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ABSTRACT
Foreign language education needs to prepare learners to become intercultural speakers who can establish an intercultural dialogue with those whose languages are different from their own. Against this background, we present a study based on the diagnosis of the reciprocal images of Portuguese and Turkish university students learning each other’s language. Our aim is to show how the students’ reciprocal images relate to their attitudes towards their counterpart’s language, culture, and people, and, consequently, to intercultural communication itself. On this basis, we identify the existing gaps regarding an intercultural approach to foreign language education and propose a set of educational strategies aiming at the development of the students’ intercultural competence.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1. Intercultural Dialogue is defined as an open and respectful exchange of views between individuals and groups of different ethnic, religious, linguistic and national backgrounds, which, going beyond political, national, and cultural borders, aims, on the basis of mutual understanding and respect, establishing a sense of intercultural citizenship based on the promotion of a sense of shared identities and common purposes (Council of Europe, Citation2008).
2. Deriving, in great measure, from the concept of Social Representations, the concept of Images in FLE research refers to the learners’ representational constructs of languages, cultures and peoples i.e. to the way the subjects inherently “perceive”, “represent” or “imagine” supposed “common sense” facts about each of these complex dimensions. These constructs, besides being mutually implied, have a strong influence in the intercultural communication context.
3. The Warmth and Competences dimensions refer to personality traits. Both derive from an articulation between the Stereotype Content Model (Cuddy, Fiske, & Glick, Citation2008) and the Five-Factor Model of Personality (McCrae, Citation2009; Srivastava, Citation2010). The Religion and Traditionalism dimension was added to the model due to its relevance to the study (see Basílio, Citation2017; Basílio et al., Citation2016, pp. 32-33).
4. In this paper, all the students’ references were translated to English, and coded in accordance with their source: QITR and QIPT; FGTR1/2 and FGPT1/2 followed by the numerical identification of the participant.
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Daniel Basílio
Daniel Basílio holds a Ph.D. in Education, specializing in Curricular Development, from the University of Aveiro (Portugal). He holds a Postgraduate Certificate in Education, and a Bachelor’s degree in Modern Languages and Literature – Anglo-Portuguese Studies from the New University of Lisbon (Portugal). He is a Portuguese Language and Culture lecturer at Beijing Foreign Studies University (China), a researcher at Research Centre on Didactics and Technology in Education of Trainers [CIDTFF], and a member of the Open Laboratory for Foreign Language Learning [LALE] team (University of Aveiro, Portugal). He is also a collaborating member of the Centre for Cultural and Religious Studies of the Indian Ocean [CECROI] (Lúrio University, Nampula, Mozambique). His research topics include Foreign Language and Culture Education, Intercultural Studies, and Social Representations theory. He is particularly interested in the study of socio-cultural representations of otherness within the general framework of intercultural education, specifically focusing on the “Christian West” and “Muslim East” dichotomies. He has authored and co-authored multiple publications in these areas in national and international journals and book chapters.
Maria Helena Araújo e Sá
Maria Helena Araújo e Sá is an Associate Professor with Aggregation at the Department of Education and Psychology of the University of Aveiro (Portugal), where she teaches and supervises masters, doctoral and post-doctoral students in the area of Language (Teacher) Education. She is the Coordinator of the Research Centre on Didactics and Technology in Education of Trainers [CIDTFF], directs the Ph.D. Programme in Education and coordinates the Open Laboratory for Foreign Language Learning [LALE]. Her research and publication areas are intercomprehension; plurilingual and intercultural education; language policies in HEI (research and training). Peer-esteem indicators include invitations to give keynote presentations and seminars internationally and to participate in Ph.D. viva; frequent collaboration with international language policy agencies (such as Latin Union, Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie, Instituto Camões, IP); integration of editorial and advisory boards. She has vast experience integrating national and international projects as both researcher and PI.international levels, having, for instance, coordinated the Galapro – Education of trainers for intercomprehension in Romance languages – a project financed by the EU.
Ana Raquel Simões
Ana Raquel Simões holds a Ph.D. in Language Didactics from the University of Aveiro, where she also completed the Degree in Portuguese and English Education in 1999. She is a Guest Auxiliary Professor at the Department of Education and Psychology at the University of Aveiro. She is a researcher at Research Centre on Didactics and Technology in Education of Trainers [CIDTFF] and is part of the Open Laboratory for Foreign Language Learning (LALE) team. She has participated in multiple national and international projects, in the areas of Intercultural Education, Plurilingualism, Intercomprehension, and Teacher Training. She has multiple publications in these areas in national and international journals and book chapters. She has supervised multiple Master’s theses and Ph.D. thesis in the above-mentioned areas of research.