Cultural exploration of self-perceived communication competence in Iranian Kurdish and Armenian subcultures

Research has indicated that variation exists in self-perceived communication competence (SPCC) of different cultures. The present study attempted to investigate whether variationalso exists in SPCC of people from subcultures of the same larger culture. To this end, 60 students from Kurdish subculture (residing in Kermanshah Province) and 60 students fromArmenian subculture (residing in Isfahan Province) participated in the study. SPCC instrument was employed for collecting data. The students were asked to rate how communicatively competent (from 0=completely incompetent to 100=completely competent)they were in numerous communicative contexts (public, meeting, group and dyad) and withdifferent receivers (strangers, acquaintance and friends). The students’ mean scores were tested for significance through t-test. The results indicated that despite the Kurdishsubculture’s superiority in the average score of most subcategories, these two subcultures significantly differed in four subcategories of SPCC (meeting, dyad, acquaintance andfriend). Yet, no statistically significant difference was observed in communication withstrangers and in public and group communication contexts. Moreover, both groups’ SPCC scores were compared with those of other subcultures and cultures such as Azeri and Arab subcultures, Iranian culture in general and American culture. Implications of the study are also discussed.

Keywords:

Self-perceived communication competence (SPCC) , Kurdish subculture , Armenian subculture , willingness to communicate (WTC)