1.3 Rule systems in verbal code
Five different but interrelated sets of rules combine to create a verbal code, or language. These parts, or components, of language are called phonology, morphology, semantics, syntactics, and pragmatics.
Phonology
When you listen to someone who speaks a language other than your own,
you will often hear different (some might even say "strange") sounds. The basic sound units of a language are called phonemes, and the rules for combining phonemes constitute the phonology of a language. The phonological rules of a language tell speakers which sounds to use and how to order them.
Languages have different numbers of phonemes. English, for example, depends on about forty-five phonemes. The number of phonemes in other languages ranges from as few as fifteen to as many as eighty-five.
Mastery of another language requires practice in reproducing its sounds accurately. Sometimes it is difficult to hear the distinctions in the sounds made by those proficient in the language. Native U.S. English speakers often have difficulty in hearing phonemic distinctions in tonal languages, such as Chinese, that use different pitches for many sounds, which then represent different meanings. Even when the differences can be heard, the mouths and tongues of those learning another language are sometimes unable to produce these sounds.
In intercultural communication, imperfect rendering of the phonology of a language in other words, not speaking the sounds as native speakers do can make it difficult to be understood accurately.
Morphology
Phonemes combine to form morphemes, which are the smallest units of
meaning in a language. The 45 English phonemes can be used to generate more than
50 million morphemes! For instance, the word comfort, whose meaning refers to a state of ease and contentment, contains one morpheme. But the word comforted contains two morphemes: comfort and -ed.The latter is a suffix that means that the comforting action or activity happened in the past. Indeed, although all words contain at least one morpheme, some words (such as uncomfortable, which has three morphemes) can contain two or more. Note that morphemes refer only to meaning units. Though the word comfort contains smaller words such as or and fort, these other words are coincidental to the basic meaning of comfort.
Morphemes, or meaning units in language, can also differ depending
on the way they are pronounced. In Chinese, for instance, the word pronounced as “ma” can have four different meanings-mother, toad, horse, or scold depending on the tone with which it is uttered. Pronunciation errors can have very unintended meanings.
Semantics
As noted earlier, morphemes either singly or in combination are used to
form words. The study of the meaning of words is called semantics. The most convenient and thorough source of information about the semantics of a language is the dictionary, which defines what a word means in a particular language. A more formal way of describing the study of semantics is to say that it is the study of the relationship between words and what they stand for or represent.
Competent communication in any language requires knowledge of the words needed to express ideas. You have probably experienced the frustration
of trying to describe an event but not being able to think of words that accurately convey the intended meaning.
Communicating interculturally necessitates learning a new set of semantic rules.
When learning a second language, much time is devoted to learning the appropriate associations between the words and the specific objects, events, or feelings th at the language system assigns to them. Even those whose intercultural communication occurs with people who speak the "same" language must learn at least some new vocabulary.
The discussion of semantics is incomplete without noting one other important distinction: the difference between the denotative and connotative meanings of words.
Denotative meanings are the public, objective, and legal meanings of a word. Denotative meanings are those found in the dictionary or law books. In contrast, connotation meanings are personal, emotionally charged, private, and specific to a particular person.
Whereas denotative meanings tell, in an abstract sense, what the words mean
objectively, our interest in intercultural communication suggests that an understanding of the connotative meanings the feelings and thoughts evoked in others as a result of the words used in the conversation is critical to achieving intercultural competence.
Syntactics
The fourth component of language is syntactics, the relationship of words to
one another. When children are first learning how to combine words into phrases, they are being introduced to the syntactics of their language. Each language stipulates the correct way 10 arrange words and has a set of rules that govern the sequence of the words. To learn another language, you must learn those rules.
Pragmatics
The final component of all verbal codes is pragmatics, the effect of
language on human perceptions and behaviors. The study of pragmatics focuses on how language is actually used. A pragmatic analysis of language goes beyond phonology, morphology, semantics, and syntactics. Instead, it considers how users of a particular language are able to understand the meanings of specific unerances in particular contexts.
By learning the pragmatics of language use, you understand how to participate in a conversation and you know how to sequence the sentences you speak as part of the conversation.
Empathy
Empathy is the ability of individuals to communicate an awareness of
another person's thoughts, feelings, and experiences, and such individuals are regarded as more competent in intercultural interactions. Alternatively, those who lack empathy, and who therefore indicate little or no awareness of even the most obvious feelings and thoughts of others, will not he perceived as competent. Empathetic behaviors include verbal statements that identify the experiences of others and nonverbal codes that are complementary to the moods and thoughts of others. It is necessary to make an important distinction here.
Empathy does not mean "putting yourself in the shoes of another." It is both physically and psychologically impossible to do so. However, it is possible for people to be sufficiently interested and aware of others that they appear to be putting themselves in others' shoes.
The skill we are describing here is the capacity to behave as if one understands the world as others do. Of course, empathy is not just responding to the tears and
smiles of others, which may, in fact, mean something very different than your
cultural interpretations would suggest. Although empathy does involve responding to
the emotional context of another person's experiences, tears and smiles are often
poor indicators of emotional states.
Interaction management
Some individuals are skilled at starting and ending interactions among participants and at taking turns and maintaining a discussion. These interaction management skills are important because, through them, all participants in an interaction are able to speak and contribute appropriately. In contrast, dominating a conversation or being nonresponsive to the interaction is detrimental to competence. Continuing to engage people in conversation long after they have begun to display signs of disinterest and boredom or ending conversations abruptly may also pose problems. Interaction management skills require knowing how to indicate turn taking both verbally and nonverbally.
Task role behavior
Because intercultural communication often takes place where individuals are focused on work-related purposes, appropriate task-related role behaviors are
very important. Task role behaviors are those that contribute to the group's problem-solving activities for example, initiating new ideas, requesting further information or facts, seeking clarification of group tasks, evaluating the suggestions of others, and keeping a group on task.
The difficulty in this important category is the display of culturally appropriate behaviors. The key is to recognize the strong link to a culture's underlying patterns and to be willing to acknowledge that tasks are accomplished by cultures in multiple ways. Task behaviors are so intimately entwined with cultural expectations about activity and work that it is often difficult to respond appropriately to task expectations that differ from one's own. What one culture defines as a social activity, another may define as a task.
Relational role behavior
Relational role behavior concern efforts to build or maintain personal relationships with group members. These behaviors may include verbal and nonverbal messages that demonstrate support for others and that help to solidify feelings of participation. Examples of competent relational role behaviors include
harmonizing and mediating conflicts between group members, encouraging participation from others, general displays of interest, and a willingness to compromise one's position for the sake of others.
Tolerance for Ambiguity Tolerance for ambiguity concerns a person's responses to
new, uncertain, and unpredictable intercultural encounters. Some people react to new
situations with greater comfort than do others. Some are eJ..1:remely nervous, highly
frustrated, or even hostile toward the new situations and those who may be present in
them. Those who do not tolerate ambiguity well may respond to new and unpredictable situations with hostility, anger, shouting, sarcasm, withdrawal, or abruptness.
Others view new situations as a challenge; they seem to do well whenever the unexpected or unpredictable occurs, and they quickly adapt to the demands of changing environments. Competent intercultural communicators are able to cope with the nervousness and frustrations that accompany new or unclear situations, and they are able to adapt quickly to changing demands.
Interaction Posture
Interaction posture refers to the ability to respond to others in a way that is descriptive, nonevaluative, and nonjudgmental. Although the specific verbal and nonverbal messages that express judgments and evaluations can vary from culture to
culture, the importance of selecting messages that do not convey evaluative judgments is paramount. Statements based on dear judgments of rights and wrongs indicate a closed or predetermined framework of attitudes, beliefs, and values, and they are used by the evaluative, and less competent, intercultural communicator. Nonevaluative and nonjudgmental actions are characterized by verbal and nonverbal messages based on descriptions rather than on interpretations or evaluations.
3 COMPONENTS AND METHODS OF FORMATION OF INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION COMPETENCE
1.1The components of intercultural communication competence
As a complex phenomenon, intercultural communication competence encompasses multiple components. These include:
a variety of traits and characteristics
three areas or domains
four dimensions
proficiency in the host language
varying levels of attainment throughout a longitudinal and developmental process.
Traits and Characteristics – It is useful to distinguish traits (i.e., innate personal qualities) from acquired characteristics developed later in life that are related to one’s cultural and situational context – a sort of “nature vs. nurture” distinction. This distinction is particularly important in training and educational programs because it poses the question: which abilities form part of an individual’s intrinsic personality and which can be developed or modified through training and educational efforts? Commonly cited traits and/or characteristics of ICC include: flexibility, humor, patience, openness, interest, curiosity, empathy, tolerance for ambiguity, and suspending judgment, among others.
Three Areas or Domains – ICC involves ability in three areas or domains (which, curiously, are just as important in one’s own native LC1 as well). These are:
• the ability to establish and maintain relationships
• the ability to communicate with minimal loss or distortion
• the ability to collaborate in order to accomplish something of mutual interest or need.
Four Dimensions – ICC also has four dimensions:
• knowledge
• (positive) attitudes/affect
• skills, and
• awareness.
Of these, awareness is central and especially critical to cross-cultural development. It is enhanced through reflection and introspection in which both the individual’s LC1 and the LC2 are contrasted and compared. Awareness differs from knowledge in that it is always about the “self” vis-a-vis all else in the world (other things, other people, other thoughts, etc.) and ultimately helps to clarify what is deepest and most relevant to one’s identity. Awareness is furthered through developments in knowledge, positive attitudes, and skills, and in turn also furthers their development.
Proficiency in the Host Language – The ability to communicate in the host language greatly enhances intercultural communication competence development in both quantitative and qualitative ways. Grappling with another language confronts how one perceives, conceptualizes, and expresses oneself; and, in the process, fosters the development of alternative communication strategies on someone else's terms.
This humbling and challenging process often facilitates transcending and transforming how one understands the world. Lack of a second language – even at a minimal level – constrains one to continue to think about the world and act within it, only in one's native system, and deprives the individual of one of the most valuable aspects of the intercultural experience.
Developmental Levels – intercultural communication competence normally evolves over a lengthy and continuing process, occasionally with moments of stagnation and even regression. Much of what happens depends on the strength of one’s individual motivation (instrumental vs. integrative) vis-a-vis the host culture. For this reason, establishing benchmarks can help to monitor and measure one’s progress. Several levels (related to FEIL programs) are posited that help mark one's journey along the way. These are:
• Level I: Educational Traveler – e.g., participants in short-term exchange programs (1-2 months)
• Level II: Sojourner – participants engaged in extended cultural immersion, e.g., internships of
longer duration, including service programs (3-9 months)
• Level III: Professional – appropriate for individuals working in intercultural or multicultural contexts; e.g., staff employed in international institutions or organizations like FEIL and its MOs
• Level IV: Intercultural/Multicultural Specialist – appropriate for trainers and educators engaged in training, educating, consulting, or advising multinational students.
Other levels may be added or substituted as useful, as well as other terms such as: basic, intermediate, advanced, native-like.
1.2 Basic tools for improving intercultural competence
Intercultural competence means using your knowledge, motivation, and skills to deal appropriately and effectively with cultural differences. There are two tools to assist in becoming more interculturally competent. These tools can help to improve interpersonal interactions and will facilitate the development of intercultural relationships.
Also there are some categories of communication behavior, each of which contributes to the achievement of intercultural competence. As each of the categories is described, mentally assess your own ability to communicate.
Display of respect
Although the need to display respect for others is a culture-general concept, within every culture there are specific ways to show respect and specific expectations about those to whom respect should be shown. What constitutes respect in one culture, then, will not necessarily be so regarded in another culture. Respect is shown through both verbal and nonverbal symbols. Language that can be interpreted as expressing concern, interest, and an understanding of others will often convey respect, as will formality in language, including the use of titles, the absence of
jargon, and an increased attention to politeness rituals.
Nonverbal displays of respect include showing attentiveness through the position of the body, facial expressions, and the use of eye contact in prescribed ways. A tone of voice that conveys interest in the other person is another vehicle by which respect is shown. The action of displaying respect increases the likelihood of a judgment of competence.
Orientation to Knowledge
Orientation to knowledge refers to the terms people use to explain themselves and the world around them. A competent orientation to knowledge occurs when people's actions demonstrate that all experiences and interpretations are individual and personal rather than universally shared by others.
Many actions exhibit people's orientation to knowledge, including the specific words that are used. At least some of the time, all people have an orientation to knowledge that is not conducive to intercultural competence.
In learning a culture, people develop beliefs about the "rightness" of a particular way of seeing events, behaviors, and people. It is actually very natural to think, and then to behave, as if your personal knowledge and experiences are universal. Intercultural competence, however, requires an ability to move beyond the perspective of your cultural framework.
1.3 Methods of intercultural communication competence formation through the process of learning foreign language
Nowadays the main goal of learning foreign language in universities and schools is intercultural competence formation, which is very important for successful communication between people of different cultures and languages. The achieving of this aim is more possible with special methodic which includes effective tricks, means, techniques and forms of organization of the process of study which integrates the foreign language with other disciplines, for instance literature, history, geography etc.
For successful understanding of intercultural communication competence we should follow these rules:
activity of students on the lectures should be directed to sociocultural research of the country of studying language through the creation of problem situations of foreign culture and social expierence
research activities of the students through interdisciplinary communication
stimulation and development of cognitive interests of students
making of positive atmosphere which stimulates the interest to the culture of learning language
activization of activities which stimulate students’ self-esteem, self-education, self-development, self-expression
Realization of better understanding of intercultural communication competence is possible with use of the following elements and methods:
research lessons
discussions
work with authentical texts
creation of reports
project tasks
Research lesson the most productive form of cognitive activity. A teacher of foreign language should determine an appropriate theme in intercultural aspect and also determine problems, which student can solve. On the integrated research lessons for the purpose of formation of intercultural competence students should make the following tasks:
making of reportage in verbal form
writing of essays
literature translation
The main requirement of these tasks is using of intercultural and sociocultural materials.
Discussions are based on dialogues and micromonologues, it can help to improve the communication skills in intercultural competence. For the preparation to intercultural communication are required the following tasks:
formation of dialogical thinking in framework of intercultural communication competence
settings to creative attitude to values of country’s culture of learning language, its interpretation and understanding
Work with authentical texts .The issue of authenticity in foreign language teaching materials is one with a substantial history and development. Proponents of using authentic materials, believe that the stamp of using authentic texts in foreign language education ensures a direct relationship to educational objectives.
Academic communities inclusive of teachers and language learners have become more enthusiastic and eager to have more access to authentic materials since, communicatively speaking, they believe that they can get appropriate language input and can more easily solve the communicative issues. Accordingly, more and more material developers have tried to integrate materials in the way they can help the foreign language learners satisfy their enthusiasm. The studies conducted all indicate the positive feedback of the interculturally loaded materials.
Authentic materials not only motivate the learners, but also provoke teachers to better handle the foreign language culture they are teaching. The development of the intercultural communicative competence approach to teaching a foreign language brings up rise to a new perspective in using authentic materials in textbooks.
Although adaptation and amendment of authentic texts lessens authenticity of a text as discourse, contrivance is unavoidable for some religions, political or even pedagogical reasons. The hierarchal difficulty of the texts selected is one of the reasons, which induce the writers to amend the text.
To adapt the text to the learners’ level, the writer may commit unforgivable mistakes, which spoil the cultural and even linguistic connotations. The writer should keep the text intact unless he feels it exteremely urgent and necessary, and it should be done through a team inclusive of target language speakers whose views are taken into consideration.
It goes without saying that textbooks play a significant role in foreign language education. They can be of practical use to not only current students, but also to the prospective language learners. Textbooks should help language learners to eventually deal with communicative tasks in real contexts. The following measures could be taken to achieve high degree of intercultural authenticity.
Textbook writers should not be strictly politically or religiously biased in selecting texts. Not all texts are against or different from their biases and values. If one needs the language, he surely needs the culture too, since language and culture are not separate, and if they are separated, one in turn will never be perfect in its own identity. In selecting texts, they are not to devalue the original text in order to adapt it to the values of one’s own people and culture. That is the way people live their life. Being different does not necessarily mean being against others’ values and culture. Different peoples’ values everywhere are respectable.
Linguistically, sociologically, anthropologically, scientifically, culturally, geographically etc. the textbook writers should be competent enough. The texts written should be properly and adequately loaded with the sufficient information of all just stipulated.
Texts should be according to the interest and favors the learners have. Frequency of materials based on learners’ favors and interests heightens their knowledge faster and positively provokes them to take more practical measures even outside the classroom and textbooks. Texts should encourage them to trace the stream of thought through media available in their country.
Texts selected as authentic for the textbooks should be the result of writers’ eagerness to study new approaches and methods of language teaching and learning. Textbook writers should be empirically aware and active in researching. They can even propose techniques to present the material in the classroom.
Constant changes in cultures and languages command newness and recentness. Textbook writers’ views and actions should be kept as up-to-date as possible to meet modern and novel needs and expectations of the society.
Creation of reports can stimulate student’s interest to verbal estimation of facts and events. It can also help to make better knowledge about sociocultural portrait of learning language, countries, nations and its cultural and historical development, which can help to improve intercultural competence.
Then, students have the ability to:
produce verbal messages similar to usual communications of foreign language
formulate and develop the main idea of message
adequately express emotional evaluation of material
prognose the reaction of recipient
Project tasks can help to form intercultural competence, because give the ability to connect culture basic elements of country and its language with process of socialization.
Types of project are following:
research
practice-oriented
informational
creative
Research project consist of selection of themes, its actual meaning, goal of research, hypothesis and its verification, analysis of results.
Practice-oriented project aimed to formation of intercultural competence of students through making of decision of social tasks reflecting its interests.
Informational project directed to collection of information with aim of analysis, generalization and presentation of intercultural information for wide audience.
Creative project supposed to independent method of approaching for formation of intercultural communication competence.
CONCLUSION
With the increasing tendency of globalization, it is getting more important to provide students a university education with intercultural aspects and international experiences.
In order to achieve this objective, education provided by the universities should be able to give students a background on intercultural communication and how to compete the challenges that will be faced in intercultural environment.
Furthermore, “respect for different cultures” is improving as the students passed to upper classes and experience an international interaction with different cultures.
In addition the results regarding the self-perception of “perceptive” is negatively correlated with the international experience which is contrary to our expectations as we believe that international experience will increase the level of being “perceptive”.
In this research we defined the meaning of intercultural communication competence and answered to some questions:
What is the intercultural communication competence?
What is the basement of it?
How is it improve and develop?
Also we determine the role of verbal element and how it works in intercultural communication competence, basic methods of its improving and achievement and main elements of it.
By way of conclusion, I have to reiterate that foreign language education has culturally and interculturally grown and come to this conclusion that foreign language learners should be interculturally equipped to enjoy a successful communication in this globalized community.
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