Intercultural Communication Paper (and INCA Survey) Instructions

environment, for example the signs and symbols of the street scene, the significance of modes of dress, the styles and types of newspaper texts. Where we cannot read, we have to know how to ask and how to interpret answers. When we know in advance that we will be interacting with people in a new environment, then we can do some prior research, using particular sources of information, for example travel books, websites, tourist information, even novels based in the new environment. In this case we need to be able to differentiate between, for example, information intended for tourism and what will really help with living and working in a new environment. Motivation They have a curiosity to find out about other cultures both in themselves and in order to be able to interact better with people of other cultural identities Knowledge/skill They have the ability to acquire new knowledge of a culture and cultural practices and the ability to act using that knowledge under the constraints of real-time communication and interaction Behaviour They use skills of asking questions, interpreting documents to, for example, elicit from an interlocutor the concepts and values of documents or events, identify significant references within and across cultures, identify similar and dissimilar processes of interaction, verbal and non-verbal, and negotiate an appropriate use of them in specific circumstances, identify and make use of public and private institutions which facilitate contact with other countries and cultures. v) RESPECT FOR OTHERNESS The significance The basis of intercultural competence is in the attitudes of the person interacting with people of another culture. This means a willingness to relativise one's own values, beliefs and behaviours, not to assume that they are the only possible and naturally correct ones, and an ability to see how they might look from an outsider's perspective who has a different set of values, beliefs and behaviours. This can be called the ability to 'decentre'. If people do not have this respect for the way other people act and for what they believe, then there is no basis for successful communication and achievement of joint objectives.

INCA – Intercultural Competence Assessment – www.incaproject.org 9