Language Professionals and Culture Professionals

The contemporary language industry is characterised by a growing presence of new professions requiring competences in language and technology. Even though it might seem that such developments could marginalise culture-related knowledge, this chapter claims that this is not the case, and that (inter)cultural competence remains an important asset even for the tech-focused professions. The evidence presented for this claim comes from data sources ranging from a literature review to job advertisements and interviews with industry representatives, conducted and collected within the ongoing project UPgrading the SKIlls of Linguistics and Language Students. The project identifies seven competence clusters that it proposes for inclusion in the university education of future language professionals. An (inter)cultural cluster is placed at the core, jointly with the disciplinary (language-related) and transversal knowledge and skills, and is seen as required for all students of languages and linguistics.