La cultura lingüística y el componente cultural en la enseñanza de lenguas no maternas: observaciones sobre algunos paradigmas de la competencia cultural

Abstract

The paper discusses some hypotheses of the macro-paradigm of cultural competence which relate to the necessity to integrate language and culture in non-native languages (NNLs) teaching, and proposes an outline of an ecological approach. The comparison of the sociocultural competence and the intercultural competence paradigms, which we include in the former, shows the flaws of both, which have to do in the first case with an essentialist and idealized conception of language and culture, conceived as a homogeneous whole, and in the second, with the opposite view, in which linguistic and cultural heterogeneity is given excessive relevance. A major effect in both cases is the exclusion of part of the reality observed. The model we propose is based on the assumption that the diversity inherent in languages and cultures does not exclude their being interpreted in essentialist terms, according to the (linguistic) culture of the context. We also conceive language acquisition and language learning as a socialization process which takes place inside a network within which the learner is (seen as) an interlocutor, even though because of her circumstances she requires more collaboration of the other members of the network. Such a conception of the learning process, centred on the learner and on the communicative interactions in which she is involved, allows us to situate language learning in a larger perspective which comes close to the insights and concerns which are typical of the ecolinguistics paradigm. We conclude by underlining the relevance of the learner’s (linguistic) culture and the insights of the ecological perspective for the theoretical and methodological discussion on the role of culture in nonnative language learning.