2.3　Intercultural communication

Closely related to interlanguage pragmatic research，intercultural communicative competence can be regarded as the terminal objective in interlanguage development.Thus it is also necessary for us to review the literature in the field of intercultural communication so as to make it clear what elements should be considered and highlighted in ILP competence development for ethnic minority learners in general and ethnic minority learners at the tertiary level in particular.

Communication activities involving different cultures evolve with the development of economy and culture in human history，but intercultural communication，as an independent subject of serious academic research，emerged only a few decades ago.Terminology for more or less the same notion varies：intercultural communication，cross-cultural communication，and transcultural communication.Among them，cross-cultural communication and intercultural communication are more widely adopted(Hu，1994；He，2000；Samovar & Porter，2007).The former is prior to the latter as a term，but now the latter is more popular，as in The Society for In-tercultural Education，Training and Research：The InterculturalAssociation for Intercultural Communication Studies(Hu，1989：6；1994：1 -12).In many cases，the two are understood as being the same.However，Gudykunst & Kim(2007)differentiated between them in their preface，maintaining that the former is a comparison of some phenomena across cultures and the latter is an interaction between people from different cultures.The study of intercultural communication is generally considered to include crosscultural communication.Hereby in this dissertation，I will adopt the term intercultural communication(IC)，examining its nature and scope together with its characteristics and complexities.

2.3.1　Nature and scope of intercultural communication

Frank Dance and Carl Larson made a survey on the definition of communication and found that there were at least 126 definitions (Lustig & Koester，2007：9).In a broad sense，communication is the exchange of thoughts，messages，or information by means of speech，writing，signals，or behavior.

The communication behavior involving different cultures is called intercultural communication(IC).It occurs whenever and wherever the message sender is a member of one culture and the message receiver is of another.In terms of intercultural communication，Samovar et al.has defined communication as that which happens whenev-er someone responds to the behavior or the residue of the behavior of another person(1991：7).Treating intercultural communication as a comparative culture in a restricted sense，He Daokuan viewed it as an applied subject related to anthropology，sociology，and communication.Similarly，Hu(1994)held that IC has connection with many other subjects，among which the most influential ones are anthropology，sociopsycology，sociolinguistics，and communication.And Jia(1998)argued that philosophy and racial interaction should be included as well.Hence，intercultural communication includes inter-racial communication(i.e.communication between different races)，inter-ethnic communication(i.e.communication between different ethnic groups)，cross-cultural communication(i.e.comparison of different communication styles)and international communication.

2.3.2　Features and complexities of intercultural communication

We are all aware that language differentiates between individuals，groups and communities.But many of us naively believe that a competent interpreter will handle all the differences easily.Such a notion fails to acknowledge the relationship between culture and language.To a very great extent our language is a product of our culture.Meanwhile，our culture is featured and molded by our language.Culture and language are inseparably inter-twined.

2.3.2.1　Factors affecting communication

The issue of proper communication is culturally relative.It is not only concerned with what to talk，when to talk，whom to talk to，but also how to talk—the intonation and stress，cohesion and coherence，pacing and pausing，direct or indirect manners，and the like as well.That is to say，there are many variables in the communication process whose values are determined，to some extent，by culture.These variables，suggested by Porter(1985)，such as attitudes，social organization，patterns of thought，roles and role prescriptions，use and organization of space，time conceptualization，nonverbal expression，and，of course，language，have the ability to influence our perceptions and to affect the meaning we assign to communicative acts.Samovar and Porter used to blend the eight items above into three as follows：

(1)Process of observation：belief，value，attitude，worldview，and social organization；

(2)Verbal process：language and thought pattern；

(3)Nonverbal process：nonverbal，time，and space.

——Lin，1999：24；also Samovar & Porter，2007：12 -17

According to Samovar & Porter(1988)，the communication activities are composed of behavior source，encoding，message，channel，responder，decoding，response and feedback，as can be seen in Table 2—1 below：

Owing to the limitation of the length of the dissertation，the present author will mainly focus on the pragmatic functions of verbal communication but of course will not neglect the related nonverbal elements in question，which will be examined in section 2.4.3.

2.3.2.2　Models of intercultural communication

There are two important models，the code model and the inferen-tial model，to describe the process of intra/intercultural communication.The former is more traditional，in which communication is seen as the encoding and decoding of messages.The latter，initiated by Grice，is of recent origin，which views communication as essentially the recognition of the speaker's intention by the audience.Lasswell proposed his 5Ws communicative model“Who says what in which channel to whom with what effect”(2007：216)to stress the effects of communication.But in reality，communication is a dynamic process whereby human behavior，both verbal and nonverbal，is perceived and responded to.

Furthermore，it is clear that verbal communication is a complex form of communication.Linguistic encoding and decoding are involved，but the decoded linguistic meaning of an uttered sentence can hardly convey what the speaker means：it merely helps the audience infer what s/he means.The output of encoding is responsively treated by the audience as a piece of evidence about the communicator's intentions.In other words，the encoding-decoding process is subservient to the Gricean inferential process.The inferential process is essential for a full appreciation of meaning.

In response to the Gricean model，Sperber & Wilson(1986；1995)proposed the two-way model in terms of the theory of rele-vance.They argued that communication is successful not when hearers recognize the linguistic meaning of the utterance，but when they infer the speaker's“meaning”from it(1986：23).From the communicator's point of view，it is of ostension，that is，showing，or making manifest his informative intention；and from that of the audience it is of inference，that is，inferring from the evidence presented the communicator's intentions.Hence，a complete characterization of communication，by combining these two sides，is that it is ostensive-inferential.And they define ostensive-inferential communication as follows：

the communicator produces a stimulus which makes it mutually manifest to communicator and audience that the communicator intends，by means of this stimulus，to make manifest or more manifest to the audience a set of assumptions(ibid.，63).

We can then illustrate the process of intercultural communication with the two models in the following diagram：

The graph illustrates the basic intercultural communication model，where the solid line stands for the intracultural coding and inference，while the broken line stands for the intercultural coding and inference.In intercultural communication，the message has to undergo both coding and inferential processes in intraculture and interculture.Both the code model and the inferential model demand shared knowledge and context among the communicators.But there is no denying that in the process of intercultural communication，the communicators，especially ethnic multilingual English learners with different cultural backgrounds in the Chinese context，may have different interpretations of the same knowledge and context due to different cognitive and cultural systems.It would be more difficult for them.That is why pragmatic failures occur more frequently in intercultural communication than in intracultural communication.It is evident that in intercultural communication，there are less common points than in intracultural communication.As a result，there are more barriers and conflicts in the former.

In the practice of intercultural communication，it is found that there are more cultural conflicts than linguistic mistakes.When we travel abroad or undertake communication with people from different cultures，our attention is often focused on the foreign language itself，on how large a vocabulary we have，on how well the grammatical rules can be applied，on how fluently the language can be spoken.But communication problems still occur even though we have a good knowledge of the target language.One mistake most of us make is to assume that our problems in communication stem only from language differences，and that the problems can be resolved by taking language courses and learning how to translate our own language into the target language correctly in terms of lexicon and grammar.If so，the world would be much simpler.Here is an example.In a crowded bus，a pupil said，“Please sit down，old grandpa.”A Chinese would praise the child for his polite behavior，but an English speaker will feel offended and annoyed.The reason is that in the oriental culture，people value the ethical principle of“respecting the old and caring for the young”，whereas in the western culture，people favor youth and are reluctant to be considered“old”，which means“not useful any more in society”.

It is thus worth mentioning that in intercultural communication，imperfect mastery of pronunciation and grammar can be forgiven as poor language ability，whereas imperfect diction or violation of the communicative norms will bring on blames.The more fluently we can speak，the more serious the consequences might be.The communicative inappropriateness may result in misunderstanding or discontentment，and even severe consequences.Unfortunately，not all of the communicators are conscious of the consequences arising from cultural differences.It is taken for granted that a speaker should certainly follow the cultural norms of the target language.In fact，ways of communicating meaning in talk are learned in the speech community，that is，by talking to people with whom one identifies socially.As social networks are always local，not global，people in different communities have different ways of talking，as well as other cultural conventions，value system，face system，thought patterns，etc.which define them as a community.It is reported in many researches that a variety of cultural conflicts may occur among people from different speech communities.

Therefore，as discussed above，we need to take a more comprehensive approach to the analysis of intercultural communication in terms of the findings，especially in terms of the details provided by ethnic minority learners in the development of interlanguage competence from the perspective of interlanguage pragmatics.