ABSTRACT
Intercultural communication became established as an academic area of study and has become increasingly relevant in the English-speaking academy since the 1960s, mainly following Hall’s publication entitled Silent Language (1959). Traditionally, the study of intercultural communication has adopted a particular perspective and implementation according to the discipline of the particular researcher or theorist. Increasingly, work on intercultural communication is involving scholars from all over the world, even if the field is still more or less related to and influenced by the English-speaking academy. Different social, epistemological and ontological visions are now emerging from different linguistic, cultural and territorial geographies and communities. This is providing multiple understandings of language, intercultural communication and interaction. Therefore, differences between tradition-based epistemologies have become more influential than discipline-based theory and practice in intercultural communication, thus giving way to a more pressing need for a critical approach in its study. This diversity of visions has progressed beyond the North-South and East-West divides and cut across them through narratives of hybrid experiences and theorizations, not only in the form of accounts of social life but also in academic research. Furthermore, ‘the once clear definitions of “us” and “them” are being blurred’ as ‘the tightly knit system of communication and transportation has brought differing cultures, nationalities, races, religions, and linguistic communities closer than before in a web of interdependence and a common fate’ (Kim 2008: 359). This is happening especially in the academic world, causing a gradual, but evident, change in the criteria of scientific value in the social sciences. This follows from increased cross-cultural contact and is resulting in the valorization of a wider variety of models for carrying out intercultural dialogue and establishing intercultural relations that aim to be equitable, mutually respectful and reciprocally profitable. Having this in mind, we may start from the principle that intercultural experience does
not equate with intercultural competence and, furthermore, there is no single model of intercultural competence that fits every intercultural experience. There is, however, a need for the development of certain principles and strategies that may provide the person and the group, both from an individual and a collective point of view, with the knowledge and predispositions
towards multiculturalism, interculturality and intercultural dialogue that will allow the intercultural experience to turn into an opportunity for personal, societal and professional reflection and enrichment. As noted by Deardorff (2009: xiii), ‘there is no pinnacle at which someone becomes “interculturally competent”’, as this involves an endless journey where each day brings more knowledge and more questions. In this spiral-shaped unfolding process, formal education ought to provide guidance. A critical pedagogy is expected to pave the way for that development to happen in a given direction, while promoting a plurality of itineraries.
