ABSTRACT
Language departments in UK and US higher education have undergone a considerable amount of change in light of the dominance of English as a lingua franca and the decline in uptake for language degrees in both countries (see Chapter 1). Restructuring of language degrees has meant that graduates develop valuable transferrable skills in addition to competence in one or more foreign languages. However, the skillset of graduates is becoming ‘ever-less transparent to employers’ (Wyburd, 2018, p. 177). The 2015 review of the Quality Assurance Agency’s Subject Benchmark Statement for degrees in and with languages (QAA, 2015), described language degrees as ‘inherently intercultural’ and ‘transnational’ (p. 8). Language graduates are furthermore described as ‘equipped to operate within different linguistic and cultural contexts and to compare and contrast diverse visions of the world, thereby promoting intercultural understanding’ (p. 9). This chapter seeks to define and contextualise the concepts of criticality, as theorised in Barnett (1997) and ICC (Byram, 1997) in relation to their relevance to language graduates. Particular emphasis is placed on critical cultural awareness, as the educational dimension of ICC. The chapter concludes by questioning the concept of intercultural competence (in particular its earlier conceptualisations) in light of the increased migrations, displacements and globalisation of a post-modern society.
