Rhetoric and Communications, Issue 4, July 2012 Todor Shopov Intercomprehension Analysis Abstract: The paper explores the topic of Intercomprehension Analysis as the theoretical study of the phenomenon or basic research on receptive language behavior. The practical applications of the inquiry into Intercomprehension are referred to as Applied Intercomprehension research and development. Keywords: Intercomprehension, Modular Intercomprehension Model, communicative language competence. Acknowledgement: This paper is a revised version of Chapter 11 in "Understanding Babel": an Essay in Intercomprehension Analysis" available at http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Babel- Essay-Intercomprehending-Analysis/dp/9540717787 . INTRODUCTION The study of the phenomenon of Intercomprehension may take either a theoretical or a practical orientation. We must make this distinction because Intercomprehension Analysis is a discipline in its own right. In the area of languages, it can be compared, and contrasted for that matter with Language Teaching Methodology, Translation and Interpreting, Language Typology, etc. I shall take the term Intercomprehension Analysis to denote the theoretical study of the phenomenon or basic research. The practical applications of the inquiry into Intercomprehension will be referred to as Applied Intercomprehension research and development. In fact, Franz-Joseph Meißner has established the “didactics of multilingualism” (Mehrsprachigkeitsdidaktik) as an independent discipline, (http://www.uni-giessen.de/~gb1041/institutpersonen/meissner ) [1]. So I shall consider all issues related to the teaching, studying and learning of Intercomprehension as belonging to the field of Applied Intercomprehension. For example, the study of the methods of raising language learners awareness of Intercomprehension will be regarded as a type of applied research (the ILTE project for example deems awareness-raising as “the most essential facet of Intercomprehension”) [7]. In the same way, I shall consider aspects of intercultural communication by means of Intercomprehension as types of applied research. In short, the theoretical findings and the description of the Intercomprehension phenomenon need to be rendered into a new teaching and learning paradigm, that is, a specific methodology should be designed. Moreover, language teacher training (pre-service and in-service) should take a new orientation. I think it is Applied Intercomprehension that is to undertake these somewhat Olympian tasks [32]. ON DEFINING INTERCOMPREHENSION English dictionaries do not include the word intercomprehension. It has been coined to describe the perspective, which stresses the legitimacy of the universality of a language user’s receptive proficiency. The word is related to terms like interlanguage suggested by Selinker (1972/1992) [2], which in turn was adapted from Weinreich’s term interlingual used in his well-known book Languages in Contact (1953). In fact, John Reinecke (1969) [3] first used the term interlanguage to refer to non-standard varieties of L1 or L2 in a study of the language and dialect in Hawaii. The notion of Intercomprehension is associated also with the concepts of intercultural communication,