Intercultural communication: an emerging discipline Michael Kelly
March 2011
Author Mike Kelly is a specialist in modern French culture and society, especially the history of ideas and intellectuals, and plays an important role in developing public policy on languages and cultural diversity, in the UK and internationally. Mike is Director of the UK Subject Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies, which is based at Southampton, with a remit to support these subjects in higher education across the UK
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Introduction Intercultural communication is an emerging discipline which studies communication between people from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds, especially where participants do not all share a common first language. The discipline is characterised by a diversity of approaches, as any discipline is likely to be, especially in the early stages of its formation, and there is by no means a general agreement on what the discipline consists of. Its diversity can be analysed in terms of four main areas of focus: linguistic interaction, cooperation, education for citizenship, and (inter)cultural studies.
Intercultural linguistic interaction The first area of intercultural communication focuses on the linguistic interactions between interlocutors from different linguistic or cultural backgrounds. In some respects, it is the most developed area of intercultural communication, and adapts the well-established methodologies of pragmatics and sociolinguistics to a particular category of interaction. (Clyne 1994), (Scollen and Wong Scollen 1995) There are two main motivating forces behind the linguistics of intercultural communication. On the one hand, there is a need for social integration in countries with a large immigrant population for whom the nationally dominant language is not their first language. On the other hand, there is a need for people whose first language is not widely spoken to communicate effectively through one of the internationally dominant languages, most often English.
Intercultural cooperation The second area of intercultural communication addresses economic and political cooperation, focusing on the values and social structures which lay behind interactions between people from different linguistic or cultural backgrounds. It is a rapidly developing area, which has adopted some of the methodologies of sociology, anthropology and social psychology to a particular category of social relationship. It is dominated by the question of understanding forms of relationship regardless of the language of communication, though recognising that language use is an important aspect of relationships. In its practical form as cultural briefing, it is widely taught in the industrial world, especially in the context of business studies and international relations, and is much more oriented towards training than to research. The main
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motivating force is overwhelmingly the desire for successful business and diplomatic relations with other countries, which sustains a large number of specialist private providers.
Intercultural education for citizenship The third area, intercultural education for citizenship, focuses on social and political activities which both unite and divide people, especially young people, of different cultural backgrounds. It draws on the methodologies of educational studies, and the disciplines grouped as area studies, civilisation (in French) or Landeskunde (in German). (Doyé 1996) It is dominated by the question of international understanding regardless of language, and has recently been strongly promoted in the European Union, where it is a common strand in the secondary school syllabus, especially in France, Britain and Germany. It has also been taken up by the Council of Europe as part of its campaigns against racism, xenophobia, anti-semitism and intolerance. (Byram and Zarate 1995)(Sheils 1996) There are two main types of motivating force behind intercultural education for citizenship. The first is the requirements of international cooperation, both on economic development and on political issues such as peace, security, human rights and the environment. In Europe these are closely linked to European integration, and to securing political consent for the process, often referred to as overcoming the democratic deficit. The second force is the requirements of students and workers travelling abroad, who need to be able to study or work for a period in a foreign country. This has long been a feature of the education of language students and trainee language teachers, but has increasingly spread throughout secondary and higher education in Europe, encouraged by E.U. programmes such as ERASMUS.
(Inter)cultural studies The fourth area is (inter)cultural studies, which focuses on the cultural field and the development of knowledge, skills and tastes relating to the signifying practices of different linguistic or cultural traditions. In one sense, intercultural studies are a longestablished phenomenon, to be found almost everywhere in the arts and humanities disciplines, in programmes of modern languages, comparative literature, film studies, history, art history and many other disciplines where the culture of other countries is studied.
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Disciplines and countries Relations between disciplines and countries are of particular concern in practice for intercultural communication, which is a discipline in the early stages of emergence. The discourse of the discipline has not yet crystallised to the point of uniform labels and terminology: the key terms are fluid and ambiguous. Culture vies with communication for the top place in semantic weight-lifting. But the various forms of intercultural or cross-cultural communication, education or studies are increasingly present in conference papers, books, and articles. They are generating specialist journals, e-mail lists and specialist associations. An infrastructure of research units and academic departments is beginning to emerge, and with them the inevitable negotiation of boundaries with adjoining disciplines. It is a particular feature of this process that it is taking place internationally. A strong international dimension is integral to the nature of intercultural communication, but there are clear divergences in the way it is constructed in different countries, or regions. In effect, each of the main areas of focus within the discipline has tended to become centred geographically, no doubt reflecting particular social and cultural issues which the development of intercultural communication was designed to address. In Europe especially, there is a marked North-South divide. The Mediterranean countries focus on the cultural dimension of intercultural communication, deeply concerned with the reciprocal study of cultural traditions, and reflecting a desire to valorise the area which regards itself as the cradle of European civilisation. The Nordic countries on the other hand are focused on the communicative linguistics of intercultural communication, dominated by the question of interaction through a language which is not common (or not necessarily common) to either speaker. This reflects their strategy of adopting English instrumentally as an lingua franca, without accepting an implication of cultural domination in the process. The countries between the two regions, including France, Germany, the Low Countries and the British Isles have perhaps taken the lead in the two remaining areas, reflecting the international profiles of those countries in the political and economic fields.
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