Proceedings of Intercultural Competence Conference August, 2010, Vol. 1, pp. 220-234 Copyright © 2010 220 EXPLORING INTERCULTURAL COMPETENCE IN A VICTORIAN NOVEL Frank Malgesini Universidad Autónoma de Chihuahua frankmalgesini@yahoo.com Although the characters speak English, Anne Brontë’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall explores interactions among representatives of different speech communities. The protagonist, Helen Graham, moves through communities differing enough from hers to create misunderstandings. Her difficulties can be clarified through Hymes’ model of the speech community and communicative competence, with speakers separated by cultural assumptions rather than linguistic diversity. Helen sometimes fails to perceive conventions that govern other participants and sometimes refuses to submit to those conventions. She compounds her problems through several interaction strategies, judging others by standards derived from her home community, closing off communication when she encounters unexpected responses, preferring solitude to social interaction and communicating through writing rather than face-to-face encounters. These strategies limit Helen’s integration because she remains unaware of her neighbor’s conventions, inadvertently provoking hostility through unconventional conduct and because she uses her own conventions as standards for judging others. Her avoidance of encounters limits her opportunity to improve interaction skills. Helen’s experiences can help readers gain awareness of how differing expectations and lack of empathy can cause misunderstandings and exacerbate cultural differences. L2 readers may recognize parallels between Helen’s experience and their own, leading to greater awareness of issues involved in intercultural competence. When we speak of intercultural communication we tend to focus upon interactions between people who are native speakers of different languages. But it may be possible for speakers of a common language to find themselves in situations where cultural divergence leads to misunderstanding. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Brontë (1848/1966) recounts the history of Helen Graham during two period of her life in which she is seeking to adapt to communities that differ from the one that she grew up in. The first section of the novel describes her experiences in Lindenhope during the months she lives there in 1827-1828 from the perspective of a neighbor, Gilbert Markham. The middle section, recorded in her diary, describes her experiences from 1821 to late 1827, ending five days after the first section began. During this period, she marries Arthur Huntingdon and moves to her husband’s home called Grassdale. In both Lindenhope and Grassdale Helen encounters cultural assumptions unlike those she expects.