Lenguajes y culturas en contacto

Starting from the concept of intercultural competence proposed by the Council of Europe (1998) and on the basis of the new curricula of the Instituto Cervantes Plan Curricular (2006), in this handbook the authors develop learning activities about Spanish for specific purposes, to find new forms of linguistic transactions and meaning negotiation, to guide students to discover the social dimension of both languages : Legal and Adminitsrative (Dr. Sinatra) and Tourism (Dr. Di Gesù). The text consists of a first theoretical part, by Dr. Sinatra, and a practical part, by both authors, with six units, each of which consists of texts on the different types of language. In the first chapter of the book, Dr. Sinatra reviews the main lines of research involving contact between the cultures and the concept of interculturalism, intercultural communication and the evolution of the characteristics of "intercultural competence". Among the studies that are centred on the concept of "culture", the author chose those based on so-called “Componente de Aprendizaje”, which includes a set of values and rules of life deemed necessary to be able to interact socially and to follow a predetermined set of social norms, even in contexts of teaching and learning. In the second chapter the book explains the role of intercultural awareness in the learning / acquisition of foreign languages.