8/2/2019 Interculturality Abstract
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Interculturality and Intercultural Communication
Istvan Kecskes, Professor of Linguistics
State University of New York, Albany, USA
Definition
The socio-cognitive approach (Kecskes 2008; Kecskes & Zhang 2009; Kecskes 2010)
defines interculturality as a phenomenon that is not only interactionally and socially
constructed in the course of communication but also relies on relatively definable cultural
models and norms that represent the speech communities to which the interlocutors
belong. Consequently, interculturality has both relatively normative and emergent
components. Interculturality is a situationally emergent and co-constructed phenomenon
that relies both on relatively definable cultural norms and models as well as situationally
evolving features. Intercultures are ad hoc creations. They are created in a communicative
process in which cultural norms and models brought into the interaction from prior
experience of interlocutors blend with features created ad hoc in the interaction in a
synergetic way. The result is intercultural discourse in which there is mutual
transformation of knowledge and communicative behavior rather than transmission.
Objectives of the Course
The course presents interculturality in a socio-cognitive framework and relates it to
current research in pragmatics, second language acquisition and intercultural
communication. The following topics will be discussed in class:
1) The socio-cognitive framework
2) Cultural models and encyclopaedic knowledge3) Interculturality, intercultures and intracultures
4) Formulaic language in intercultural communication
5) Why do we say what we say the way we say it
6) Intercultural politeness and impoliteness
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