-Turner, 1997) view culture as a mindset of
people who live in a particular national or regional territory, authors influ-
enced by postmodernism and poststructuralist thinking strongly object to
the idea of homogeneous groups and emphasize the inherent fluidity and
diversity of all cultural processes. Authors such as Byram (1997, 2009)
seem to have moved to some degree from the former perspective to the
latter over time.
Notwithstanding, the term competence cuts across ontological and
normative differences and has been embraced by a variety of authors.
The most influential model was developed by Byram in his book
Teaching and Assessing Intercultural Communicative Competence (1997).
Commissioned by the Council of Europe, the model was intended to
provide clearly defined and measurable components of IC in the context of
foreign-language learning. Byram divided IC into five savoirs: Knowledge
about different cultures, the ability to ‘to operate’ the ‘knowledge, atti-
tudes and skills under the constraints of real-time communication and
interaction’ (p. 61), the willingness to learn more about other cultural
practices, openness towards relativization of taken-for-granted assump-
tions, and the ability to critically evaluate cultural products and practices.
In 2013, Houghton attempted to revise Byram’s model by adding
savoir se transformer: the ability to change based on conscious decisions
(Houghton, 2013, p. 313). Her approach is interesting as it emphasizes
the importance of values in intercultural learning. The author assumes that
particular stages in the development of IC are identifiable and can, there-
fore, potentially be subjected to formative or summative assessment. The
five distinct and sequential phases which, according to her, can be made
‘visible in potentially assessable ways’ (Houghton, 2013, p. 311) include at
the lower end an ‘analysis of self’, in particular one’s own values, followed
by ‘analysis of Other’: an exploration of the values of the interlocutor
by using non-judgmental, empathy-oriented communication strategies’
(Houghton, 2013, p. 312). In stage 3 (‘Critical Analysis’) students are
guided towards the identification of similarities and differences between
these two different sets of values, which they then evaluate in stage 4
according to ‘explicit criteria’. In the final stage (‘Identity-Development’)
they decide whether or not to change in response to the dialogue with the
interlocutor. Note that change is at the centre of this framework, a point
which I will come to back later.
Authors who are informed by postmodernist and poststructuralist ideas
share the idea that culture and identity are always multiple, complex and
in a constant state of being made and remade (Blommaert & Backus,
2011; Dervin, 2011; Kramsch, 2009; Risager, 2007). The focus is on
what culture does, namely the active construction of meaning. Culture,
as Street (1993, p. 23) famously phrased it, ‘is a verb’. Kramsch (2009,
pp. 118, 2011), for example, stresses the need to see beyond the duali-
ties of national languages and national cultures and calls for the develop-
ment of ‘symbolic competence’, which she defines as ‘less a collection of
savoirs or stable knowledges and more a savviness, i.e., a combination of
knowledge, experience and judgment’. Holliday (2011), Kumaravadivelu
(2008) and Canajagarah (2012) likewise argue, albeit from different phil-
osophical positions, that culture is not an entity that pre-exists communi-
cation but a category that individuals draw upon when they co-construct
identities in instances of communication. All three authors, therefore, call
for critical cultural awareness and the ability to deconstruct (neo)essen-
tialist and unjust discourses and representations of ‘self’ and ‘other’. My
position is probably closest to this group of authors—diverse as they are.
244 K. ZOTZMANN
I agree for example with Kramsch’s (2009) poststructuralist view that we

need to understand the ‘discursive practices between people who speak
different languages and occupy different and sometimes unequal subject
positions’ (p. 360), but in order to so, I argue later in this chapter, we
actually need to understand the social, economic and political conditions
that enable particular subject positions.
A very different perspective on IC is advanced by researchers inspired
by postmodernism who investigate the use of English as a lingua franca
(ELF). Jenkins et al. (2011, p. 297) for instance, in their account of IC,
emphasize flexibility above all, and the willingness and ability to accom-
modate and negotiate meaning in complex situations with speakers from
different ‘lingua-cultures’. In a similar vein Nunn (2011) claims that IC
includes the abilities to ‘negotiate interim pragmatic norms with interloc-
utors’ (Nunn, 2011, p. 11) and to ‘adjust to unpredictable multicultural
situations’ (Nunn, 2011, p. 8). According to this author, transferability
between contexts is key:
Transferability is the ability to use, adjust or develop knowledge and skills

learnt in one context in unknown and often unpredictable contexts. All com-
munication can require us to deal with the unpredictable but Intercultural
Communicators need to be even more prepared for the unexpected. (Nunn,
2011, p. 11)
The decontextualization of IC and the decentring of the subject is par-

ticularly pronounced by Finkbeiner (2009), who uses the metaphor of the
Global Positioning System (GPS). She argues that currently we are being
‘exposed, surrounded and influenced by many different cultural represen-
tations and perspectives’ (Finkbeiner, 2009, p. 152) and, therefore, need
to be able to process and adapt to this multiplicity. One’s ‘prior knowl-
edge, belief system and values’ (Finkbeiner, 2009, p. 155) has, therefore,
to be constantly relativized in relation to incoming ‘new data’ from other
incongruent perspectives.
The perspectives reviewed here show that the term IC is an ‘empty signi-
fier’ that can be filled with a variety of meanings depending on the ontologi-
cal, epistemological and normative position of the respective author. Despite
substantial differences in theoretical perspectives, there is a noticeable shift
from defining IC as cognitive knowledge to more procedural views. My
present concern, however, cuts across the structuralist or poststructuralist/
postmodernist divide. I engage with views that hold that dispositions,

knowledge, behaviour and strategies are identifiable, predictable, teachable,
learnable and, at least in principle, measurable (Stevens, 2010, p. 190). The
common focus on outcomes and performance is, as I outline in the following
section, characteristic of CBE.
CBE AND INTERCULTURAL EDUCATION

CBE emerged in the 1960s and 1970s in the context of vocational educa-
tion and training in the USA and Europe. They have since become ubiq-
uitous in a large number of countries and a variety of institutions, covering
the primary, secondary and tertiary levels (Arguelles & Gonczi, 2000).
The salient feature of CBE in comparison with other educational dis-
courses is the emphasis on competent performance and applicability of
knowledge. Students are meant to be able to act on the basis of what they
learned; knowledge that is not ‘useful’ for real-world tasks becomes mar-
ginalized. CBE is thus closely linked to the idea that educational institutions
have to respond primarily to the demands of the economic sphere rather
than, for example, civil society. As the University of Warwick expresses it:
‘As employers’ requirements for their global workforce change, graduates
[…] must adapt to prosper’ (http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/al/
degrees/msc/). In the wake of this shift of focus, the arts and humanities,
the social sciences and physical education—all of which do not generate
tangible surplus value—have experienced cuts in funding across a variety
of contexts in the UK higher-education system. Internationally, curricula
have become strikingly similar in their emphasis on vocationally relevant
knowledge that is immediately applicable in real-world contexts (‘employ-
ability’), that can be assessed for its market value (‘competence’), and that
needs to be constantly updated (‘lifelong learning’).
In order to turn novices into competent agents in professional areas, the
effective performances of experts in specific task-based situations have to
be identified, described and then segmented into competence standards:
Competence-based education tends to be a form of education that derives a

curriculum from an analysis of a prospective or actual role in modern society
and that attempts to certify student progress on the basis of demonstrated
performance in some or all aspects of that role. (Grant et al., 1979, p. 6,
cited in Biemans, Nieuwenhuis, Poell, Mulder, & Wesselink, 2004)
246 K. ZOTZMANN
Although descriptors of IC are not usually derived from empirical

research on ‘experts’ (e.g., successful multilingual interlocutors), the iden-
tified behaviours, dispositions and knowledge are nevertheless assumed to
generate ‘effective’ intercultural communication. Once identified, these
competences and their sub-components suggest objectivity, clarity and
accountability of the learning process. Byram and Guillherme (2010, p. 5)
have already pointed to the inherent contradiction of the terminology:
The expression intercultural competence seems to entail quite paradoxical

meanings within it. The concept of competence is often used to seize the
dynamics of something fluid and unpredictable implied by an intercultural
relation and communication with notions of skills, abilities and capacities,
and then to describe and evaluate them. On the other hand, the word inter-
cultural expresses the impact of the unexpected, the surprising, the potential
rather than the pre-structured, the foreseen or the expectable.
As Jones and Moore (1995, p. 81) describe it, CBE is particularly attrac-
tive to administrators and policy makers because of the ‘disaggregation of
different skills and measurable standards of performance’, rather than its
‘intrinsic viability’. For the case of intercultural learning this outcome and
performance orientation is particularly problematic. Again here, questions
arise as to what particular competences and their sub-components such as
‘reflectivity’, ‘open-mindedness’, ‘flexibility’, and ‘adaptability’—to name
but a few—mean in concrete terms. Rather than abstract and monolithic
dispositions that can be taught, observed in performance and validated as
‘outcomes’, they are highly context-specific attitudes based on people’s
evaluations of the particular situation they find themselves in. For the same
reason, the manifestation of these dispositions is not absolute but gradual:
Individuals might be more or less reflective or more or less open-minded,
depending on an infinite number of situational, psychological, emotional,
sociocultural and other factors by which human beings are influenced.
Developing explicit criteria for what counts as a successful manifestation
of a particular level of disposition in a particular context would constitute
a monumental task.
Time and space are other factors that raise concerns. Whereas profes-
sional experts, for instance, acquire their knowledge through long-term
involvement and practice in real-world contexts, students are assumed to
reach similar performance levels in a far shorter time span and mostly inside
a classroom, a space that is characterized by entirely different interpersonal
relations from the target situation. In the case of intercultural education

this raises a variety of questions, above all how engagement with diversity
can be fostered in a social space (the university) that is effectively closed
off to the majority of people by gate-keeping mechanisms such as aca-
demic entry requirements, language exams, and tuition fees (in the case of
for-profit or semi-privatized institutions). Most approaches to intercultural
education circumvent this problem through a focus on social constructions
of otherness in a variety of written, spoken and multimodel texts. There is
little research, to my knowledge, that validates whether deconstruction as a
pedagogic strategy influences actual behaviour in the real world, especially
in situations of conflict. It is also unclear how a university can ‘produce’
interculturally competent graduates in the pre-specified time frame of their
respective degree programme, that is, what kind of endpoint of intercul-
tural learning can be reasonably reached at the time of graduation. The
criteria for a communicative behaviour to count as ‘successful’ or ‘effec-
tive’ or, for that matter, ‘unsuccessful’ or ‘ineffective’ are usually not made
explicit.
In addition to this, tasks or problems might be ill-defined. A reassess-
ment and reframing of a particular problem requires, however, knowledge
and critical reflection rather than flexibility and accommodation strategies.
One has to engage in depth with the specifics of the context and situation,
the interests that are at stake, and the values individuals hold in relation
to them. The intercultural literature, however, often shies away from an
engagement with problems rooted in social and material realities. This
applies to both structuralist and poststructuralist perspectives: Whereas
the former tend to ‘culturalize’ socioeconomic issues, postmodern and
poststructuralist approaches often focus squarely on the discursive level.
As I discuss in the next section, this detachment from the circumstances
and conditions people find themselves in and refer to cannot do justice to
the nature of lay normativity and is, therefore, ill-equipped to account for
the reasons people have for being, acting and relating the way they do.
LAY NORMATIVITY AND THE NATURE OF VALUES

As outlined earlier, the ideal competent intercultural speaker is often por-
trayed as highly flexible, self-reflective, open to accommodate others and
willing to change in the process. Altering one’s socioculturally influenced
taken-for-granted assumptions, habitual practices, and values is, however,
not a straightforward matter and can hardly be described as a ‘competence’
248 K. ZOTZMANN
(Byram, Bribkova, & Starkey, 2002; Coulby, 2006). Values, in particular,

are no simple ‘social constructs’: Humans generally aim to flourish and
avoid suffering and, therefore, need continuously to evaluate their envi-
ronment, themselves and others, their actions and those of others, and the
reciprocal effects of these behaviours (Sayer, 2011, p. 18). Values are thus
essential to our well-being and integral to our perception and assessment
of the world. They refer to.
things we consider worth cherishing and realizing in our lives. Since judg-
ments of worth are based on reasons, values are things we have good reasons
to cherish, which in our well-considered view deserve our allegiance and
ought to form part of the good life. (Parekh, 2000, p. 127)
This means that people usually do not act upon and relate to the world
in a hyperflexible manner, ready to constantly accommodate to others and
to relativize their own taken-for-granted assumptions. On the contrary,
they commonly have a stake in particular situations and morally evaluate
what they experience. They might be self-reflective and open to change
their perceptions and dispositions but it is neither realistic nor desirable
to prioritize flexibility and accommodation as these qualities are largely
context-dependent. Tolerance, for instance, is a concept that is often used
in descriptions of IC, but tolerance is by no means a transferable disposi-
tion; instead it is closely tied to an evaluation of a specific situation. The
same individual who might be tolerant in one situation might choose not
to be in a different context, and for particular reasons. The same applies
to respect: In response to Tony Blair’s call to teach school children to
‘respect religion’ in order to counter religious radicalization, Frances
(2014) argues: ‘Respect per se cannot provide children with the skills
they need to navigate their relationships with each other, or in the wider
world outside of the school gates. And in any case, not all ideas are wor-
thy of respect’. Instead of treating—in this case—religion as something
problematic that needs ‘respect’ Frances suggests enhancing knowledge
about religion, as well as non-religious identities. This ‘religious literacy’
would help children to engage critically ‘with ideologies and ideas, not
just [be] aware of their contours’. The fact that people have reasons for
being, acting and relating in particular ways does not mean that these val-
ues cannot be misguided, fallacious or ideological. They refer to a reality
outside themselves but are also mediated through discourses in specific
sociocultural contexts. The appeal to tolerance itself is, for example, very
often imbued with power relations, that is, it is commonly addressed to

members of a majority with the resources to exert influence on minorities
in the hope that they will refrain from doing so (Mendus, 1989, p. 8).
Tolerance is thus very often reduced to ‘a form of charity’ (MacDonald &
O’Regan, 2013, p. 1015). The fact that values are discursively mediated
and licensed through specific historically shaped social practices should,
however, not lead to the conclusion that they do not have a referent out-
side their own. As a matter of fact, their fallibility makes it all the more
necessary to engage with the aspect of social reality to which they actually
refer. Willingness to change is at least partially dependent on the availabil-
ity of competing accounts.
Confronting individuals with competing or maybe even better accounts
will not necessarily bring about transformative learning as Houghton
(2013), as described above, seems to assume. The degree and depth
of self-reflectivity and willingness to change ultimately depends on the
respective subject: Individuals react in different ways to experiences that
are incongruent with their current frames of reference; some are more
reflective, others might resist taking into account competing viewpoints or
refuse to change on the basis of discrepancies (Archer, 2003). Individuals
also differ in terms of previous experiences and critical events in their lives,
which set the stage for their cognitive and emotional openness. They dif-
fer in terms of their knowledge, understanding, judgements and creativity,
among a variety of other capabilities that are essential for learning (Sayer,
2011). Thus, while we can encourage intercultural learning, we cannot,
on the basis of what we teach, expect students to change, let alone per-
form competently in contexts of diversity—whatever that is supposed to
mean. We also need to be very careful not to assume that we, as teach-
ers, enjoy privileged access to a ‘rationally ordered “transcultural” totality’
(MacDonald & O’Regan, 2013, p. 1008). Our own claims are, of course,
also fallible and contested, and we need to constantly turn our attention to
these taken-for-granted assumptions in dialogue with others. Ultimately,
as the same authors (MacDonald & O’Regan, 2013, p. 1016) argue, ‘it is
necessary to strive not to finish with just the one—but all the time to keep
a reflexive eye on the many’.
To repeat, I am not advocating that we abolish concepts such as tol-
erance, open-mindedness or self-reflectivity. On the contrary, I think
they are essential for intercultural education, and intercultural education
can, in turn, contribute to the common good. My argument is purely
that these cannot be conceptualized as context-independent pre-defined
250 K. ZOTZMANN
sub-components of ‘competence’. Instead, it is important to engage with

the reasons individuals have for valuing one form of being, acting and
relating in particular contexts. To this end, we have to take seriously the
social and material realities people inhabit, refer to and have a stake in, and
this requires engagement with economic, political and sociological theory,
both in our academic reasoning and pedagogic practice.
The disengagement with the social and material reality people inhabit
and with the reasons they have for valuing what they value, does not only
lead to conceptual and pedagogic problems, it can also entail ethical rela-
tivism. We might perpetuate the idea that values are individual preferences
and as such not susceptible to different interpretations and critical reflec-
tion. Again, this is a gross misunderstanding of the nature of values, as
Dupré (2001, p. 129) explains:
The most obvious point is that to treat altruism, morality, or accepted social
norms simply as tastes that some people happen to have—I like candy and
fast cars, you like morality and oysters—is grossly to misplace the impor-
tance of norms of behaviour in people’s lives. Morality is what for many
people makes sense of their lives, not just one among a range of possible
consumables. Perhaps there are people for whom what primarily makes
sense of their lives is the acquisition of cars or oysters. But most of us, I sup-
pose, would consider this pathological, and would not consider that such
lives made much sense.
The reasons for this disengagement are varied. As outlined earlier, over
the past decades, research on interculturality has tended towards a pre-
dominantly anti-essentialist stance and stressed the fluidity, performativity
and inherent hybridity of all cultural processes. Friedman (2002, p. 24)
identifies
a fascination as well as a desire for the hybrid, not just as an interesting meet-
ing between cultures but as a kind of solution to what is perceived as one (if
not the major) problem of humankind, essentialism, in the sense of collective
identification based on similarity, imagined or real, on the shared values and
symbols that are so common in all forms of ‘cultural absolutism’.
According to the same author, anti-essentialists do not only critique

nation-based categories in terms of their underlying essentialist concepts,
categories and assumptions, they reject the entire ‘family of terms that
convey closure, boundedness’ (Friedman, 2002, p. 25). They attempt to
reveal the constructed nature of such categories, and try to show the ‘true’
hybrid and contingent nature of societies. Sayer (1999, p. 34, see also
Fay, 1996, p. 113) describes this theoretical perspective as ‘interpretivism’,
designating a ‘tendency to reduce social life wholly to the level of mean-
ing, ignoring material change and what happens to people, regardless of
their understandings’.
While anti-essentialists are right in their critique of discourses and practices
that label groups of people in ways that suppress difference, essentialism is
neither always associated with nationalist ideas nor is it essentially wrong:
essentialists need not assert that all members of a class are identical, in every
respect, only that they have some features in common. It is therefore not
necessarily guilty of homogenising and ‘flattening difference’; it all depends
which features are held to be essential, and it is a substantive, empirical ques-
tion—and not a matter of ontological fiat—whether such common, essential
properties exist. (Sayer, 2011, p. 456)
The problem, as the same author points out, is thus not the assertion of
sameness or difference, but the mistaken attribution or denial of particular
characteristics. Racism, for instance, is wrong on both counts, as it is based
on the one hand on ‘spurious claims about differences which actually have
no significance, and on the other denial of differences—through the stereo-
typing characteristic of cultural essentialism—which are significant’ (Sayer,
2011, p. 457). Conversely, denying sameness and ‘asserting instead differ-
ence to the point of implosion into “de-differentiation”’ (McLennan, 1996,
quoted in Sayer, 2011, p. 455) runs into the danger of overlooking durable
structures and power relations that influence individuals.
Evaluations and (mis)representations of others are not exclusively
based on essentialist categories in people’s minds; they are often rooted
in socioeconomic differences and injustices. This, however, is the pressing
question that an understanding of culture as fluid and procedural leaves
open; namely what kind of meanings become articulated in a particular
communicative situation, by whom and for what kind of reasons. In other
words, we need to put.
semiotic processes into context. This means locating them within their nec-
essary dialectical relations with persons (hence minds, intentions, desires,
bodies), social relations, and the material world—locating them within the
practical engagement of embodied and socially organised persons with the
material world. (Fairclough, Jessop, & Sayer, 2001, p. 7)
252 K. ZOTZMANN
CONCLUSION: THE HYPERFLEXIBLE INTERCULTURAL BEING

My intention in this chapter was to provide an answer to the question
of whether it is theoretically sensible and ethically desirable to con-
ceptualize the outcomes of intercultural learning as ‘competence’. My
argument was twofold. First, CBE prioritizes performance over reflec-
tion and thus distort attempts for mutual recognition and increased
understanding. Second, CBE is ill-equipped to account for lay-nor-
mativity as it ignores the reasons people have for being, acting and
relating to others in particular contexts. It is thus unlikely to bring
about the transformative learning that intercultural educators seem to
strive for.
A competence-based approach to intercultural education seems to
have little intrinsic validity. Instead it is driven by the marketization of
the education sector and the concomitant pressure to provide a well-
trained and flexible workforce. The global graduate is supposed to
embody the qualities employers look for in an ideal way: She is inter-
nationally versatile, ideally multilingual, and effective in contexts of
diversity. Due to her flexibility she can be relocated, will voluntarily go
wherever job opportunities arise, and can adapt to local circumstances.
She is willing to distance herself from her taken-for-granted assumptions
and to relativize her values according to the demands of the situation.
In summary, the interculturally competent global graduate is the ideal
‘entrepreneurial self ’ who regulates her own conduct according to the
demands of the market:
she is not just an employee or student, but also simultaneously a product to

be sold, a walking advertisement, a manager of her résumé, a biographer of
her rationales, and an entrepreneur of her possibilities. […] The summum
bonum of modern agency is to present oneself as eminently flexible in all and
every respect. (Mirowski, 2013, p. 108)
This hyperflexibility comes—normally—with emotional costs. As the

Competency Framework for Global People, Spencer-Oatey and Stadler
(2009) H. & Stadler, S. (2009). has quite correctly identified, global
graduates also need coping strategies and resilience.
I would suggest that we need to re-think our own values—or reasons
for action—as academics and teachers who aim to foster intercultural
learning in our students. In order to contribute to a more just and
equal society—if we choose these to be our aims—that offers better

conditions for mutual understanding and recognition, we need to move
away from the idea that higher education is there to provide a ‘use-
ful’, adaptable and flexible workforce for highly volatile labour markets.
Although one function of the university is surely to educate competent
professionals, higher education also has its own raison d’être (Barnett,
1990, p. 8): It has a vital social role in enhancing scientific as well as
cultural, human and social development. This is particularly important
in the current context where few social spheres are unscathed by alleged
‘logic’ of the market:
If there are tendencies in modern society for thought, discourse and action
to be constrained by a number of dominant forces, higher education has the
function of helping to maintain and develop a plurality of styles of thought
and action. In this sense, higher education has to be a countervailing force.
(Barnett, 1990, pp. 65–66)
In the case of intercultural education, we might start by rejecting the out-

put, performance orientation and concomitant terminology of the com-
petence approach altogether.
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INDEX
A C
assessment, 21, 24, 68n1, 146, 147, challenges, 9, 32, 33, 36, 38, 42,
150, 229, 243, 247, 248 44–6, 48, 54, 61, 74, 78, 104,
awareness, xx, 6, 7, 13–27, 34, 46–8, 105, 110, 115, 116, 139, 159,
52, 56, 58, 61, 63, 94, 97, 104, 215–33, 240
105, 112–14, 122, 131, 133, citizenship, 8, 46, 77, 90, 105, 106,
147, 155, 171, 172, 187–9, 191, 127, 191
192, 198, 200, 204, 220, 221, complexities, 19, 52, 56–9, 63, 67,
225, 240, 243 189, 216, 240
complexity, v, vi, 3, 5, 6, 9, 55–7, 60,
61, 64, 73, 78, 87, 107, 109,
B 110, 112, 116, 133, 143, 144,
belonging, 76, 77, 87, 90, 113, 122, 150, 171, 173, 197, 204, 207,
127, 144, 175, 188 216, 219, 220, 240
binary, 99, 100, 108, 111, 123, 138 conflict, 25, 52, 56–8, 61, 116,
borders, 46, 89, 90, 121, 130, 133, 126, 128, 131, 134, 144,
137, 151, 174, 176 149, 247
boundaries, v, vi, 4, 18, 46, 56, cosmopolitan, 8, 57, 77, 89, 90, 130
60, 103, 129, 131, 175, cosmopolitanism, 8, 9, 77, 90, 130
176, 178 cultural difference(s), 4, 14, 21, 24,
business, x, xvii, xix, xxi, 9, 109, 117, 99, 104–9, 116, 176
129, 145, 151, 154, 158, 175, curiosity, 45, 77, 147, 168, 172, 187,
215–33, 233n2, 240, 241 202, 203, 208, 242
Note: Page number followed by n denotes footnotes

DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-58733-6
260 INDEX
D I
discrimination, 5, 78, 150 identity, xviii, 7, 8, 55, 57, 60, 62, 66,
diversity, 13, 17, 48, 74–7, 79, 80, 83, 74, 76, 77, 97, 102–4, 108, 111,
84, 89, 90, 121–3, 126, 129–32, 122, 125, 126, 128–31, 133,
134, 136–8, 178, 204, 207, 215, 135, 148, 149, 151, 152, 157,
218, 219, 239, 241, 242, 247, 160, 167–79, 200, 242, 243
249, 252 inequality, 79, 89, 109, 116, 130,
dynamics, 121, 138, 179, 246 149, 150
intercultural polyphonies, 8, 121–39
intercultural reader, 51–68
E intercultural speaker, 33, 51–68, 101,
emotions, 8, 62, 66, 67, 150, 220 114, 247
empathy, 57, 85, 105, 187, 242, 243 internet, 77, 89, 90, 121, 143, 150,
English as a lingua franca, 44, 132, 156, 158, 161
229, 244 interpretation, 7, 8, 13–27, 52–4,
epistemological assumptions, 8, 98, 57–62, 64, 65, 67, 68, 99, 110,
105, 106 129, 195, 205, 207, 231, 242, 250
epistemologies, 5, 132, 135, 137 intolerance, 99, 135
equality, 22, 75, 76, 80, 82–4, I-R-E, 186, 191–4, 199, 203, 206,
89, 161 207, 209
essentialism, 3, 5, 97, 103, 108, 109,
129, 130, 138, 233, 250, 251
essentialist, 29, 33, 97, 102–4, 107, L
108, 110, 116, 127, 128, 218, Ladino, 167–8, 171–8
230, 232, 242, 243, 250, 251 language teachers, 9, 185–210
ethics, 101–3, 110, 114–16, 133, literary texts, 52, 54, 55, 59, 60,
134, 193 63, 65
experiential learning, 7, 45–6, 48
M
F mediation, xix, 7, 13–27, 128,
failure, 2, 6, 102, 110, 126, 218, 229 190, 208
flexibility, 237–9 meta-pragmatic awareness, xx, 7,
foreign language education, 13, 14, 97 13–27
multiculturalism, 8, 78, 79, 89,
121–39
H
hierarchies, 5, 123, 202, 206
hierarchy, 22, 125, 149, 208 N
hospitality, 98–103, 110, 126 negotiation, 6, 15, 32–3, 122, 125,
host students, 7, 31–48 137, 148, 155, 157, 160, 161,
hybridity, 32–3, 122–4, 130, 250 176, 179, 242
hyper-flexibility, 237–9 neo-essentialism, 97
INDEX 261
O simplexity, 5, 6
otherness, 9, 46, 54, 57, 113, 114, stereotypes, v, 6, 7, 16, 18, 22,
124, 172, 247 38, 44–5, 48, 55, 105, 106,
129, 136, 155, 187, 199,
200, 202, 206–8, 219,
P 230, 299
power, 5, 6, 36, 79, 107–9, 122,
123–30, 132–8, 145, 148–51,
155, 177, 178, 203, 249, 251 T
prejudice(s), 46, 47, 80, 84, 129, 134, tolerance, xviii, 57, 58, 79, 80,
220, 238 85, 98–101, 103, 105,
106, 108–10, 113, 114,
116, 130, 224, 238,
R 242, 248, 249
racism, 65, 84, 85, 89, 127, 135, 161,
187, 191, 251
reflection, 20–6, 252 V
representation(s), xx, 2, 4, 65, 104, value disembedding, 237–53
108, 110, 126, 133, 138, 148,
187, 197, 227, 230, 241, 243,
244, 251 Y
Yin and Yang, 111
S
short-term study visits, 32, 38 Z
similarities, 4, 33, 40, 41, 43, 45–8, zones of interculturality, 8, 9,
134, 135, 242, 243 167–79, 186

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Fred Dervin & Zehavit Gross

ISBN 978-1-137-58732-9 ISBN 978-1-137-58733-6 (eBook)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016950066

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016

Cover image © Cienpies Design / Alamy Stock Photo

Printed on acid-free paper

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature

Intercultural Competence: Alternative Approaches for Today’s Education,

1 Introduction: Towards the Simultaneity of Intercultural

Part I Adding to Previous Perspectives: Making IC

2 Meta-pragmatic Awareness and Intercultural Competence:

3 Intercultural Competence in Host Students? A Study

4 From ‘Intercultural Speaker’ to ‘Intercultural Reader’:

5 Competences for Active Communication and Participation

Part II Renewing Intercultural Competence: Beyond

6 Intercultural Competence and the Promise

7 Intercultural Polyphonies Against the ‘Death

8 Intercultural Competence: Multi-dynamic,

9 Living Intercultural Lives: Identity Performance

Part III Renewed Intercultural Competence in Practice 183

10 An Interactive, Co-constructed Approach to the

11 Challenges of Teaching Intercultural Business

12 Intercultural Competence: Value Disembedding

Fig. 4.1 Model of the intercultural reader’s engagement

Table 3.1 Research participants 35

Leah Davcheva AHA Moments Centre for Intercultural Learning, is an

Ulla Egidiussen Egekvist is a PhD candidate in the Department of

Lesley Harbon is both an Honorary Associate Professor in the Faculty of

Niels-Erik Lyngdorf is a PhD candidate in the Department of Learning

coordinator of the Centre for Intercultural Studies of the Polytechnic

Introduction: Towards the Simultaneity

Some months ago one of us attended a cross-cultural training session to

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 1

presentations in the afternoon, and if bowing was a Finnish cultural habit.

WARNINGS: THE NON-SIMULTANEITY OF IC

As paradoxical as it might seem, an approach to intercultural competence

people with grammars of culture or recipes. IC should help us to ques-

PROPOSALS: REINFORCING THE SIMULTANEITY OF IC

• any approach to IC is ideological and political;

• What is wrong with current approaches to IC? What mistakes have

different interlinked levels of communication, and involving emotions

Adding to Previous Perspectives:

Meta-pragmatic Awareness and Intercultural

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016 13

of IC that are influential within foreign language education, the ability

position that any conceptualization of intercultural competence needs to

INTERCULTURAL MEDIATION FROM A META-PRAGMATIC

pretation can be regarded as indicators of development (Liddicoat, 2006).

tion, the individual needs to engage in continual reflection on the basis of

LEARNERS’ META-PRAGMATIC REFLECTIONS AS ACTS

Meta-pragmatic awareness is manifested in different ways in learners’

The two examples come from students’ discussions of differences

of that culture, the learners produce a stereotypicalized account of differ-

through an implicit comparison between Japanese norms and American

In this extract, John is responding to an interviewer’s question about

into understanding the co-constitutive roles of language and culture in the

In A. Gohard-Radenkovic & L. Rachedi (Eds.), Récits de vie et expériences de la

languages and cultures in a globalizing academy (pp. 73–100). Adelaide:

Intercultural Competence in Host Students?