How ‘good’ or ‘bad’ Others can be: national identity and intercultural encounters in the Iranian protectionist educational policies

ABSTRACT

Intercultural communicative competence has been offered as an open-minded replacement for ego-centric biases stemming from dogmatic national prejudice and its associated self-aggrandisement. While being a commendable proposal, its implementation in foreign language education has not been a widespread success story. Recent attempts to theorise intercultural communicative competence seem to emphasise negotiability in communication at the expense of some persistent issues, such as (cultural/national) identity. This article examines the prospects of intercultural communication in Iranian language policy as a country with a history of troubled encounters with foreign powers, culminating in protectionist approaches to nationalism, identity and the treatment of Others.

La compétence communicative interculturelle a été proposée comme un substitut ouvert d'esprit aux préjugés égocentriques découlant des préjugés nationaux dogmatiques et de leur auto-glorification associée. Bien qu'il s'agisse d'une proposition louable, sa mise en œuvre dans l'enseignement des langues étrangères n'a pas été un succès généralisé. Les tentatives récentes de théorisation de la compétence communicative interculturelle semblent mettre l'accent sur la négociabilité dans la communication au détriment de certains problèmes persistants, tels que l'identité (culturelle/nationale). Cet article examine les perspectives de la communication interculturelle dans la politique linguistique iranienne en utilisant des approches protectionnistes du nationalisme, de l'identité et du traitement des autres.

KEYWORDS:

• Nationalism
• subaltern
• intercultural communication
• cultural/national identity
• othering

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Esmat Babaii

Esmat Babaii was a Professor of Applied Linguistics at Kharazmi University, Iran, where she taught research methods, language assessment and discourse analysis to graduate students for decades. She has published articles and book chapters dealing with issues in Languages assessment, Systemic Functional Linguistics, test-taking processes, and critical approaches to the study of culture and language. Her most recent work (ELT as necessary evil, 2022) was published in the special issue of Critical Inquiry in Language Studies on alternatives to neoliberal education.