Understanding and misunderstanding in the Common European Framework of Reference: what we can learn from research on BELF and Intercultural Communication

Marie-Luise Pitzl

doi:10.1515/jelf-2015-0009

Article

Understanding and misunderstanding in the Common European Framework of Reference: what we can learn from research on BELF and Intercultural Communication

Marie-Luise Pitzl
Marie-Luise Pitzl is Assistant Professor for English Applied Linguistics at the University of Vienna, from which she holds a PhD. She has held positions at TU Dortmund and the University of Salzburg and is one of the main compilers of VOICE (Vienna-Oxford International Corpus of English). Her research interests in English as a lingua franca include creativity, metaphors and idioms, miscommunication, pragmatics, corpus studies, business settings, and teacher education.

Published/Copyright: February 17, 2015

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From the journal Journal of English as a Lingua Franca Volume 4 Issue 1

Abstract

Building on descriptive findings and theoretical insights from research on Intercultural Communication (IC) and English as a lingua franca (ELF), with a special emphasis on research in business contexts (i.e., BELF), this article examines how understanding and instances of miscommunication such as misunderstanding or breakdown are represented and discursively constructed in the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) (Council of Europe 2001). Using corpus linguistic methods, the analysis shows how the intercultural and linguistically diverse nature of interactions is portrayed as leading to – and being responsible for – the occurrence of misunderstanding in the CEFR. The observed patterns are equivalent to “analytic stereotyping” (Sarangi 1994: 409) of intercultural communication criticized by scholars already twenty years ago. The present paper argues that the deficit portrait of intercultural communication in the CEFR may be based on a number of implicit logical fallacies, such as the idealized notion that L1 communication is perfect and devoid of miscommunication. It is suggested that (E)LT discourse and language teaching practice would benefit from abandoning these essentialist concepts in favor of a more realistic approach to understanding as a jointly negotiated and interactional process as is proposed by many (B)ELF and IC researchers.

Exposé

Dieser Beitrag untersucht wie Verstehen (understanding) und Missverstehen/Missverständnisse (misunderstanding) und verwandte Begriffe im Gemeinsamen Europäischen Referenzrahmen für Sprachen (GERS) dargestellt und diskursiv konstruiert werden. Dabei wird auf deskriptive Ergebnisse und theoretische Einsichten der Forschung zu interkultureller Kommunikation (IK) und Englisch als Lingua Franca (ELF), unter besonderer Bezugnahme auf Business-Kontexte, zurückgegriffen. Die Analyse zeigt, unter Verwendung von korpuslinguistischen Methoden, dass der GERS den interkulturellen und linguistisch vielfältigen Charakter von Interaktionen vielfach als Grund für das Auftreten von Missverständnissen darstellt. Die beobachtbaren Textmuster sind dabei äquivalent mit dem Konzept des „analytischen Stereotypisierens‟ interkultureller Kommunikation (Sarangi 1994: 409), das bereits vor 20 Jahren kritisiert wurde. Der vorliegende Artikel legt nahe, dass das Defizit-Portrait interkultureller Kommunikation im GERS möglicherweise auf der impliziten Fehlannahme beruht, erstsprachige Kommunikation sei stets perfekt und frei von Missverständnissen oder Fehlkommunikation. Eine Abwendung von diesen essentialistischen Sichtweisen hin zu einem realistischeren Konzept von Verstehen/Verständnis als einem gemeinsam auszuhandelnden (in Interaktion stattfindenden) Prozess, wie dies in der Literatur zu BELF und IK zu finden ist, wäre für den Englischunterricht und den Diskurs im Bereich Fachdidaktik sicherlich wünschenswert.

Keywords: English as a lingua franca; intercultural communication; Common European Framework of Reference; misunderstanding; understanding

Schlagworte: Englisch als Lingua Franca; interkulturelle Kommunikation; Gemeinsamer Europäischer Referenzrahmen für Sprachen; Missverständnisse; Verstehen

About the author

Marie-Luise Pitzl

Marie-Luise Pitzl is Assistant Professor for English Applied Linguistics at the University of Vienna, from which she holds a PhD. She has held positions at TU Dortmund and the University of Salzburg and is one of the main compilers of VOICE (Vienna-Oxford International Corpus of English). Her research interests in English as a lingua franca include creativity, metaphors and idioms, miscommunication, pragmatics, corpus studies, business settings, and teacher education.

Published Online: 2015-2-17

Published in Print: 2015-3-1

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Articles in the same Issue

https://doi.org/10.1515/jelf-2015-0009

Keywords for this article

English as a lingua franca; intercultural communication; Common European Framework of Reference; misunderstanding; understanding