![]() ![]() The Committee of the Regions, comprising – despite the name – representatives of regions and local governments – has an advisory function, and is only asked to give its opinion on matters which have particular consequences for regional and local policies. Indeed, by acknowledging that English (maritime and otherwise) is spoken in a wide range of different accents by speakers of extremely mixed abilities, our paper will posit that a methodological focus on strategies of signification across manifold signifying systems and cultural frameworks allows us to present intercomprehension as a heuristic concept, and thus contribute to better-targeted teaching tools and learning outcomes.What many would regard as the flagship of the new role for intermediate and local levels in the EU structure, the Committee of Regions, does not quite exert the influence many expected it would when it was established. Designed to address precisely these very issues, the INTERMAR project – a consortium of communication specialists based at maritime and naval academies across Europe – accordingly proposes the notion of intercomprehension to demonstrate the necessity of recognizing the ‘intercultural’ aspects of communication alongside its purely linguistic ones. The matter moreover becomes especially pressing in situations not covered by IMO-approved phrasing, yet which in practice may prove just as hazardous. ![]() For, even if mastery of SMCP already significantly reduces the inherent risks of maritime misunderstanding, matters such as pronunciation and prosody remain sufficiently important to warrant complementary communicative competences. Straightforward as this may seem in principle, the reality of performing an officer’s duties while working with an international and multilingual crew however often entails ‘navigating’ the hazards of mutual incomprehension. I do not believe it is possible to understand the context I describe without the anecdotal narrative.Īccording to the Seafarer’s Training, Certification and Watchkeeping Code (STCW), a crucial competence for any officer in charge of a navigational watch concerns the correct use of IMO Standard Marine Communication Phrases (SMCP) as well as a more general use of English in written and oral form. I use this partly as a counterbalance to more formal writing I have already published on this same subject, but partly because I have come to believe that formal academic writing can take the life and energy out of what is a very dynamic, lived profession and can exclude some highly relevant local data. Anecdotal narrated experience would not normally be included in standard academic writing. After briefly summarizing my model of method-in-use developed and modified from my earlier PhD study (Nunn 1996), I will narrate some of the episodes that could not be included in an examined study or in standard journal articles, but which help support the perception of the need to describe real local experience and to look below the surface of polished academic study. ![]() By comparing experiences of unique teaching situations across diverse contexts, we attempt to learn from the local experience of others, help to make sense of local experience for ourselves and help others to make sense of their own experience. I have therefore selected the two most different situations I could find from my own experience and from my research and then used the same model to compare them. For cross-cultural comparison to be possible at all, we have to assume that there is something in common between even the most divergent teaching contexts. ![]() P.55 in the attached volume My paper will not have a single focus, but the unifying central theme will be the description of the method actually being enacted in particular contexts (method-in-use) to help us compare unique experiences across contexts. ![]()
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