Course description
The module is tailor-made for the students taking part in the Globalization Programme and it will introduce them to the field of Intercultural Communication and the role it plays in multilingual and multicultural encounters. The module aims to equip students with essential knowledge and skills to understand the intercultural richness and complexities of their daily life during their transformative sojourn in Venice and prepare them for living in a global world. The importance of intercultural communication competence is widely recognised by international employers as a key graduate skill, by the Common European Framework for Languages (CEFR), and it is one of the UNESCO goals to promote mutual understanding and respect for diversity to create inclusive and peaceful societies (UNESCO Intercultural Dialogue).

Globalisation is shrinking the world and technology is bringing cultural and linguistic diversity into closer contact than it was ever possible before. In a fast-evolving multicultural and multilinguistic landscape physical and virtual encounters across cultural difference with diversity are a daily reality, and there is therefore a need to be aware of and have strategies to decipher, interpret, and adjust to it in fair and meaningful ways. These must be based on an open and pluralistic approach and also on critical awareness of one's own culture/s and identities. Starting from students' own experience of living and studying in an international environment in which English is used as a lingua franca, the module will allow students to navigate linguistically and culturally complex environments and respond appropriately and effectively when interacting with others. The module aims to ensure that their Venice Globalization Program experience is a rich journey of self-discovery and a foundation for their global citizenship identity.

The module will allow students to explore communication, identity, culture, diversity and othering in a wide range of social contexts and media, and to apply them to their own personal daily experience. Thanks to the global nature of the programme, students are already naturally situated in an inspiring, international, multilingual and multicultural learning environment where diversity is highly valued. Taking advantage of this, students will benefit from reflective weekly seminar discussion. Drawing from the module core readings students will identify, describe, and interpret encounters in which communication can break down and intercultural conflicts arise, and develop strategies to prevent and resolve intercultural conflicts.

Syllabus

• Introduction to Intercultural Communication information about the module
• Understanding culture/s
• Intercultural transitions: immigration, culture shock, and acculturation
• Understanding communication models of communication
• Diversity, globalisation, and multiculturalism
• Language and identity in intercultural encounters
• Perception and categorisation cultural and linguistic prejudice and bias
• Culture and value orientations a critique of Hofstede's model
• Verbal and non-verbal communication as a barrier
• Mass media and cultural change
• Becoming an intercultural communicator

Adopting and interdisciplinary approach, the module syllabus will explore intercultural communication systematically. Students will be introduced to up-to-date notions of culture, communication and identity central in a global world in which economic and social forces push towards homogenization and localisation process.

The module covers identity formation and interaction between and within groups, identifying processes such as convergence and divergence which can create either cohesion or exclusion, by including or otherising / excluding participants in social interaction. Culture and identity are defined in a non-essentialist way, as fluid, dynamic, always contextually constructed and essentially transformative.

Stereotyping and prejudice are explored through notions of banal nationalism, otherisation, and language dominance, such as in the case of English as an international language, and language discrimination when varieties of the same language are given different value.

Verbal and non-verbal communication is explored drawing from theoretical studies and building on students' personal experieces to show how they can create barriers to intercultural exchanges, potentially leading to breakdown in communication and pragmatics failures.

The relationship between language, culture and identity is explored through linguistic relativism, cultural differences in communication styles, and a critical approach to Hofstede's cultural dimensions. The richness of non-verbal communication is explored both theoretically and in an ethnographic way by observation of NVC in intra-Italian exchanges they come across during their everyday sojourn in Italy, and reflecting on how group identity is created through non-verbal communication and its untranslatability and difficulty to learn for outsiders.

Finally, the module explores the dynamics and challenges of interpersonal and international global conflicts and resolutions, with attention paid to those arising from migration phenomena, cultural shock, processes and stages of integration and assimilation and, through role play, develop effective communicative responses. Here the module takes a proactive orientation and applies the theoretical foundation to develop intercultural communication skills to understand and manage conflicts.

Teaching methods
The module will be taught through a blend of weekly lectures, seminar discussions, group and individual activities which involve also ethnographic and experiential learning. Students will be at the centre of the teaching and learning experience and will be supported to become active, autonomous, and critical learners. The module is designed to foster collaboration and knowledge sharing, and students will have weekly opportunities to share their learning experience on Padlets, Flipgrid, during seminars and in group presentations.

Guest speakers:

1. Dana Blockman, interpreter for the EU
2. Dr Renata Sperandio, ex Director of the Italian Cultural Institute in New York and Dublin

The guest speakers will provide students with concrete examples of the role played by intercultural communication in their professional life in international contexts.

Extracurricular activities:

1. Eno-gastronomical experience in a bacaro (Venetian tavern) to sample cicchetti and ombre (local appetisers and small glasses of wine) to understand their history in Venetian food culture and roles in the socialization processes and identity formation of Venetian people.
2. Visit to the Museo Mondonovo Maschere in Venice (Museo Mondonovo Maschere - Musei AltoVicentino) to understand a key cultural event (the carnevale).
3. Intercultural Venice shorts an open-event organised by the tutor and students to which all VIU students and staff will be invited. This will be an opportunity for students to showcase the short films students produce as part of their assessment and engage in discussion with the audience.

Teaching Assessment 

1. 30% of module credits: 750-word reflective piece based on an example chosen by each student. Throughout the module, students are encouraged to take note of their intercultural encounters and critical incidents encountered during their Globalisation Programme studying experience at VIU and share them during the weekly module seminars. For their summative piece, they choose ONE intercultural interaction / encounter / critical incident they have experienced directly or witness and 1) describe it briefly, and 2) write a reflection drawing on aspects of the module (theories, concepts, discussions, readings) that have helped them understand it better. The reflective piece aims to support the development of critical and non-essentialist readings of encounters with cultural others.
2. 30% of module credits: 750-word piece of writing based on one Padlet contribution. During the module, students will be asked to complete weekly Padlet activities, either individually or at times in small groups, which are shared during the module seminars. For the summative piece, student choose one Padlet contribution and drawing from the module key concepts and readings, they discuss it through a critical intercultural lens.
3. 40% of the module credits: a max 3 minutes video in English. Students will work autonomously in small international groups to produce a short film (max 3 minutes) based on an intercultural encounter they have experienced or observed during their stay in Venice. The video can include interview/s with key stakeholders and/or presentations by the students, etc. Possible topics are: global and local cultures in Venice, processes of otherization between tourists and locals in Venice, English as a lingua franca in the tourist industry, cultures/ and identities in Venice, etc.

Bibliography/Recommended Reading

Bennett, Milton. (2013) Basic concepts of intercultural communication: Paradigms, principles, and practices. Hachette UK.

Bennett, J. M. (2008). On becoming a global soul: A path to engagement during study abroad. In Developing intercultural competence and transformation (pp. 13-31). Routledge.

Hofstede, G. (2001). Culture's consequences: Comparing values, behaviors, institutions and organizations across nations. Sage publications.

Holliday, A., Kullman, J., and Hyde, M. (2010) Intercultural Communication: An advanced resource book, Routledge.

Holliday, Adrian. Intercultural communication: An advanced resource book for students. Routledge, 2021.

Hua, Z. (2018). Exploring intercultural communication: Language in action. Routledge.

Jandt, Fred E. (2015) An Introduction to Intercultural Communication: Identities in a Global Community. Sage.

Jackson, J. (2015). Becoming interculturally competent: Theory to practice in international education. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 48, 91-107.

Jackson, J. (2014) Introducing Language and Intercultural Communication, London: Routledge.

Jackson, J. (ed) (2012). The Routledge Handbook of Language and Intercultural Communication. Taylor & Francis Group, 2011.

Liu, S., Volcic, Z., and Gallois, C. (2014) Introducing Intercultural Communication, London: Sage.

Piller, I. (2017) Intercultural Communication, Edinburgh University Press.

Root, E., & Ngampornchai, A. (2013). "I Came Back as a New Human Being" students descriptions of intercultural competence acquired through education abroad experiences. Journal of Studies in International Education, 17(5), 513-532.

Savicki, V. (Ed.). (2023). Developing intercultural competence and transformation: Theory, research, and application in international education. Taylor & Francis.

Spencer-Oatey, H., & Franklin, P. (2009). Intercultural interaction: A multidisciplinary approach to intercultural communication. Springer.

Course duration: 40 hours of tuition
Credits equivalence: 6 ECTS

Last updated: August 6, 2026