An Assessment of the Intercultural Communicative Competence of Kurdish EFL University Students: A Linguacultural Study
Volume 20 , Issue 2 , August 2019 , Pages 363-376
Authors
1 Department of English , College of Language, University of Sulaimani, Kurdistan Region, Iraq
10.17656/jzsb.10898
Keywords
Abstract
It is widely accepted that language and culture are intertwined. Language and cultural awareness
are so integrated that a successful communication requires linguistic and cultural competence. This
requirement becomes vital in the case of foreign language learning. Learning languages do not
equip learners just with linguistic abilities, but their cultural awareness could be affected in many
ways. Even with adequate linguistics abilities, whether cultural barriers prevent a successful
communication remains a question that needs investigation. Enhancing cultural awareness, along
with linguistic competence, is crucial for communication.
This paper assesses the intercultural communicative competence of Kurdish EFL university
students who will be specialized in English language and literature. To this end, a questionnaire of
fourteen major questions with three follow up questions has been utilized to collect data from 150
Journal of Zankoy Sulaimani-Part B / for Humanities No (60) (1 May 2019) 36١
EFL learners from three major universities in the region. The questions are based on Byram’s
(1997) model of knowledge, skill and behaviour to assess intercultural competence.
This paper hypothesizes that Kurdish EFL learners’ cultural awareness of the target culture in
terms of social cognition, self-awareness and behaviour has been affected to a large extent due to
learning English. To validate or refute this claim, after discussing the results, some conclusions are
drawn.
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