“Relief” ! it is just a way to lessen the discomfiture in intercultural situations

Abstract EN

Globalization in different countries, institutions and among individuals promotes English language as the most important and widely used language in the world.

cultural knowledge can be gained through careful study of function patterns within the cultural system of the language.

the study of cross cultural communication is central to the study of the language.

across the globe, the fate of all people depends upon negotiations and communication with different cultural assumptions and patterns of behavior.

moreover, in order to accomplish any public or private goals, people need to talk to one another, and in most cases ; the people who are communicating come from different cultural backgrounds.

in intercultural communication, however, expectations about how paralinguistic signals are used to indicate what is meant by what is said are not shared and despite all the good will in the world, miscommunication and misunderstanding is likely to happen particularly when there are significant cultural differences between communicators.

as far as the teaching process is concerned, one of the main duties of teachers of English is to foster the learners’ awareness of cultural aspects of English speaking countries and other parts of the world as well to avoid cultural shock.

this presentation reveals the major effects, importance, barriers and other issues related to cross cultural and intercultural communication like the development of culture learning in language teaching and a suggestive model of teaching culture in an English class through a model named “relief” which aims at reducing the discomfiture that one may encounter when dealing with “the other” who is usually unknown.