| Within the framework of communicative competence and ability, Hymes? sociolinguistic and van Ek?s sociocultural competence fundamentally shed light on judging one?s language mastery, beyond linguistics per se. It is fully grounded to perceive language use in conjunction with a particular context and culture. Yet, both models inherently have a propensity to posit the native speaker of English as the underlying reference. Given the status of English as a global language that comes to play roles in Asia, such a paradigm needs redefining. In particular, its capacity to appear in the guise of ?New Englishes? in Crystal?s term brings about a new perspective on the sociolinguistic and sociocultural competence. This paper argues that this tacit ability should be viewed from intercultural dimensions in which language use is established by a mutual perception of the social identity of the interlocutors. It is this shared ground that eventually becomes the hallmark of human interaction, surpassing mechanical information exchanges. |