Source (2/1)

Woods, Charlotte. "Researching and developing interdisciplinary teaching: towards a conceptual framework for classroom communication." Higher Education 54 (2007): 853-866. Electronic.

This article focuses on communication in learning encounters for interdisciplinary academics. After all, the "ability to understand and be understood by a diverse group of specialists is essential" when dealing with large, complex problems. The author outlines communicative abilities, drawing on two theoretical principles (Becher and Trowler's taxonomy of disciplines and Byram's Intercultural Communicative Competence). 


An academic culture is a set of "taken for granted values, attitudes and ways of behaving, which are articulated through and reinforced by recurrent practices,’, ‘‘inseparably intertwined’’ and ‘‘mutually infused’’, with their ‘‘territories’’ (the disciplinary ideas they explore), knowledge forms being largely ‘‘constituted and instantiated socially’’. 


In regards to my project, this article is helpful in defining what "academic communication" entails (attitudes, knowledge, skills of interpreting and relating, skills of discovery and interaction, and critical cultural awareness and political education). Just as it is difficult for two different disciplines to communicate with each, it is difficult for two different cultures to communicate in academics (as well as in other areas).