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