Intercultural communicative competence awareness of Turkish students and instructors at university level

Abstract

Competence in intercultural communication requires an understanding of both the L1 and L2 cultures, and many now believe that language learning is, in many respects, cultural learning. The relationship between language and culture, as well as the role of cultural competence in communicative competence has come increasingly under the microscope and as a result, educators have gained a greater appreciation for the role culture plays in language acquisition. Intercultural communicative competence refers to the ability of an individual to navigate within a given society appropriately. In other words, individuals are able to use appropriate gestures, understand the unspoken meaning within the words, appreciate the cultural underpinnings in any communication, and make appropriate cultural references to aid understanding. From this viewpoint, in order to understand the perception of Intercultural communicative awareness (ICC), a survey was performed among instructors and students of English. This survey was distributed to 42 Turkish instructors of English and 183 Turkish students from the English Language and Literature Department of Karabuk University, a total number of 225 respondents. The participants were aged between 18 and 55. By means of set scientific instruments such as (Anova, Spss, etc.) the data collected from the participants was analysed and evaluated.