MacDonald, MN;
O'Regan, JP;
(2013)
The Ethics of Intercultural Communication.
Educational Philosophy and Theory
, 45
(10)
pp. 1005-1017.
10.1111/j.1469-5812.2011.00833.x.
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Abstract
For some time, the role of culture in language education within schools, universities and professional communication has received increasing attention (Corbett, 2003). This area of pedagogic activity is referred to as ‘intercultural communication’; the attribute of being ‘skilled’ in communicating with interlocutors from other cultures is termed ‘intercultural competence’ (Feng, Byram & Fleming, 2009); and a person who possesses this attribute has been dubbed the ‘intercultural speaker’ (Byram, 2008, p. 57-77). The aim of this paper is to disclose, critique and circumvent the implicit ethical imperative which underwrites this area of inquiry. Indeed, across many areas of contemporary discursive practice there appears to be an incitement to communicate with the other, the ethical grounds for which remain undisclosed and unproblematised. The central argument in the paper identifies two ‘aporias’, in the sense of untraversable boundaries, logical contradictions or antinomies (Derrida, 1993), which arise from the ontological and axiological assumptions of intercultural communication: first, they contain an unstated impetus towards a universal consciousness; second, the truth claims of much of intercultural communication (IC) discourse are grounded in an implicit appeal to a transcendental moral signified. Inter alia, we contend that these features constitute the study of intercultural communication as ‘totality’ (Levinas, 1969/2007, 1998/2009) or as a ‘metaphysics of presence’ (Derrida, 1976, 1978, 1981); we then propose more considered and radical ethical grounds for intercultural pedagogy and praxis.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | The Ethics of Intercultural Communication |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1111/j.1469-5812.2011.00833.x |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-5812.2011.00833.x |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This version is the author-accepted manuscript. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions. |
| Keywords: | communication, Derrida, ethics, intercultural, Levinas, responsibility |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education > IOE - Culture, Communication and Media |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1495685 |
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