ABSTRACT
The separation between language and content, described by C. Kramsch as ‘one of the more tenacious dichotomies’ also puts in question the sociolinguistic theory on the relationship between language and culture. If language learning is to be understood as a potentially transformative experience guided by educational goals, it necessarily needs to entail more than the acquisition of linguistic and communicative competence in a foreign language. The need for language education to offer more than the acquisition of communicative skills has been highlighted both in the UK and the US. The view of language as having an educational goal hence demands greater expectations from language study, which extend beyond the acquisition of linguistic and communicative competence. From the study, a new conceptualisation of criticality emerged as well as an extension to M. Byram’s intercultural communicative competence model through a new savoir defined as savoir se reconnaitre. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
