Initially, I believed cultural competence could not be achieved and only cultural acceptance/awareness was possible. From an anthropological perspective cultural competence would require not only learning of the culture, language, and social structure but also relating to that culture and quite frankly believing in what the people of the area believe. When we first discussed cultural competence I was viewing it from that standpoint but after discussion and reading of the article I have accepted that one can become at least communicatively competent under the right circumstances.
The reading says communicative competence is the "competence that enables us to convey and interpret messages and to negotiate meanings interpersonally with specific contexts". From our outside class discussion I remember David saying we do not need to be experts in order to be competent' competence is merely relative and not absolute as the reading says. Communicative competence requires grammatical competence, or knowledge of the language lexicon and semantics, discourse competence, connecting sentences, sociolinguistic competence, social rules of language, strategic competence, verbal and nonverbal strategies used in communication to compensate for breakdown in communication. I found these factors to all be sufficient in labeling a person communicatively competent if they are able to achieve them.
At the end of the day, I still believe it is rather difficult to be even communicatively competent especially in the sociolinguistic competence and strategic competence. Grammar once learned and practiced might be far more simpler but when interacting it might be difficult to call upon social rules, as many as there are, of language. And there is most often difficulty in flow of conversation once that breakdown in conversation has been reached and the subject cannot efficiently communicate in all the strategies composed in that culture
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