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Review of Cognitive Linguistics
Vol. 15:1 (2017) ► pp.224–252

A plea for a socio-cognitive perspective on the language-culture-cognition nexus in educational approaches to intercultural communicative competence

| Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, Poland
| Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, Poland

Intercultural communicative competence (ICC) links three notions, i.e. language, culture and cognition, which are declared crucial in approaches to ICC in educational context. Despite the announced importance of the notions, none of the ICC models specifies the relationship between these elements in a motivated way and hence unjustified dichotomies arise. Educational approaches to ICC can be divided into cognitive or social ones with the former emphasizing an autonomous nature of language, culture and cognition and the latter focusing on social aspects and thus marginalizing cognition. The article aims to stress the need for a socio-cognitive approach to ICC which will view language, culture and cognition in a holistic way. While this approach is based on complexity science, cognitive psychology, grounded cognition and intercultural pragmatics, we demonstrate that cognitive linguistics can become an encompassing framework for a holistic model of ICC.

Keywords: ICC, socio-cognitive approach, language-culture-cognition nexus, cognitive linguistics
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The language-culture-cognition nexus in educational approaches to ICC
    • 2.1A cognitive perspective
    • 2.2A social perspective
  • 3.A socio-cognitive perspective on the language-culture-cognition nexus
  • 4.A socio-cognitive perspective on the language-culture-cognition nexus in ICC
    • 4.1The architecture of embodied cognition
    • 4.2Developing ICC within embodied cognition
    • 4.3Towards a socio-cognitive approach to developing ICC in educational settings
      • 4.3.1Common ground in intercultural communication
      • 4.3.2Core common grounds in intercultural communication
      • 4.3.3Linguistic and communicative competences in developing ICC
      • 4.3.4Meaning construction and developing ICC in educational settings
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Note
  • References


This article is currently available as a sample article.

Published online: 4 September 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/rcl.15.1.09str
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