Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Identifier

4774

Date

2016

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

English

Concentration

Applied Linguistics

Committee Chair

Teresa S Dalle

Committee Member

Emily Thrush

Committee Member

Angela Thevenot

Committee Member

Joseph Jones

Abstract

In this collective instrumental case study, the focus was on understanding the issue of Intercultural Competence within Saudi academic migrants. The purpose of this study was to determine how Saudi academic migrants gain intercultural competence through the development of attitudes, knowledge, and skills, as defined by Deardorff’s (2006) process model of intercultural competence. This study investigated which experiences led to their development of intercultural competence and whether any development matched the affective, cognitive, and behavioral orientations identified as necessary for appropriate and effective communication and behavior in intercultural situations.The process and procedures used to identify this information were a collection of twelve participant reflective journals and four semi-structured interviews used to construct two case studies describing how Saudi academic migrants perceived and described their development of intercultural competence. The utilization of in-vivo coding permitted the participants own words to guide the case studies and allow the reader to better understand interpretations of the participants’ cultural experiences and development of intercultural competence.Findings indicate a variety of common and divergent examples, topics, themes, and categories that describe Saudi academic migrant development of intercultural competence. The participants perceived the importance of intercultural competence and, through critical reflection, were able to describe impactful instances of their developing abilities to communicate and behave effectively and appropriately in a variety of intercultural situations. Findings also indicate the efficacy of the Deardorff process model of intercultural competence with Saudi academic migrants. Complete case studies, along with case comparison and analysis of the heuristic model, are presented in this study and answer research calls for non-Western perspectives on intercultural competence.

Comments

Data is provided by the student.

Library Comment

Dissertation or thesis originally submitted to the local University of Memphis Electronic Theses & dissertation (ETD) Repository.

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