126222 UE Literature and Culture in the EFL Classroom (2015S)

Intercultural Pragmatics combines aspects of intercultural interaction with pragmatic features of language (e.g., speech acts). It thus presumes a process-oriented view of communication involving a negotiation of meaning and identity. In foreign language pedagogy a goal of developing intercultural pragmatic competence thus points to a culture-general approach. While applicable to a particular languaculture, such an approach does not necessarily have the latter, with its frequent goal of native-speaker competence, as its major focus. In other words it does not seek to teach specific 'cultural rules' of a specific target culture. Rather, a culture-general approach focuses on an awareness of contextual variables and their possible interpretations as they inform verbal and non-verbal behavior. Communication strategies also play an important role in the development of intercultural pragmatic competence.