Intercultural Communication Paper (and INCA Survey) Instructions

Motivation Having a wide repertoire of behaviour, they are willing to constantly monitor the effects of their own behaviour, and adapt it to the specific requirements of a given situation. Knowledge/skill They are generally able to apply a number of different types of behaviour in a given situation. They are able to perceive even weak signals of a situation and can adapt their behaviour in appropriate ways. Behaviour They take on the behaviour of others and use that in intercultural situations if their own behaviour is inappropriate. iii) COMMUNICATIVE AWARENESS The significance Problems in intercultural communication often occur because the communication partners follow different linguistic conventions. People from different cultures associate different meanings with specific terms; they express their intentions in different linguistic forms, they follow different cultural conventions of how a conversation should take place with regard to its content or its structure. The meaning of gestures, mime, volume, pauses, etc. also differs from one culture to the other. This is all exacerbated by the use of foreign languages, when people are often not able to formulate or interpret intentions appropriately in given contexts. People often do not notice such problems but when they do, they make ‘psychological’ assumptions, and attribute the differences to different character traits, to different ‘cultural mentalities’. A speaker who speaks with a low voice, for instance, is often described as ‘shy’, although he/she may only want to behave in a polite manner or to indicate that the message is very important. Communicative awareness is the ability to recognise different linguistic conventions, different foreign language skills and their effects on discourse processes, and to negotiate rules appropriate for intercultural communication. Communicative Awareness focuses on the following areas: Dealing with different communicative conventions

INCA – Intercultural Competence Assessment – www.incaproject.org 6