ABSTRACT
The ‘intercultural speaker’ has been a key protagonist in intercultural communication research and practice during the last 20 years. The term was coined by Michael Byram in the 1990s in the long process of redefining the goals of foreign language education away from the often elusive and, according to Davies (2004: 431-32), necessarily ‘ambiguous’ ideal of the ‘native speaker’. The ‘intercultural speaker’ concept was soon adopted and adapted by many scholars and practitioners to describe the language learner who ‘has an ability to interact with “others”, to accept other perspectives and perceptions of the world, to mediate between different perspectives, to be conscious of their evaluations and differences’ (Byram et al. 2001: 5). The intercultural speaker is, therefore, not only linguistically, but also interculturally, competent, i.e. he/she has a command of the grammar and vocabulary of the language he/she is learning and is also both sensitive towards other peoples and cultures and aware of his/her own cultural positioning. Significantly, the intercultural speaker is not bound to specific cultures or languages, but is competent in mediating across multiple borders. It is for this reason that intercultural competence is increasingly defined as global competence: the ability to be ‘at home in the world’. The aim of this chapter is threefold. First, the extant literature on the intercultural speaker is
reviewed. It is, of course, beyond the scope of this chapter to review every scholarly contribution to the debate, so consideration is given to key contributors, with particular focus on the seminal work of Michael Byram. The focus then shifts to the acquisition of intercultural or global competence through foreign language education and the progression towards intercultural speaker status. Although recognizing the multiple opportunities for developing intercultural or global competence by alternative means, including work and leisure, this chapter focuses on formal secondary and, in particular, tertiary education. Both the employment of culture-based tasks in the language classroom and the role of residence abroad, during which language learners have the opportunity to become ethnographers of the languages and cultures they are studying, are discussed. Finally, the chapter reflects on the problems inherent in the concepts of the intercultural speaker and global competence. Although born of a desire to replace the idealism of the native speaker concept, the intercultural speaker has itself become a somewhat idealistic and overly theorized concept that does not apply to all language learners and to all contexts.
