ChatGPT and Pluricultural Dialogue in the European Context: A Powerful Tool for Developing Intercultural Communication Resources
ChatGPT and Pluricultural Dialogue in the European Context: A Powerful Tool for Developing Intercultural Communication Resources

Summary/Abstract: The French-language students at the University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine form a sociocultural community due to their large number and group cohesion. They study Romanian for educational purposes, but the learning process involves more than just linguistic or metalinguistic competencies. For pragmatic reasons, study methods and pedagogical strategies are increasingly emphasizing the intercultural dimension, as confirmed and elaborated upon by new European language policies. This study aims to investigate the role of artificial intelligence in intercultural communication, specifically tailored to French students studying at Romanian universities. The starting point involves creating multicultural materials and content with the help of ChatGPT, the AI bot developed by the American company OpenAI and currently the most popular artificial intelligence tool. These materials focus on familiarizing European students with Romanian civilization and culture, but it can serve as a model for interaction between different cultures in any educational setting. The context is defined by the interaction between the cultural backgrounds of international students and the Romanian environment in which they will be immersed for a period of three to six years, depending on their chosen faculty. The goal is to monitor and train the chatbot's algorithms to avoid perpetuating biases or inequities already present in international or even local media. To address these inherent challenges, we must ensure that, in the age of AI, intercultural communication continues to uphold the quality and diversity achieved thus far, transforming ChatGPT into an ally rather than an adversarial competitor to the cordial dialogue between different cultures. Thus, this study intends to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of a chatbot in the still-sensitive field of cultural communication, supported by and aligned with European documents and guidelines that promote pluricultural and plurilingual education.

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