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THEMATICS Vol 7. Issue 1. Jan 2016. ISSN 0975-8313

THAMATICS
ISSN 0975-8313
Vol 7. Issue 1. Jan 2016. pp. 49-61
http://www.vishwabharati.in
Paper received: 24 Dec 2015.
Paper accepted: 06 Jan 2016.
VISHWABHARATI Research Centre

A CHANGE IN VIEWS: FROM SEEKING


LIKE NATIVE SPEAKERS REPERTOIRE
TO BECOME INTERCULTURAL
SPEAKER OF THE TARGET LANGUAGE
Wagdi Rashad Ali Bin-Hady & S.S. Kanade
Abstract:
In the body of this paper, the researcher hopes to examine
some elements by which people may succeed to communicate in
cross-cultural situations and reach a degree of acceptance to other
culture notwithstanding some norms seem unacceptable to us. The
researcher discusses some points relevant to achieving high degree
of competence in communication. As a result, the researcher initially,
sheds some light on pragmatic competence and its fabulous role
in understanding what an interlocutor means by some utterances
uttered at specific situations.Moreover, an overall introduction about
communicative competence is organized. This step allows the
researcher to talk about the definition of communicative
competence as well as some of the theoretical models coined by
Wagdi Rashad Ali Bin-Hady: PhD Research Scholar, Dr. Babasaheb
Ambedkar Marathwada University, Aurangabad (MS) India.
S.S. Kanade: Dept of English, SMP Mahavidyalaya, Murum,
Osmanabad (MS) India.

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some linguists to illustrate the components of communicative


competence as well as how such components serve the language
learners to achieve good level of communication using the target
language. Finally, a shift from communicative competence to
intercultural competence is set to avoid the problems of
miscommunications arisen as the results of facing people from
multi-cultural backgrounds. An intercultural speaker is set to go
between native and non native speaker as well as to reject any
criticism to other people cultural heritages.
Key Words: Pragmatic competence; communicative competence;
intercultural competence; intercultural speaker.
Introduction:
Two years ago, I had accompanied a Yemeni couple to one
of the historical tourist-places in India, as long as we arrived our
destination, we met a German man in his forties grousing why
did the Yemeni-woman with us cover her face!.
Another occasion that I want to narrate before starting the
paper,is that, as a Facebook user, I received many congregations
on my birthday from some Western friends.
With reference to the first story, although the German man
was very good in using English, concerning to its underlying system,
discourse, etc., he lacks the skills of cross-cultural communication
as how to accept other cultural heritages without hurting their
religion or social norms and attitudes. Focusing on the second
incident, I understood that birthdays connate greatconceptions in
the western cultures, so that they congratulated me and I have to
do so at their occasions to continue our friendships.
As foreign language learners become aware of the importance
in using the target language for achieving their communicative
needs, many problems arise due tothe dichotomy of whether
using that language with its native people or with cross-cultural
speakers using that language while they come from various different
first language backgrounds.
Some of the facts that arise such problems are that through

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using that language, one has to possess considerable knowledge in


that language pragmatics in additions to good knowledge in the
language underlying system, knowledge in sociolinguistics,
knowledge in discourse as well as performing some strategies of
communication to avoid any lack of knowledge in the previously
mentioned elements, in order to guess what their interlocutors
mean by their utterances. Moreover, the problems continue
whenever, a foreign language user directs his communication with
other second or foreign language users use that language, unless
one receives other cultures as perfect as oneself.
In such cases, language learners will change their focus from
achieving like native speakerrepertoire, to play the role of
intercultural speaker. The importance of developing such
knowledge in intercultural communication will provide learners
to live and interact with multi cultural societies. According to
(Barrett & Byram, 2013;Sudhoff, 2010)acquiring intercultural
competence helps learners to coexist and avoid decisive problems
usually arisen in contemporary societies..
Reviewing the Literature:
In our daily communication, we use language differently
according to our interlocutorsstatuses. We also try to be up to
date when we transfer from a countryside to rural areas by using
other style of language which seem more modern and civilized.
This elastic views that we try to capable ourselves with will give us
the chances to express our ideas and views in different situations
successfully even in the borders of our country or governorates.
Otherwise, we will become mute in different national places or be
shameful when our utterances being odd to people speak our
mother tongue. To achieve that favorable balance while using the
target language, learners of English require the following elements:.
Communicative Competence:
Communicative competence is a term coined by the famous
sociolinguist and anthropologist, Dell Hymes in the beginning of
the seventies of the twentieth century. According to Hymes (1972:

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282) competence refers to not only the knowledge that a person


has in a language but also the ability to use that knowledge
appropriately according to the situation. Hymes communicative
competence includes four parameters: Whether something is possible,
feasible, appropriate and if so how perfect it is done. Among the
famous linguists who agree with Hymes communicative
competence are, (Widdowson, 1977, 1979,1984) who insists on
the importance of teaching both use and usage to create a
competent learner, and (Savignon, 1991, 1997, 2007, 2008) where
she relates Hymes Competence to Hallidays meaning potential.
The emerge of Hymes theory leads to the development of
several theoretical models for the purpose of teaching and assessing
communicative competence. Among the first theoretical framework
is the work of Canale & Swain (1980) which categories
communicative competence into grammatical competence, sociolinguistic
competence and strategic competence. However, the model has been
updated by Canale (1983) to include a fourth component, i.e.,
discourse competence. Following the work of Canale and Swain (1980),
and Canale (1983), more theoretical models constructed as the
work of (Bachman, 1990; Bachman & Palmer, 1996) as they divide
language ability into language knowledge and pragmatic knowledge; in
which the first combines both grammatical knowledge and textual
knowledge and the second includes functional knowledge and sociolinguistic
knowledge. A third theoretical framework is built by Celce-Murcia,
Dornyei, & Thurrell (1995) to include five components which are
linguistic competence, strategic competence, sociocultural competence, actional
competence as well as discourse competence. The model is update by CelceMurcia (2007) to include sex components. The new model
substitutes the previous model actional competence by formulaic competence
and add a sixth component which is interactional competence. The last
model is the work of Us-Juan & Martnez-Flor (2006) which
categories communicative competence into linguistic competence, pragmatic
competence, intercultural competence as well as well as a strategic competence.
Among the abovementioned theoretical frameworks, the last
model of Us-Juan & Martnez-Flor (2006) inculdes intercultural

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competence as main components of their model. They define it as


the correlation of the learner own culture and the target culture
(p.18).
To sum up, communicative competence is the ability of a
person to participate effectively and appropriately with others. The
term aims to create a leaner who has efficient repertoire in the
target language (linguistic competence) underline system; cultures
of the target language, including varieties and registers
(sociolinguistic competence); as well as knowledge in discourse
coherence and cohesion (discourse competence); the intention of
interlocutors (pragmatic competence) and strategies which enable
them to come up with any difficulties whether as a result of
deficiency in knowledge or culture( strategic competence). A
question may appear as to which culture the learner must be familiar
with? If we thought the culture of English language native speaking
countries, so, how could learners of English participate with English
speaking people from different countries all over the globe?
For answering such question, there is a need to broaden our
focus to cover pragmatic competence and intercultural competence.
Pragmatic Competence:
Pragmatic competence is the ability of language users to
understand the intention of other speakers during their talks or
writings. Pragmatic competence according to Us-Juan and
Martnez-Flor (2008) refers to the learners ability to employ
different linguistic formulae in an appropriate way when interacting
in a particular social and cultural context(254-255). Us-Juan
andMartinez-Flors definition focuses on appropriateness in
producing language to suit specific social as well as cultural settings.
Pragmatic competence, which is a part of the total
components of communicative competence as in the frameworks
of (Bachman, 1990; Bachman & Palmer, 1996;Martnez-Flor,
2007), includes knowledge in language functions, varieties of
language, culture, norms, etc. on the other hand, pragmatic
competence does not exhibit clearly in other models like (Canale

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and Swain, 1980; Canale, 1983), it organized under the component


sociolinguistic competence.
It is necessary for foreign language learners to develop
considerable knowledge in pragmatic competence to achieve the
desirable communicative needs. Pragmatic competence forms one
of the cornerstones that communicative competence stands on.
Considering the fact that, however, communicative
competence models pay attentions to the importance of culture
in building competence speakers of English, they dominantly urge
learners to be aware of native English speakers norms and cultures.
Possibly, such native culture and norms will not work properly
when English language users orient non-native speaker of English.
Cetinavci (2012) reports that acquiring communicative competence
elements will not help English language users to communicate
perfectly in cross culture settings (3446). Thus there is a call to
organizing knowledge in intercultural communication competence
Intercultural Communicative Competence:
Intercultural communicative competence (ICC) is the ability
of a language learner to participate effectively with people from
different cultures. According to Samovar, Porter, and McDaniel
as cited in Ilosvay (2012), ICC means having cross-cultural and
cross-linguistic awareness, negotiation of language, and conflict
resolution typically among peoples of different backgrounds.
(p.7). It involves being knowledgeable in both the linguistic system
of the target language as well as multicultural background. ICC
emergesas a response to the challenge set by the cultural diversity.
It refers to ones ability to communicate appropriately and
effectively in intercultural interaction situations(Lipponen, 2005:
2). So far, being intercultural competent in communication
according to Byram (1997) is to participate efficiently and
appropriately in a foreign language with people from different
countries and cultures(p.71). Finally, ICC is defined as the complex
of abilities needed to perform effectively and appropriately when
interacting with others who are linguistically and culturally different
from oneself (Fantini, 2005: 1). Another definition for ICC is set

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by Kim (2009: 54) as the overall capacity of an individual to


enact behaviors and activities that foster cooperative relationships
with culturally (or ethnically) dissimilar others. Whatever the
definitions abovementioned focus on, there same to be meeting
lines between all definitions for the communication to be not only
appropriate but also effective, moreover, it should direct
participants belonging to different cultural backgrounds.
The study of Intercultural communicative competence is
viewed as two polar concerns, it studies human communicative as
well as its correlation to the environments(Chen, 1990). ICC refers
to the capacities of a host as much as a guest. Although the host
will often speak in their native language they need the same kinds
of knowledge, attitudes and skills as theirguest to understand and
maintain relationships between meanings in the two cultures
(Byram, 1997: 41-42).
Intercultural Competence (IC):
The term intercultural competence is viewed as the result of
integrating culture in the process of learning and teaching a language
(Dervin, 2010). Intercultural competence enables individual or
group to:

Understand and respect people who are perceived to have


different cultural affiliations from oneself.
Respond appropriately, effectively and respectfully when
interacting and communicating with such people.
Establish positive and constructive relationships with such
people.
understand oneself and ones own multiple cultural affiliations
through encounters with cultural difference(Barrett & Byram,
2013: 7).
Models of Intercultural Competence:
Models of intercultural communicative competence can be
categorized into four categories: compositional, co-orientational,
developmental, adaptational, and causal process (Changnon, 2009:
10). As communicative competence models, intercultural

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competence models seek to diagnose which sub-elements form


the total concept of intercultural competence. Some of the widecited models will be listed briefly below:
ByramsModel:
Byram built his own model of Intercultural competence to
include five components. These components are as follow:

Attitudes: curiosity and openness, readiness to suspend disbelief


about other cultures and belief about ones own.

Knowledge: of social groups and their products and practices


in ones own and in ones interlocutors country, and of the
general processes of societal and individual interaction.

Skills of interpreting and relating: ability to interpret a


document or event from another culture, to explain it and
relate it to documents from ones own.

Skills of discovery and interaction: ability to acquire new


knowledge of a culture and cultural practices and the ability
to operate knowledge, attitudes and skills under the constraints
of real-time communication and interaction.

Critical cultural awareness/political education: an ability to


evaluate critically and on the basis of explicit criteria
perspectives, practices and products in ones own and other
cultures and countries (Byram, 2000: 10).

The Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity


(DMIS):
It was Bennett who coined The Developmental Model of
Intercultural Sensitivity (DMIS)(Hammer, Bennett, & Wiseman, 2003:
423) DMIS is the fruit of hard work done to investigate the
reason why some people are more successful in cross-cultural
communications than others (Bennett, 2004). The model (DMIS)
explains the dimensions of becoming competent in intercultural
communication(Jackson, 2009). The more that people become
competent in intercultural communication, the likely they shift
from ethnocentrism into ethnocentrism in which the former

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refers to what Bennett states as theexperience of ones own culture


as central to reality, whereas the latter stands for the experience
of ones own beliefs and behaviors as just one organization of
reality among many viable possibilities (Bennett, 2004: 62). The
model orients six stages by which people go through while they
acquire competence in intercultural communication (Hammer et
al., 2003: 423).These six stages orientations are classified into two
levels of intercultural developments as explained below:
The Ethnocentric Stages of Development:
Ethnocentrism, which is the avoidance of culture difference,
comprises three stages of development. It begins according to
Bennett (2014)with either by denying its existence, by raising
defenses against it, or by minimizing its importance (p.62).
People who live in a monolingual cultural socialization may
deny different cultural worldview. They may consider their own
culture as what Bennett (2004) calls as the only real-one (p.63).
They might hate different cultural worldview and behave offensively
if different culture is impinged to them. Such people consider
themselves as the real human while others are just found to serve
them(Hammer et al., 2003: 424). The second stage of Bennetts
model is defense. In this stage, people often shift from denying other
culture to defense the viability of their own culture and finally
reach the third stage by minimizing the importance of other cultures.
The Ethnorelative Stages of Development:
This level of development perceives one own culture in the
context of other cultures (Hammer, Bennett, & Wiseman, 2003:
421). It moves towards accepting other cultural diversity. Such
movements proceed either by accepting its importance, by
adapting perspective to take it into account, or by integrating the
whole concept into a definition of identity(Bennett, 2004: 263).
Development of Intercultural Competence:
Intercultural competence can be developed whenever an
individual agrees that his/her own culture is not just a perfect and
accepts that other cultures are equally valid (Prechtl & Lund, 2007).

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It is possible to enhance learners intercultural competence through


education. Three educational setting are suggested. They are informal
education, non-formal education and formal education (Barrett & Byram,
2013: 14).
Intercultural Speaker:
Intercultural speaker is defined by Byram (2009: 327) as
someone who has some or all of the five saviors [knowledge of
self and other] of intercultural competence to some degree. These
five saviors mentioned by Byram as attitudes, knowledge, Skills
of interpreting and relating, Skills of discovery and interaction,
and Critical cultural awareness. Therefore, an intercultural speaker
is aware of the five mentioned saviors. Intercultural speaker is also
viewed as a person who is competent in a SL/FL and has the
ability to understand the social diversity and reality of other cultures
and employ the language appropriately(Beltrn-Palanques, 2014:
63). To sum up, intercultural speaker is someone with
multiculturalrepertoires and ease communication between monocultural individuals. Intercultural speaker according to Skopinskaja
(2007: 137), is someone who has the ability to interact with others,
to mediate between different cultural identifications, and to accept
other perceptions of the world.
Conclusion:
Throughout the body of this paper, the researcher goes
through several steps for the aim of clarifying the components
that shapes a competent speaker with the ability to communicative
in cross-cultural settings. The researcher talks about pragmatic
competence and its important role in guessing the meaning that
our interlocutors send by their messages and how to respond
appropriately to them. Next, the researcher discusses
communicative competence as with areas it includes. Finally, a need
for creating a cross cultural speaker and intercultural competence
is discussed.
The importance of successful participation in cross-cultural
communication is the aim of this paper. The researcher sheds light

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on the necessity for English language learners to possess enough


repertoire in communicative competence components and how
significantly to accept different culturesas parallel with home culture.
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