Intercultural competence as an aspect of the communicative ...

Beamer proposes a model that has five levels of learning, each placed on top of
the previous one. The levels are: ‘acknowledging diversity, organizing information
according to stereotypes, posing questions to challenge the stereotypes, analyzing
communication episodes and, generating “other culture” messages’ (Beamer 1992: 291).
By going through these levels a learner will develop their ability to recognize signs from
other cultures, decode them, and encode 21 messages to convey the meaning. The model is
not linear as once acquainted with a new culture, new signs are discovered and
stereotypes formed, challenged and overcome.
The first level of acknowledging diversity is the basic one, as a perception of
difference is the initial stage of IC learning. Here learners should discuss concepts ‘such
as “bias”, “ethnocentricity”, “stereotype”, “value”’. Beamer stresses that though linguistic
difference is something to be noticed at the very beginning, cultural fluency does not
depend on linguistic fluency. The second level of organizing information is actually a
level on which categories are made based on stereotypes learners hold against particular
cultures. While these categories could be a useful tool for the first contact with other
cultures, they are ultimately a narrow and distorted view of a culture that is more often
than not reduced to lists of rules or ‘do’s and taboos’ (Beamer 1992: 294). This is also a
level where learners could get stuck if they do not challenge the categories, believing the
organization of information to be correct and sufficient. The third level on which learners
challenge the stereotypes brings them closer to true ICC. The model also offers particular
questions that a learner could ‘pose’ in order to better acquaint oneself with a new culture
– they range from how a culture organizes knowledge, over what achievements are
important, what value orientations are there to social structures. After understanding a
culture through these questions, the fourth level of analyzing communication episodes can
be achieved, where the focus is on culture-specific and depth of understanding. Finally,
on the fifth level a learner is competent enough to understand behaviour and behaves as if
from another culture. Beamer here refers back to Brislin’s model (walk in the other’s
moccasins, Brislin et al. 1983), because a learner is so ‘attuned’ with a culture. ICC is
seen in the flexibility that a learner expresses in behaviour and ability to integrate new
and already stored information to navigate encounters.
21 Beamer bases her model on the basic semiotic theory of a sign, a signified and a signifier believing that
‘[t]he receiver of intercultural messages is constantly adjusting and adapting the incoming signifiers to the
existing repository of signs, and adapting and adjusting the repository of signifieds to create new signs’
(Beamer 1992: 289).
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