Ethical communication and intercultural responsibility: a philosophical perspective

Ferri, Giuliana (2014) Ethical communication and intercultural responsibility: a philosophical perspective. Language and Intercultural Communication, 14 (1). pp. 7-23. ISSN 1470-8477

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Abstract

The ethical dimension of dialogue represents a major concern in the context of current research in intercultural responsibility. In this paper, I discuss the modalities in which the notion of competence is used to conceptualise responsibility and the relationship between self and other in intercultural research, in order to critique the Cartesian presuppositions of intercultural communication theory. I argue that models of competence and responsibility that are employed to design intercultural training operate within the paradigm of the autonomous rational agent that informs Kantian ethical thinking. I contrast the model of the competent intercultural speaker that emerges in intercultural research with the distinction proposed by Levinas between the saying and the said (le dire and le dit, meaning the event of speech and the content of speech), to suggest two scenarios of intercultural interaction that show two different
approaches to responsibility, one operating in the dimension of the said and the other in the dimension of the saying. Thus, in this paper, I discuss the implications of
Levinas’s reflection on the nature of language for the development of an ethical framework that addresses the limitations of current conceptualisations in intercultural
communication theory of competence and responsibility.

Item Type: Article
Identifier: 10.1080/14708477.2013.866121
Subjects: Education
Social sciences > Communication and culture
Philosophy
Depositing User: Giuliana Ferri
Date Deposited: 21 Oct 2016 20:14
Last Modified: 06 Feb 2024 15:51
URI: https://repository.uwl.ac.uk/id/eprint/2931

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