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‘Intercultural competence’ as an intersubjective process: a reply to ‘essentialism’

Zhou, Vivien Xiaowei; Pilcher, Nick

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Abstract

In this paper, we problematise a competence-oriented reflective approach to intercultural education by drawing on four students’ reflective essays about their experiential learning experiences on an ‘Intercultural Competence’ (IC) module. Their reflections sometimes evidence much-vaunted IC attributes such as ‘tolerance’ and ‘empathy’, but often indicate individually-developed, non-teleologically based IC criteria. Furthermore, reflection was often painful and at times led to a ‘falling back on’ essentialist notions of culture. We suggest that rather than reject essentialism as a ‘simplistic’ starting point, it should be recognised as existing symbiotically with non-essentialist notions and could be used critically throughout intercultural learning.

Citation

Zhou, V. X., & Pilcher, N. (2018). ‘Intercultural competence’ as an intersubjective process: a reply to ‘essentialism’. Language and Intercultural Communication, 18(1), 125-143. https://doi.org/10.1080/14708477.2017.1400510

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Oct 24, 2017
Online Publication Date Dec 13, 2017
Publication Date Jan 2, 2018
Deposit Date Oct 27, 2017
Publicly Available Date Mar 29, 2024
Journal Language and Intercultural Communication
Print ISSN 1470-8477
Electronic ISSN 1747-759X
Publisher Routledge
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 18
Issue 1
Pages 125-143
DOI https://doi.org/10.1080/14708477.2017.1400510
Keywords intercultural competence; essentialism; non-essentialism; reflection; experiential learning
Public URL http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/Output/1003071

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Copyright Statement
This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Language and Intercultural Communication on 13 Dec 2017, available online: https://doi.org/10.1080/14708477.2017.1400510


'Intercultural competence' as an intersubjective process: a reply to 'essentialism' (284 Kb)
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Copyright Statement
This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Language and Intercultural Communication on 13 Dec 2017, available online: https://doi.org/10.1080/14708477.2017.1400510






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