Page 490 - Handbooks of Applied Linguistics Communication Competence Language and Communication Problems Practical Solutions

468 Elisabeth Prechtl and Anne Davidson Lund

for competence-based assessment in other disciplines (and conceivably forming
the basis for an eventual suite of occupational standards). Such a matrix would
not be sufficient on its own; it would need to be accompanied by some means of
testing the employee’s level of competence against the grid, and a recording
mechanism for the results of those tests and any other successful improvement
in the individual’s intercultural competence.
The INCA project aimed to address these practical needs. While the INCA
project ended in October 2004, it has led to a series of associated developments
in each of the partner countries concerned and beyond, and the framework and
assessment tools are still being tested, evaluated and further refined.

2. What is intercultural competence?

Intercultural communication is not yet fully recognized as a discipline in its own
right, and there are many areas of debate around intercultural competence, in-
cluding the extent to which it is possible to distinguish intercultural competence
from intercultural communicative competence, and what the relationship of
both is with linguistic competence. Research into intercultural competence is
housed in disciplines as disparate as Behavioural Psychology, Management
Science and Linguistics, to name but a few.
Researchers and practitioners from these various disciplines have explor-
ed intercultural communication and cross-cultural competences from a variety
of angles (see Dinges and Baldwin 1996; Kealey 1996 for an overview). Ex-
perts on foreign language teaching have stressed the importance of combining
linguistic and cultural competencies (Byram 1997, 2001); cross-cultural re-
searchers have focused on the similarities and differences between cultures; in-
ternational human resource managers have looked at the selection and training
of expatriates; communication theorists have focused on intercultural com-
munication processes (Gudykunst 1993; Müller-Jacquier 2000; Kim 2001).
Since the 1960s, foreign assignments have been analysed; for instance technical
advisors (Ruben and Kealey 1979) or students on foreign assignments (Furn-
ham and Bochner 1982) have been researched. Recent studies have focused on
the personnel and environmental factors contributing to expatriates’ success on
foreign assignments (Ward and Chang 1997; Selmer and Leung 2003), as well
as factors predicting successful collaboration within multinational teams (Pod-
siadlowski 2002).
There are many different approaches to describing and explaining people’s
experiences of crossing cultures. Ward (2001) identifies three theoretical ap-
proaches: the ‘stress and coping’ approach, the ‘culture learning’ approach and
the ‘social identity’ approach. The stress-and coping approach “conceptualizes
cross-cultural transitions as a series of stress-provoking life changes” (Ward