ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses and illustrates an eminent example of a pedagogy, multilingual approach to foreign language learning and teaching in higher education, an approach which presumes the symbolic power of language and centres on the notion of symbolic competence as a crucial dimension in the formation of multilingual individuals in late-modern societies. The conceptualization of the self is complemented by Kramsch's notion of 'narratorial self', which artistically constructs itself through narratives such as memoirs. In order to foster a multilingual subjectivity it is important that language learners develop 'symbolic competence', an essential dimension of communicative competence. Conceived within an ecological and multilingual perspective, the notion of symbolic competence is intended to enrich communicative competence, intercultural communicative competence and semiotic competence. Another way in which literature nourishes symbolic competence is by openly discussing the ambiguity between myths and realities, what Kramsch calls 'tolerance of ambiguity'.
