Annals of the University of Oradea: Economic Science (Jul 2013)
L'INTERCOMPREHENSION DANS LE CONTEXTE ENDOLINGUE
Abstract
Porquier (1984) defines the exolingual communication as the communication between individuals who do not share a common language, in opposition to endolingual communication, which is the communication between individuals sharing the same native language. Calling in this opposition, our paper brings forward the problem of intercomprehension and incomprehension in the endolingual space. Intercomprehension is nowadays almost exclusively associated to plurilinguism and a series of curricula of foreign language simultaneous learning. It is considered that the exolingual situation is by excellence a state of communicational risk and its management is more difficult, for it does not guarantee the success in communication. Polarizing the research in this direction unfortunately casts a shadow on the opportunity of debates on intercomprehension in one’s native tongue. And this is due, as Tyvaert (2008) showed, to the fact that “we should avoid pretending from linguistic intercomprehension what cannot be accomplished by intralinguistic intercomprehension”. It is naturally acceptable that the lack of intercomprehension leads to incomprehension, therefore to the misinterpretation or annulment of communication between people speaking the same language. In the context of linguistic training of future economists, we consider that the lack of intercomprehension in one’s native tongue often originates in the deficiencies of speciality knowledge. Therefore, we can state that an economist who does not understand an economic message in his native tongue cannot generate “endolingual intercomprehension”. According to a recent study on a representative sample of students from the Faculty of Economic Sciences of Oradea, we have tried to prove the above hypothesis and to render the students sensitive regarding the study of foreign languages. The results entitle us to consider that the lack of intralingustic intercomprehension (due to deficiencies in the speciality field) leads to incomprehension, diminishes the person’s willingness to start a plurilingual communication, thus compromising the chance of an interlinguistic intercomprehension, so necessary to the contemporary geostrategic space.
