Intercultural Communicative Competence

What is intercultural communicative competence?

Many language programs and postsecondary institutions share the goal of graduating students who are “interculturally competent.” This competence can be defined as the ability to use effective and appropriate behavior in intercultural situations, and more specifically, behavior that is appropriate to specific contexts and different identities and roles of speakers. You may have target learning outcomes for intercultural communication that include using knowledge of target language cultures and appropriate non-verbal communicative features to make interactions familiar, comprehensible, inoffensive, and aware of cultural diversity and bias.