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Intercultural Pragmatics in Foreign Language Learning

Authors: Isabel Cómitre Narváez* & José Mª Valverde Zambrana**

 

Learning a foreign language accurately means more than simply mastering its linguistic structure, phonetics, vocabulary and idioms. It means learning also to see the world as native speakers of that language see it, learning the ways in which their language reflects the ideas, customs, and behaviour of their society. Learning a language, in fact, is indivisible from learning its culture; therefore a pragmatic component needs to be included in the curriculum design of a foreign language. We also have to widen the concept of sociocultural contents, these cannot only deal with the mere explanation on “uses and habits” of the countries nor with the so often simplified contextual information, therefore, we have to deal with the use of language in specific communication situations. The learner of a foreign language has to be aware of cultural differences between his and the Metalanguage and be able to behave within a multicultural context.

 

Key words: Pragmatics, Interculturality, Communicative competence, Foreign language learning.

 


 *PhD. Translation (French Language and Culture), Department of Translation and Interpreting, Faculty of Arts, Malaga University, Spain, E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

**Bachelor of Arts (English Philology), Lecturer in the Postgraduate Training Program, Malaga University, Spain, E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .