Course Leader: Marijana Prodanovic
Home Institution: Sinergija University, Bijeljina, Bosnia and Herzegovina
This course aims to shed some additional light to phenomena characterizing intercultural encounters/communication; it introduces the concepts of high- and low-context cultures, intercultural pragmatics, face, politeness, as well as threatening/mitigating language devices. In this way, it not only provides students with knowledge of the relevant phenomena but also equips them with skills (obtained on real-life data) which could improve their own communication in intercultural settings.
Upon successful completion of the course, students will be able to: engage with current issues in Intercultural Communication critically, by demonstrating deep understanding and skills in analysing how different social and cultural contexts influence the nature of language, as well as to design and carry out independent research in the field (related fields)
The course will address the topics as follows:
The course represents a balance between theoretical and practical components – lectures are always followed by practical, hands-on application of the illustrated concepts. It is characterized by a rather interactive method, including a number of podcasts, video material, as well as real life data for analysis. Apart from that, students have an opportunity to work on projects addressing relevant topics (individually or in groups/pairs).
Relying on the course nature, the acquired knowledge could be assessed via an integrated test, comprising both theory and practice; part 1 of the test check knowledge of theoretical concepts by applying multiple-choice design; part 2 of the test provides students with an opportunity to apply it all on a sample illustrating real-life context (they are given a dialogue where they recognize e.g. roles of interlocutors, politeness mechanisms, speech acts applied, goals, outcome of communication, etc.)