2. How is the students’ intercultural communicative competence developed through the programs and activities?

This case study is conducted from four aspects. They are intramural activities, international exchange programs, optional courses and the reflection of the interviewees. With the guidance of the relevant theories, this thesis analyzes the benefits of the after-class activities in Hangzhou Greentown Yuhua School.  Furthermore, the research expects to highlight the public awareness to promote students’ intercultural communicative competence.

2. Intercultural communicative competence

    Intercultural communicative competence itself is a complex issue. And it is of great importance for us to understand some basic notions. For example, what is intercultural communication, how to give an appropriate definition to intercultural communication competence, what are the components of intercultural communication competence, and so on. Many scholars have given the definitions of intercultural communication, communication competence and intercultural communication competence.

2.1 Intercultural communication

Intercultural communication, which originated from the United States, was called cross-cultural communication when it first appeared in China. The term cross-cultural communication was first used by Edward T. Hall (1959) in his book The Silent Language in 1959. After that, a lot of linguistics tried to define it. Samovar and Porter (1972) suggest that “whenever the parties to a communication act bring with them different experiential backgrounds that reflect a long-standing deposit of group experience, knowledge, and values, we have cross-cultural communication”. Gudykunst and Kim (1992) classify cross-cultural communication as “a transactional, symbolic process involving the attribution of meaning between people from different cultures”. Therefore, intercultural communication is defined as the field of study that explores the verbal and nonverbal interactions of inpiduals with perse patterns of historically derived behavior.

The study of intercultural communication involves interdisciplinary fields including social psychology, sociology, cultural anthropology, sociolinguistics, and communication. The most demanding thing for educators is how misunderstandings can be minimized when students communicate with others from different cultures. First, context is very important to understand intercultural communication. There are two ways for inpiduals to use context in communication: one is low-context and the other is high-context. In laymen’s terms, in a low-context culture like the United States, inpiduals must express themselves as explicitly as possible for effective communication to occur. High-context culture, in contrast, is like China. Chinese often use shortened sentences and words when they talk. If Chinese and Americans do not understand each other’s context system, misunderstandings will occur. Understanding traditions and customs of different cultural backgrounds such as the way we are expected to dress, to eat, to answer questions and to greet others is important in improving intercultural communication as well. 

2.2. Communicative competence

Hymes (1972) coins the term communication competence as the knowledge of both rules of grammar and rules of language use appropriate to a given context. To Hymes, speakers are not only required to consider what utterances are possible and feasible, but also the factors governing the appropriateness of an utterance. Communicative competence can refer to what a speaker needs to know to communicate effectively 

(Cabalquinto, 1989). The whole of the communicative event is considerably greater than the sum of its linguistic elements. Moreover, language is made up of a collection of units, all related to each other in very particular ways, on different levels. These different levels are themselves related in various ways to each other. The primary function of language is to express meanings and to convey these to someone. And was discussed and redefined by many other authors.