Chapter 3 Communicative Competence and Intercultural Communication Competence
Objectives and Requirements
After learning this chapter, you should be able to:
1. Define communicative competence and intercultural communication competence;
2. Provide examples of major aspects of nonverbal differences in cultural context;
3. Identify and compare characteristics of high-contact culture and low-contact culture;
4. Employ strategies to overcome culture shock and develop intercultural communication competence.
Intercultural communication refers to the communication between people with differing cultural identities. As new technologies have led to the perception that our world has shrunk and demographic and political changes have brought attention to cultural differences, people communicate across cultures more frequently now than ever before. Due to the fact that different cultures may vary in their religion, custom, rules, and rituals in all aspects of life, an intercultural communicator needs to have at least intercultural awareness as well as communicative competence to build up his or her intercultural communication competence in order to engage in successful intercultural communication between different cultures. For example, foreign newcomers to a family party might encounter some troubles if they fail to notice that lilies are appropriate in China as gifts for external love on a wedding anniversary, yet they are used in some of the Western countries to pay respects to the dead despite how well they speak the language. One of the aspects that foreign newcomers need to pay special attention to is how the meaning of nonverbal cues could vary in different cultures such as how they greet each other or how they show approval or disapproval. The term “culture shock” is used to describe the effects of such encounter on some of foreign newcomers and the adaptation phase might be very different from one to another. Failing to understand and respect such difference may produce serious effects on their personal and business relationship. In the previous chapter, we have talked a lot about how to communicate and how to improve nonverbal communicative competence. In this chapter, we are going to learn what intercultural communication competence is and how it is different from the idea of communicative competence before learning some effective tips on how to improve one's intercultural communication competence from the perspective of heart, mind, and skill.