Background

Abstract

In this chapter, I discuss terms and concepts relevant to pragmatics and intercultural competence to provide a foundation for the upcoming chapters. I begin with different definitions of pragmatics before defining subfields of pragmatics that are relevant to the present study (cross-cultural pragmatics, variational pragmatics, and interlanguage, L2 or second language pragmatics) and discussing pragmatic competence. This is followed by a discussion of various conceptualizations of culture and the relationship between culture, language and pragmatics. The final part of this chapter focuses on intercultural (communicative) competence and how it relates to pragmatics.

2.1 Pragmatics and Pragmatic Competence

Since pragmatics became part of the discipline of linguistics in the 1970s (Jucker, 2012),¹ numerous definitions of it have been put forward that highlight its different aspects and are sometimes broader or narrower (see, e.g., Barron et al., 2017; Culpeper & Schauer, 2018). One rather narrow but well-known definition is the one by Bardovi-Harlig (2013, p. 68) who defines “pragmatics [as] the study of how-to-say-what-to-whom-when”; this definition “highlights the speaker and use (how to say), the content (what), the hearer (who), and the context (when)” (Aslan, 2021, p. 173). While this definition could be considered to contain the core components of pragmatics, Bardovi-Harlig (2013, p. 69) herself notes that this is her “‘cocktail party’ definition, and although it is fairly accurate in spirit, it is lacking in the detail required for academic work”.

To obtain a more detailed picture of what pragmatics focuses on, the following box presents perspectives on pragmatics that share common features but that also each highlight specific aspects of it.

Pragmatics

“Traditional language analysis contrasts pragmatics with syntax and semantics. […] Whereas formal analyses of syntax and semantics do not consider the users of the linguistic forms that they describe and analyse, pragmatics deals very explicitly with the study of relationships holding between linguistic forms and the human beings who use these forms. As such, pragmatics is concerned with people’s intentions, assumptions, beliefs, goals and the kinds of actions they perform while using language. Pragmatics is also concerned with contexts, situations, and settings within which such language uses occur”. (Celce-Murcia & Olshtain, 2000, p. 19)

“Pragmatics refers to the appropriate use of language in social interaction, along with the rules that govern interaction with others. Pragmatic language rules are defined as the effective and appropriate use of language to accomplish social goals, manage turns and topics in conversation, and express appropriate degrees of politeness, awareness of social roles and recognition of others’ conversational needs (American Speech-Language-Hearing Association)”. (Levey, 2017, p. 19)

“Pragmatics is broadly defined as the study of language use in context from the perspective of speakers (users) and the effects language has on emotions and attitudes of interlocutors”. (Félix-Brasdefer & Shively, 2021, p. 1)

The first definition, by Celce-Murcia and Olshtain (2000), positions pragmatics next to the related fields of syntax and semantics, thereby contrasting it with the subdisciplines of linguistics that focus on the grammatical structures of sentences and on word meaning, respectively. It also emphasizes the central role of language users and their wishes and communicative aims in pragmatics. Another important point made in the first definition is the significance of contextual factors in pragmatics, something which is also addressed in the third definition.

The second definition, that of Levey (2017), links pragmatics with appropriate and effective language use. As will be demonstrated in more detail in Sect. 2.4, this connects pragmatics with intercultural competence. Like the first definition, this second one also addresses language users’ goals in communication and firmly places linguistic politeness within pragmatics.

The third definition, by Félix-Brasdefer and Shively (2021), emphasizes that pragmatics does not solely focus on the speaker/writer but gives equal consideration to the hearer/reader and how they perceive language. This definition also echoes aspects of the well-known definition of pragmatics by Crystal (1985) regarding the effects of language use,² but refines it by explicitly referring to the effects on “emotions and attitudes” (Félix-Brasdefer & Shively, 2021, p. 1).

Based on the definitions of pragmatics presented above, pragmatics is concerned with the intentions and aims of language users and their use of language in an individual context, which should ideally be appropriate and effective and thus have the desired impact on their interlocutor and achieve their intended aim(s).

Pragmatics itself has several subdisciplines that are of relevance for the present study, in particular cross-cultural pragmatics, interlanguage pragmatics—now frequently also referred to as second language pragmatics or L2 pragmatics—and variational pragmatics.

Cross-Cultural Pragmatics

According to House and Kádár (2021, p. 1), “cross-cultural pragmatics encompasses the comparative study of the use of language by human beings in different languages and cultures”, while Taguchi and Roever (2017, p. 3) note that “the main premise of cross-cultural pragmatics is that language use reflects the underlying values, beliefs and assumptions shared by members of the given speech community”.

A very well-known example of cross-cultural pragmatic research is the Cross-Cultural Speech Act Realization Project, also frequently referred to as CCSARP, which was published in 1989 as a book edited by Shoshana Blum-Kulka, Juliane House and Gabriele Kasper. This international study examined how requests and apologies were performed by speakers of a variety of languages, for example, English, French, German, Hebrew and Spanish. The project paved the way for further studies that would investigate differences and similarities across different languages and thus provide insights that may be helpful for MFL language learners and teachers (e.g., Bataineh & Bataineh, 2008; Chen et al., 2011; Culpeper et al., 2010; Schauer, 2017; Suszczyriska, 1999). While cross-cultural pragmatics contrasts the linguistic choices and the perceptions of native speakers of particular languages and cultures, interlanguage pragmatics focuses on learners of second or foreign languages.³

Interlanguage Pragmatics (ILP)

“Researchers working in interlanguage pragmatics are interested in a variety of issues that relate to L2 learners and their ability to (a) produce utterances that are appropriate and effective and therefore achieve their communicative aims, (b) understand L2 utterances that they encounter correctly. While some researchers tend to focus on how instruction (e.g., the use of particular teaching materials or instructional approaches) can help L2 learners produce appropriate language and enable them to correctly decode language directed at them, others are interested in how L2 learners’ pragmatic skills develop outside of formal instructional contexts”. (Schauer, 2019, p. 14)

As already mentioned above, in recent years, the terms second language pragmatics or L2 pragmatics have been used to describe the area of pragmatics that focuses on second or foreign language learners (e.g., Bardovi-Harlig, 2013; Culpeper et al., 2018; Roever, 2022). The term interlanguage was developed by Selinker in 1972 who used it

to refer to the language produced by learners, both as a system which can be described at any one point in time as resulting from systematic rules, and as the series of interlocking systems that characterize learner progression. In other words, the interlanguage concept relies on two fundamental notions: the language produced by the learner is a system in its own right, obeying its own rules, and it is a dynamic system, evolving over time. (Mitchell et al., 2013, p. 36)

While the terms L2 pragmatics and second language pragmatics very overtly connect this subdiscipline of pragmatics to second language acquisition,⁴ interlanguage pragmatics emphasizes the dynamic nature of the L2 system, as well as the notion that there is an underlying system, for example, that learners tend to go through various stages in their L2 pragmatic development, such as using less complex and more direct requests in the early stages of L2 learning and over time producing more complex and indirect requests in their L2. Both of the aforementioned aspects have been addressed in developmental studies in pragmatics (see, e.g., Achiba, 2003; Barron, 2003; Félix-Brasdefer, 2007; Glaser, 2014; Lee, 2010; Rose, 2000; Schauer, 2009, 2022; Savić et al., 2021; Warga, 2004). In this book, I will use L2 pragmatics, second language pragmatics and interlanguage pragmatics interchangeably.⁵

The third subdiscipline of pragmatics relevant to the present investigation is the relatively new subdiscipline of variational pragmatics.

Variational Pragmatics

“Variational pragmatics investigates pragmatic variation in (geographical and social) space […] [I]n examining pragmatic variation across geographical and social varieties of language, variational pragmatics aims at determining the impact of such factors as region, social class, gender, age and ethnicity on communicative language use. […] Region in variational pragmatics […] not only deals with sub-national varieties of a language, but also with languages as pluricentric entities (e.g. German German, Austrian German, Swiss German; English English, Irish English, …; Argentinian Spanish, Peruvian Spanish, …)”. (Schneider & Barron, 2008, p. 1)

In variational pragmatics, the concept of pluricentricity is of key importance. According to Clyne (1992, p. 1), “the term pluricentric was employed by Kloss (1978 II: 66–67) to describe languages with several interacting centres, each providing a national variety with at least some of its own codified norms”. Many of the languages focused on in this study are pluricentric (e.g., English, French, German, Spanish) and these also tend to be the MFLs that are the most frequently studied languages in secondary settings in the European Union and United States.⁶ Thus, being aware of the different norms in countries and regions in which the target language is used is also of great importance for many L2 learners. For example, learners of German ought to know that a greeting which sounds somewhat similar to the German word Morgen (“morning”) but is used throughout the day—Moin—is typically more prevalent in northern Germany and not generally used in southern Germany, Austria or Switzerland. In contrast, the greetings Grüß Gott (lit. “Greet God”) or Servus⁷ (from the Latin word for “servant/slave”) tend to be used more in southern Germany and Austria. While proficient speakers of German would identify all three expressions as greetings, they might be perceived as unusual outside of the regions that they are typically used in and therefore lead to surprised reactions from interlocutors. Thus, knowing what is considered to be an unmarked greeting (in this case, Guten Morgen/Tag “Good morning/day” or Hallo “Hello”) that can be used widely and in a number of different contexts, compared to one typically used in a particular variety of a language or only in informal conversations, is a topic that ought to be covered in MFL classes, as the first impression in an interaction can impact the remainder of it. Consequently, aspects of variational pragmatics are highly relevant in intercultural language education.

Like apologies and requests, mentioned in connection with the CCSARP above, greetings are also speech acts. As Bardovi-Harlig (2010, p.219) puts it, “[t]he dominant area of investigation within interlanguage pragmatics has been the speech act”. Martínez Flor and Usó Juan (2010, p. 6) agree, and note that “[w]hile it is true that speech act theory is not the whole of pragmatics, this theory has been established as perhaps the most relevant in this field”. Roever (2022, p. 10) defines speech acts as “the use of language to accomplish something in the world, or in Austin’s (1962) formulation, ‘how to do things with words.’ Speech acts include such linguistic actions as requesting, apologizing, refusing, suggesting, complaining, criticizing, thanking, complimenting, congratulating, greeting, and others”.

How things are done with words in a particular language and culture may vary. This and the effect of cross-cultural differences in the production and comprehension of speech acts is addressed by Ishihara and Cohen (2022, p.11):

While speech acts are sometimes performed through a single word, phrase, or a sentence (e.g., “Thanks”), in other contexts, they can involve an extended sequence of turns. […] Realizations of speech acts are often routinized, usually consisting of predictable patterns influenced by shared cultural knowledge. For example, a speaker of American English may say, “Let’s get together sometime” as a friendly ritual to signal the end of the conversation without necessarily intending to do so. If a listener comes from another culture where such a statement may be taken as a genuine invitation to schedule a get-together, the interactants may engage in a negotiation of meaning. Because as a result each party may develop (often negative) judgments or stereotypes of the other, it is important that intercultural communicators become aware of potentially different scripts and cultivate an open mind for negotiation.

Since cross-cultural differences in the production and comprehension of speech acts can affect relations between interlocutors negatively,⁸ pragmaticians have emphasized the necessity of teaching pragmatics in L2 classes for years. For example, Tatsuki and Houck (2010, p. 1) wrote that “language teachers have long been aware of the devastating effect of learners’ grammatically correct, yet situationally inappropriate spoken or written communication. The study of speech acts […] offers one resource for addressing some of these instances”. In her handbook chapter on pragmatics in instructed second language acquisition, Bardovi-Harlig (2017) addresses the opportunities the teaching of speech acts offers but also mentions other aspects of pragmatics, such as the use of appropriate address terms. This indicates that an L2 learners’ pragmatic competence ought not to be solely equated with speech act competence but should be broader, as suggested also in the definition of Ishihara and Cohen (2022).

Pragmatic Competence

“Pragmatic competence can be viewed as being able to jointly construct meaning through linguistic as well as non-linguistic means within the ongoing interactive context. In a successful meaning-making activity, we understand one another’s messages and express ourselves in a socially and contextually preferred manner in order to achieve a particular purpose. For example, expert communicators know just how politely, casually, directly, or indirectly they can best create nuances given the cultural context and its social constraints. Within a culture or community, there is socially acquired and jointly constructed knowledge of more or less acceptable behavior (pragmatic norms) that is negotiated in the local interaction as it unfolds. Rather than being absolutely ‘right’ or ‘wrong,’ pragmatic norms are about a range of tendencies or social practices in which certain behaviors are viewed as more or less preferred, suitable, or desirable within the given context. In addition, pragmatic norms vary across languages and cultures or even within a single language, language variety, or culture and can dynamically change over time and across contexts […]”. (Ishihara & Cohen, 2022, p. 2)

Ishihara and Cohen’s (2022) definition clearly links pragmatic competence and culture and thus highlights the importance of pragmatic competence for intercultural communication and for L2 learners’ intercultural competence. Importantly, it also addresses the link to variational pragmatics and emphasizes that as a result of changes in a culture, pragmatic norms may also change. A recent example for changes on a more global level was the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic on greetings in Germany. While pre-pandemic the handshake was typically used when greeting someone in more formal encounters, this was replaced by a variety of different options during the pandemic, such as nodding, fist or elbow bumps, or shoetip to shoetip touches. This illustrates that pragmatic norms are subject to change and that they are linked to cultural or societal events, which is why the next section focuses on culture.

2.2 Culture

Trosborg (2010, p. 1) argues that “[l]language is culture—culture is language. Culture and language are intertwined and shape each other”. Yet capturing what culture is and how it can be defined and how it relates to language is not an easy task. This is supported by the views of Spencer-Oatey and Franklin (2009, p. 13), who write that “culture is notoriously difficult to define”, and Abrams (2020, p. 9), who notes that defining culture is “a challenging endeavour”. To provide a multifaceted view on how culture could be conceptualized, four definitions highlighting different aspects of culture are presented in the box below.

Culture

“Whereas small c culture is commonly understood as referring to phenomena of everyday life, popular cultural products and human behavior, […] [b]ig C Culture is conceived as manifesting itself in ideas, values, history, institutions, literature, philosophy and artistic products”. (Sercu, 2000, p. 28)

“Probably the most popular explanation of the notion of culture is […] a comparison of culture to an iceberg only the tip of which is visible (language, food, appearance, etc.) whereas a large part of the iceberg is difficult to see or grasp (communication style, beliefs, values, attitudes, perceptions, etc.). The items in the invisible body of the iceberg include a long list of notions from definitions of beauty or respect to patterns of group decision making, ideals governing child-raising, as well as values relating to leadership, prestige, health, love or death (Lussier et al. 2007)”. (Jedynak, 2011, p. 65; my emphasis)

“[D]istinctions can be drawn between the material, social and subjective aspects of culture. Material culture consists of the physical artefacts which are commonly used by the members of a culturalgroup (e.g. the tools, goods, foods, clothing, etc.); social culture consists of the social institutions of the group (e.g., the language, religion, laws, rules of social conduct, folklore, cultural icons, etc.); and subjective culture consists of the beliefs, norms, collective memories, attitudes, values, discourses and practices which group members commonly use as a frame of reference for thinking about, making sense of and relating to the world. Culture itself is a composite formed from all three aspects—it consists of a network of material, social and subjective resources. The total set of cultural resources is distributed across the entire group, but each individual member of the group appropriates and uses only a subset of the total set of cultural resources potentially available to them”. (CoE, 2014, pp. 13–14)

“Culture is not simply a body of knowledge, but a framework in which people live their lives, communicate and interpret shared meanings, and select possible actions to achieve goals. Seen in this way, it becomes fundamentally necessary to engage with the variability inherent in any culture. This involves a movement away from the idea of a national culture to recognize that culture varies with time, place, and social category, and for age, gender, religion, ethnicity and sexuality (Norton, 2000). […] People can resist, subvert or challenge the cultural practices to which they are exposed to in their first and in additional cultures they acquire. […] Culture in this sense is dynamic, evolving and not easily summarized for teaching; it is the complexity of culture with which the learner must engage”. (Liddicoat & Scarino, 2013, pp. 32)

The definitions by Sercu (2000) and Jedynak (2011) are somewhat similar in that they contrast observable aspects of culture, such as behaviour and language, with other aspects that may be less obvious to newcomers to a particular culture and may necessitate deeper engagement with a culture’s history, beliefs, norms and artistic products in order to understand them. These aspects may require a deeper knowledge of the target culture and potentially also a higher proficiency in the language(s) spoken by members of the culture. Different greeting expressions used in everyday service encounter interactions may be easy to observe and learn, whereas linguistic and behavioural taboos, intertextual references to valued artistic products, and positive or negative stereotypes towards institutions may be more difficult for L2 learners to understand, therefore, requiring more cultural background knowledge and potentially also a higher proficiency in the L2.

The definitions of culture from the Council of Europe (2014) and Liddicoat and Scarino (2013) highlight the important point that culture is not monolithic and static but rather that much variation and diversity exists, that culture is subject to change and that individuals tend to choose aspects of culture that relate to their identity. These aspects of culture are also highly relevant for MFL educators, since they have an impact on what they teach and which materials they select (see also Chap. 5). I still vividly remember a seminar on spoken language that I attended during my MA studies at the University of Nottingham over 20 years ago in which Rebecca Hughes shared a discussion she had with a colleague about including youth language in a language course. They discussed whether including youth language was a good idea or not, since expressions used by teenagers of a particular generation may fall out of use quickly and may not be widely understood nor suitable for a variety of different contexts. This has stayed with me ever since, and I frequently reflect on it when encountering innovations in language use, such as gender-neutral language in German (see, e.g., Diewald & Steinhauer, 2017, 2020) or pragmatic features of a particular variety of English that I had not come across before, such as the “will I” routine for the speech act of offering in Irish English (see Barron, 2005). The question that arises for language learners and language teachers alike is: which aspects of culture do L2 learners need to know in order to successfully navigate interactions in their MFL?

While youth language—due to its often-transient nature—may either not feature in language classes at all or may receive only limited attention, aspects of language that are frequently encountered in particular varieties of the target language and which differ from the language use in other varieties may be rather important. For example, the “will I” offer routine in Irish English may be highly relevant for L2 learners of English planning to study or work in Ireland, but less so for others who are more likely to interact more with speakers of other English varieties. Decisions also need to be taken with regard to obsolete features of language, such as the use of pray as a synonym of please in English (see Busse, 2008; Lutzky & Demmen, 2013) or the term of address Fräulein in German, which was used for unmarried females and abolished in official government language in Germany in 1972, being replaced by the term Frau, now used for all adult females (Kotthoff & Nübling, 2018).

Learning about the different meanings of pray may be essential for students of English who are going to encounter Shakespeare and work with historic language but may be of little relevance for university students taking English classes as part of their international relations degree. While Fräulein has fallen out of use, it may be important for learners of German whose own first language (L1) still has different terms of address for females based on their marital status: for L2 learners of German with this background, it may be helpful to know that equivalent German address terms once existed but are no longer in use, as this can help prevent negative transfer⁹ from their L1 and so prevent the learner from causing offence.¹⁰ Societal and political changes resulting in changes in the way the language is used in a specific culture tie in closely with Liddicoat and Scarino’s (2013) definition of culture as dynamic and evolving. While something may have been acceptable or in accordance with the law a few years or decades ago, that may no longer be the case today.

Pragmaticians have argued for years that inappropriate, impolite and offensive language ought to be addressed in MFL classrooms (e.g., House, 2015; Morollón Martí, 2022; Mugford, 2008, 2019). Providing MFL learners with information on what may be considered rude or inappropriate in a language and culture can help L2 learners better understand their interlocutors’ moods and emotions. If MFL learners know what is considered to be inappropriate or impolite in a particular culture (see Schauer, 2017, on differences in the perception of inappropriateness and impoliteness), they can not only avoid using language that may cause offence but they are also better prepared for conflict and potentially dangerous situations if this language is directed towards them.

Swear words and taboo language are overt examples of impolite language. Ludwig and Summer (2023, p. 13) argue in their edited volume on taboos and controversial topics in L2 education that “taboos are a key element of every culture [and that] they can be explored to identify cultural similarities and differences”. While some swear words, such as the “F-word”, are also used in countries in which English is not the L1, such as in Germany and Sweden, and could therefore be considered intercultural, the use of other swear words tends to be more culturally and temporally specific (e.g., Ljung, 2011), thus necessitating knowledge of the respective culture’s norms. For example, Dewaele (2015) found that the use of swear words differs in American and British English. In a later study, Dewaele (2016) compared the perceived offensiveness of specific English expressions and found that English native speakers and English L2 learners’ perceptions differed with regard to their severity. This further indicates that L2 learners may benefit from instruction on the linguistic manifestations of culture, such as swear words and taboo expressions.

2.3 Communicative Competence

Another essential concept in MFL education that is relevant for this study is communicative competence. Thornbury (2016, p. 224) refers to a “seismic shift” in the field of L2 language teaching in the 1970s, when researchers and educators who were dissatisfied with the results of the predominantly language structure-based teaching approaches that had dominated MFL classrooms until then developed a new functional approach called communicative language teaching.¹¹ This new approach was closely tied to the concept of communicative competence, which “has informed the field of second language acquisition for approximately 50 years” (Kanwit & Solon, 2023, p. 1).

In one of the earliest definitions of communicative competence—deliberately included in both an English and a German language version in a book that is written in German but focuses on teaching English as a foreign language—Piepho (1974, p. 132) writes that “[c]ommunicative competence comprises the capacities of a speaker/learner to realize communicative performance and communicative discourse, i.e. the ability to identify the meanings and purposes of messages as well as the ability to convey meaning and make oneself understood”. What is interesting about Piepho’s book is that it frequently refers to pragmatics, at a time when interlanguage pragmatics was still very much in its infancy. This demonstrates, however, that some researchers in the field of language education saw the potential of pragmatics as component of communicative competence very early on. Although the first books and articles addressing communicative competence were published in the 1970s (e.g., Savignon, 1976), and some of these also explicitly addressed inappropriate language choices and the effects of perceived impolite behaviour (see, e.g., Paulston, 1974, on cross-cultural differences between Swedish and American English), pragmatics was not explicitly referred to in all the communicative competence frameworks that were subsequently developed by researchers in English language teaching (ELT) and second language acquisition (SLA), particularly in some of the ones that received a great deal of attention (e.g., Canale & Swain, 1980). Notably, however, models of communicative competence developed by linguists in the field of language testing tended to refer to pragmatics from the early 1980s (e.g., Bachman, 1990; Bachman & Palmer, 1982, 2010).

To lay the foundation for intercultural competence models, which can include components of communicative competence models, it is necessary to take a more detailed look at the components of communicative competence models. The major components of Canale and Swain’s (1980, pp. 29–31) model were grammatical competence (including morphology, syntax, semantics and phonology), sociolinguistic competence (including sociocultural and discourse rules)¹² and strategic competence (“verbal and nonverbal communication strategies that may be called into action to compensate for breakdowns in communication”). In 1983, Canale presented a revised version of the earlier framework he developed with Swain, in which grammatical competence remains the same and strategic competence is proposed to also cover strategies to enhance the effectiveness of communication (e.g., changing the volume of one’s voice). The discourse aspect of sociolinguistic competence is extracted from sociolinguistic competence and raised to an independent element on par with the others, resulting in four communicative competence components in Canale (1983) instead of three in Canale and Swain (1980). Sociolinguistic competence now only refers to “the extent to which utterances are produced and understood appropriately in different sociolinguistic contexts depending on contextual factors such as status of the participants, purposes of the interaction and norms of convention of interaction. Appropriateness […] refers to both appropriateness of meaning and appropriateness of form” (Canale, 1983, p. 7). The link to pragmatics is also established in the further discussion of the revised sociolinguistic competence component in which pragmatic rules are mentioned.

Like the frameworks by Canale and Swain (1980) and Canale (1983), Bachman and Palmer’s original communicative competence model (1982) also includes a grammatical competence component (including morphology and syntax), as well as pragmatic (covering vocabulary, cohesion and organization) and sociolinguistic components (including register, nativeness and non-literal language). This model was then subjected to a construct validation study resulting in a rearrangement of some components and subsequent revised frameworks,¹³ such as Bachman’s (1990) model that includes the major components of organizational competence (comprising grammatical competence and textual competence) and pragmatic competence (comprising illocutionary competence and sociolinguistic competence) and Bachman and Palmer’s (2010) model that features the major components of language competence (consisting of organizational and pragmatic knowledge) and strategic competence.

This overview of different communicative competence models thus shows that there is no universal agreement on all of the components of communicative competence nor on the terminology that is used to refer to specific linguistic phenomena, such as appropriateness and politeness. Consequently, developers of intercultural communicative competence frameworks that include aspects of communicative competence need to define what they consider these components to be, since no assumptions can be made based on the varying definitions of communicative competence in the literature.

2.4 Intercultural (Communicative) Competence

As Jackson (2019, p. 479) notes, “intercultural competence is a difficult construct to pin down and over the years scholars have put forward numerous definitions”. One of the difficulties with pinning it down is that intercultural competence is a technical term that has been used in a variety of different academic disciplines, such as business studies, health care research, social work studies and tourism studies (cf. Deardorff, 2009; Schauer, 2016), which all have their very specific subject-based perspectives on what the concept ought to entail or not, resulting in rather different models and components featured in these models. For example, Spitzberg and Changnon (2009) found more than 300 components that are related to intercultural competence in their overview study. While some models of intercultural competence are also rather vague¹⁴ with regard to linguistic aspects of intercultural competence (see also Arasaratnam- Smith 2017), others focus more on these (e.g., Byram, 1997, 2009; Fantini, 2019) and are therefore also more relevant to the present investigation.

Another difficulty has to do with the precise term used, since some scholars refer to “intercultural competence” in early publications and then subsequently refer to “intercultural communicative competence” (ICC),¹⁵ seemingly using the two terms as synonyms (see Schauer, 2022), while other researchers have distinct definitions for the two terms that delineate the differences (e.g., Byram, 2009, 2021).

A third difficulty is that, apart from the two aforementioned terms, other terms may be used to refer to the same concept or similar ones. For example, Spencer-Oatey (2010) and Jackson (2019) list the following possibilities: cross-cultural adjustment, cross-cultural awareness, cross-cultural or intercultural effectiveness, intercultural communication competence, global mindset, and transcultural (communication) competence. Braun et al. (2020) argue that diversity competence is also used as a synonym. As Spencer-Oatey (2010, p. 189) noted early on when reviewing the different terms that had been suggested, “there does not seem to be any consistent distinction between these various terms”.

The complexity and variability of the term means that intercultural (communicative) competence may mean many different things to many different people (e.g., researchers, educators and curriculum developers). The present study hopes to shed some light on what teachers of MFLs in higher education consider intercultural competence to be and how it relates to pragmatics.¹⁶

One of the scholars associated with intercultural (communicative) competence who was mentioned above and who is frequently referred to in publications focusing on L2 language learning and teaching is Michael Byram. Jackson (2019, p. 482) writes that “Byram’s (1997) model of intercultural communicative competence has had a major impact on intercultural pedagogy and second/foreign language teaching, especially in Europe”. In contrast to some researchers who have developed models of IC or ICC, Byram has always been very clear about how he differentiates the two terms.

Intercultural Competence (Byram’s, 1997 Definition)

“Individuals have the ability to interact in their own language with people from another country and culture, drawing upon their knowledge about intercultural communication, their attitudes of interest in otherness, and their skills in interpreting, relating and discovering, i.e., of overcoming and enjoying intercultural contact”. (Byram, 1997, p. 70; my emphasis)

Intercultural Communicative Competence (Byram’s, 1997 Definition)

“[Intercultural communicative competence is the ability] to interact with people from another country and culture in a foreign language. [Individuals who have this competence] are able to negotiate a mode of communication and interaction which is satisfactory to themselves and the other and they are able to act as mediator between people of different cultural origins. Their knowledge of another culture is linked to their language competence through their ability to use language appropriately—sociolinguistic and discourse competence—and their awareness of the specific meanings, values and connotations of the language”. (Byram, 1997, p. 71; my emphasis)

Thus, according to Byram (1997), the key difference between IC and ICC is whether an individual’s first or foreign language is used. While intercultural competence refers to skills that are needed in intercultural interactions in which an individual communicates in their first or native language, intercultural communicative competence comprises competencies that are necessary when the individual uses a foreign language in intercultural interactions. Figure 2.1 presents his model of IC and ICC. However, it needs to be noted that Byram’s schematic presentation of his model has changed over the years. The schematic illustration of the model included here represents the most recent version from 2021 and differs in some respects from earlier versions, such as those found in Byram (1997, 2009).

Fig. 2.1

Byram’s (2021) model of intercultural competence and intercultural communicative competence

In the original 1997 version,¹⁷ the three linguistic components (linguistic, sociolinguistic and discourse competence) and intercultural competence are of the same size and connected via bidirectional arrows. However, while intercultural competence is linked to all three linguistic competences, the individual linguistic competences are not all linked in the 1997 model. In that model, sociolinguistic competence is at the centre—as it also is in the 2021 version—and linked to linguistic and discourse competence with bidirectional arrows; but linguistic and discourse competence are not linked. Neither the 2009 nor the 2021 versions include any arrows linking the linguistic components of intercultural communicative competence and intercultural competence, and the boxes for intercultural competence and the individual linguistic competences are no longer of the same size. Byram’s model is also famous for his use of technical terms in French, that is, the different savoirs. The original 1997 version only features the French terms, the 2009 version only includes the English ones, and the 2021 version features the technical terms in both languages. In addition, the 1997 version also features locations of learning (classroom, fieldwork, independent) at the bottom of the model. The locations of learning are still included in the 2009 model but are not included in Fig. 2.1 in the 2021 monograph.

While these changes could be considered minute and not very important in some respects, I would argue that they demonstrate Byram’s consistent engagement with the concepts of IC and ICC ever since his 1997 monograph was published. This is not only evidenced by the fact that the second edition of his book is considerably longer than the first (196 compared to 124 pages) but also by comments on different components of the model. Although the definitions for the three linguistic competences remain largely the same—apart from some very minor stylistic changes—his 2021 book features a very long footnote addressing pronunciation; as Byram notes, he did not discuss this in his 1997 book at all.

Byram’s definitions of the three linguistic competences are based on van Ek (1986) and are presented here from the most recent version (Byram, 2021, p. 84).

Linguistic competence	The ability to apply knowledge of the rules of a standard version of the language to produce and interpret spoken and written language [this is accompanied by the aforementioned long footnote on pronunciation].
Sociolinguistic competence	The ability to give to the language produced by an interlocutor—whether native speaker or not—meanings which are taken for granted by the interlocutor or which are negotiated and made explicit with the interlocutor.
Discourse competence	The ability to use, discover and negotiate strategies for the production and interpretation of monologic18 or dialogic texts which follow the conventions of the cultureculture of an interlocutor or are negotiated as intercultural texts for particular purposes.

What is noteworthy here is the absence of pragmatic competence. However, this is not surprising; as Spencer-Oatey (2010, p. 189) noted, “in nearly all […] [intercultural competence] frameworks, communication is highlighted as being of crucial importance, yet there is very rarely any mention in these other disciplines of pragmatics research into intercultural interaction, despite the large amount that has been carried out”. While the term pragmatics is rarely used unambiguously in Byram’s (2021) monograph,¹⁹ aspects that are relevant from a pragmatic competence perspective are already present in several components of Byram’s 1997 model, such as “knowledge of the processes of social interaction in one’s interlocutor’s country” and “readiness to engage with conventions and rites of verbal and non-verbal communication and interaction” (Byram, 1997, pp. 50–51). It is regrettable that his 2021 monograph does not address pragmatics in more detail, but perhaps future articles or editions of the book will do so.

Another important scholar who has written on intercultural (communicative) competence and is often referred to by linguists working in this area (e.g., Jackson, 2019; Schauer 2016, 2021; Spencer-Oatey 2010) is Alvino Fantini, who explicitly addressed the link between foreign language learning and intercultural competence in his early publications:

How effective and appropriate can an individual be in an intercultural context with—and without—ability in the target language? (cf. Kealey, 1990). Notions of “effectiveness” and “appropriateness” help to suggest two views of the issue. Whereas effectiveness is often a judgment from one’s own perspective, appropriateness is clearly based on judgments from the host perspective. Although communication across cultures may occur in one’s own language (especially where English or another dominant language is involved), there is a qualitative difference between communicating in one’s own language and/or in the language of one’s hosts. Whichever the case, second language (L2) proficiency is critical to functioning effectively and appropriately in cross-cultural situations, plus the added benefit that exposure to a second linguaculture (LC2) affords an opportunity to develop a different or at least, an expanded, vision of the world. Needless to say, developing an LC3 or LC4 is even better in that it demands reconfiguring the polarization that commonly occurs in the experience of the bilingual-bicultural individual. (Fantini, 1995, p. 150)

Thus, like Byram (1997, 2021), Fantini also considers intercultural communication occurring in an individual’s first language but highlights the importance of proficiency in additional languages. Central to Fantini’s early considerations of IC are the world views of interlocutors, which he also presented in a figure that indicates distinct and overlapping areas of world views, presented here as Fig. 2.2. This figure is interesting because it indicates how Fantini sees the interrelationships between the various linguistic components and world views of interlocutors. In addition, the figure features pragmatics and thus illustrates the relevance of pragmatics for individuals’ world views and the broader field of IC.

Fig. 2.2

Fantini’s (1995) conceptualization of the link between world view and language

Fantini’s 1995 article alludes to a possible definition of IC but does not actually spell it out. This is done in one of his later publications (Fantini, 2009) that also takes up the key notions of appropriateness and effectiveness that he discussed in his 1995 article.

Intercultural Competence (Fantini’s, 2009 Definition)

“Each individual possesses a native communicative competence (CC₁) and, during intercultural contact, encounters that of one’s interlocutor (CC₂). Those who choose to acquire a second communicative competence, CC₂, develop intercultural competence. Intercultural competence, then, acknowledges the presence of CC₁ and the development of CC₂ and, in addition, the insights that derive from now being in a position to compare and contrast both. This unique vantage point is an important aspect of intercultural competence and something that a monolingual, monocultural native of either system cannot possibly access.

Stated another way, intercultural competence may be defined as complex abilities that are required to perform effectively and appropriately when interacting with others who are linguistically and culturally different from oneself. Whereas effective reflects the view of one’s own performance in the target language culture (LC₂; i.e., an outsiders or ‘etic’ view), appropriate reflects how natives perceive such performance (i.e., an insider’s or ‘emic’ view)”. (Fantini, 2009, p. 458)

Since the terms effective and appropriate are frequently used to describe pragmatic competence (e.g., Félix-Brasdefer, 2019; Levey, 2017; Ninio & Snow, 1996; Taguchi, 2017), the link between intercultural competence and pragmatics seems obvious when Fantini’s definition for IC is used. Unfortunately, however, like Byram (1997, 2021), Fantini (1995) does not discuss the connection between IC and pragmatics more explicitly. This absence of explicit links in the publications of two authors who are frequently referred to in the field of intercultural (communicative) competence and language education is one of the reasons why this book was written.

In a 2019 publication, Fantini includes a schematic illustration of what intercultural communicative competence is, based on an analysis of “over 200 publications, in several languages, spanning half a century” (Fantini, 2019, p. 38). In this model, intercultural communicative competence is positioned at the top with arrows leading to five main features located at positions below ICC. From left to right these main features are: (1) characteristics/attributes, (2) target language proficiency, (3) a longitudinal, developmental process, (4) dimensions and (5) abilities. Three of the main features (characteristics/attributes, dimensions, and abilities), contain sub-features. For (1) characteristics/attributes these are: “open-minded, patience, motivation, interested, empathy, self-reliance, sense of humour, clear sense of self, flexibility/adaptability, relativity, tolerance for differences, perceptiveness, suspend judgement, tolerance for ambiguity [as well as several unnamed] others” (p. 38). The sub-features of dimensions are “knowledge, attitudes/affect, skills and awareness”, while abilities include the subfeatures “establish relationships, communicate well and collaborate” (p. 38).

Some features of Fantini’s model are similar to Byram’s, 1997 model; for example, “open-minded” is parallel to Byram’s “openness”. In addition, both models include a “knowledge” feature. However, whereas Byram lists components of communicative competence, Fantini (2019) refers to target language proficiency—thereby echoing the point he made in his 1995 publication regarding its relevance—and highlights the process, thus supporting the well-known process model of Deardorff (2006).²⁰

While it is important to know the views of scholars researching IC and ICC, since their work often lays the foundation of curricula, influences policy decisions and impacts teacher training programmes, I also believe that is important to find out what frontline teaching staff think about IC and ICC. This was another reason why this book was written. The following chapter begins with this task by providing detailed information on the present study and its participants.