Redefining Communicative Competence in Academic Interviews

An international graduate student in the US needs to be grammatically, syntactically, semantically, pragmatically, culturally, and conversationally competent in interviews. S/he must also be a critical reader and a positive participant within communicative events to ensure academic success. This qualitative study suggests that aspects of conversational competence and the use of language as indicators of power typical of American academic interviews be included in our current conceptualization of communicative competence.