Intercultural Competence

Chapter 7 notes
Derry Parler

Define verbal codes

 Verbal Codes – a set of rules about the use of words in the creation of messages

List and describe the rule systems in verbal codes

 Phonology – system that tells speakers which sounds to use and how to order them. The
rules consist of combining phonemes which constitute the phonology of a language.
 Morphology – Phonemes combine to form morphemes, which are the smallest units of
meaning in a language.
 Semantics – the study of the meaning of words. It is the study of the relationship between
words and what they stand for or represent.
 Syntactics – the relationship of words to one another.
o MeaningsWordscombining ruleslanguage
 Pragmatics – the effect of language on human perceptions and behaviors. The study of
pragmatics focuses on how language is actually used.

Explain Linguistic relativity p. 177.

 Language has an influence and in fact, determines the ways in which people think.
Humans are at the mercy of whatever particular language they speak because it is a
medium of expression in society. The “real world” is unconsciously built up on our
language habits.

Define linguistic grammars and give examples p.181

 The reciprocal relationship among language, thought, and culture that is found in
grammatical rules of different languages.
o Example: In the English language we have past tenses which reflects a totally
different cultural concept of time as opposed to a language like Hopi which does
not use any tenses for their words. Hopi time is seen as an ongoing process where
tenses are deemed obsolete because of their cultural conception of time.

Explain how verbal codes and intercultural competence are connected.

 The study of other languages is useful in understanding the role of differences in verbal
codes. The study of another language can lead to an appreciation of those who struggle to
communicate in second or third languages. Multiple cultures and multiple languages will
be featured in the United States because we are rapidly becoming multicultural.
Application
Biblical Links

The Tower of Babel

11 Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. 2 As people moved
eastward,[a] they found a plain in Shinar[b] and settled there.
3They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick
instead of stone, and tar for mortar. 4 Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a
tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will
be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”
5But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. 6 The LORD
said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they
plan to do will be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they
will not understand each other.”
8So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the
city.9 That is why it was called Babel[c]—because there the LORD confused the language of the
whole world. From there the LORD scattered them over the face of the whole earth.

 If the world at some point in history had a single language that was universal, how
do we explain the correlation between culture and language? During that time, did
everyone share the same culture? Or is there a metaphor in the story of the Tower
of Babel that does not match the secular understanding of cultures relationship
with language? Just an observation.