Abstract:

The purpose of this presentation is to explore and share the most recent research findings on trends and experiences of intercultural and pragmatic competence development on the basis (and integration) of cognitive, learner-centered approaches. Pragmatics is a subfield of linguistics and a key part of communicative competence in real-life situations. The recent development of Social Cognition offers a new perspective for the teaching of intercultural communication by applying the cognitive bases of social interaction and integrating critical thinking, cognitive, social, cross-cultural, and psychological aspects into learning about meaningful interactions. One of the most important conditions for effective cross-cultural and pragmatic communication is the cognitive readiness for intercultural communication.

There are many cognitive strategies and practical ways to enhance the teaching of pragmatic awareness in a Second Language (SL) context; this presentation will highlight the teaching of intercultural pragmatics through the use of cognitive, student-centered approaches. Since conventional teaching of pragmatics and cross-cultural communication lack to acknowledge the necessary and important role of the cognitive processes, the presenters will share some practical ways in which foreign language teachers can enhance students’ proficiency by implementing a variety of cognitive strategies, including generalization, abstraction, hypothesis, comparison, or abstraction. They could easily improve learners’ communicative competence and pragmatic awareness if provided (and explicitly introduced) before facilitating communicative tasks. Therefore, within this framework (having in mind both a linguistic and pragmatic perspective), communication is regarded as the ability to use both linguistic and nonlinguistic signals in the context of sociocultural activities.

Moreover, learners' ability to participate in intercultural dialogue or negotiation can be improved by developing a variety of speech acts and cognitive strategies during the learning process. Since social intelligence is one of the prerequisites for being a competent intercultural communicator, an integrative, didactic approach will be proposed to teaching and learning pragmatic skills in an FL context. Therefore, within this framework of cognitive readiness (having in mind both a linguistic and pragmatic perspective), communication is regarded as the ability to use both linguistic and nonlinguistic signals in the context of sociocultural activities.

Conclusion: The presenters will list and provide practical examples of cognitive strategies with variable communicative tasks aimed at practicing real-life intercultural situations from different perspectives, enabling the implementation of differentiation to foreign language learning. The cycle of cognitive readiness for intercultural competence will provide the environment and conditions for the improvement and the number of strategies practiced by learners and, consequently, enhance their foreign language learning effectiveness.

Keywords:

Cognitive style approach, Strategies, Cognitive readiness, Intercultural Communication, Communicative Competence, Intercultural Pragmatics.