Intercultural Communicative Competence
The Niedersachsen Kerncurriculum frames this area as interkulturelle kommunikative Kompetenz, built from Wissen, Einstellungen, Bewusstheit, Verstehen and Handeln. It is tested through the topic-based texts you meet (UK and US contexts, postcolonial settings such as India, Nigeria or South Africa, globalisation, migration, media) and directly in tasks that ask you to explain values, compare cultural practices, take a figure's perspective, or mediate between German and English.
Knowledge that must be accurate
Use concepts precisely: the American Dream as a contested ideological narrative (individual merit vs structural barriers), British class discourse, postcolonial ideas such as othering, hybridity, mimicry and diaspora, and the difference between a country's self-image and its political reality. Imprecise or dated knowledge is penalised more heavily than cautious generalisation.
The essential stance: no essentialism
Describe norms as historically situated tendencies, not national character. "In this novel, the father embodies a patriarchal expectation" is analysable; "Nigerian fathers are patriarchal" is a stereotype and loses marks. Practise Perspektivwechsel: reconstruct a figure's values from what they say, what they avoid and what their context makes possible.
Sprachmittlung (mediation)
When asked to mediate, transfer the message faithfully into the target language, adapt it to the stated addressee and situation, and keep the register. Do not translate word for word, do not add your own opinion, and gloss culture-specific terms briefly where a literal rendering would mislead.
Worked example
Mediation: a German article uses Heimat in a debate about local identity; you must render it for an English-speaking audience. Reasoning: "home" is too narrow (it denotes housing and family), "home country" too national. Better: "a sense of belonging and local rootedness (Heimat)" - it keeps the emotional connotation, signals the term's cultural specificity, and preserves the register of the source. Adding "which Germans are very emotional about" would be an unsupported generalisation and an addition not in the source.
Traps that cost marks
- Stereotyping and over-generalising from one character to a whole culture.
- Anachronism: applying present-day categories to a historical text.
- Opinion in a mediation task - mediation is faithful transfer, not commentary.
- Ignoring the addressee (a letter to a school class needs a different register from an academic summary).
- Dropping the source's hedging ("may", "some argue") and turning a claim into a fact.