La comunicazione interculturale è il filo rosso che attraversa quasi tutti i contributi di questo volume. Negli ultimi venti anni tale nozione è stata esplorata e, più recentemente, rivisitata in una prospettiva ELF in diverse aree di ricerca come, ad esempio, la comunicazione strategica d’affari, la consapevolezza interculturale, l’insegnamento delle lingue, la formazione docenti, i discorsi socioculturali, così come gli stessi studi interculturali. Scopo di questo libro è fornire ai lettori una selezione di articoli recenti e stimolanti, nonché contribuire alla fiorente crescita di pubblicazioni su ELF. Il libro è diviso in tre parti, che coprono tre temi principali: 1) ELF, insegnamento delle lingue e la formazione dei docenti; 2) La comunicazione in contesti migratori e plurilingui; atteggiamenti e interazioni; 3) ELF nel mondo degli affari e in quello universitario. Il volume contiene ventiquattro capitoli scritti da studiosi e ricercatori che hanno partecipato al Convegno Internazionale ELF6, svoltosi a Roma presso l’Università Roma Tre nel 2013. I contributi si fondano sulle presentazioni da loro fatte in occasione di tale convegno.

The use of English as a global lingua franca has given rise to new challenges and approaches in our understanding of language and communication. One area where ELF (English as a lingua franca) studies, both from an empirical and theoretical orientation, have the potential for significant developments is in our understanding of the relationships between language, culture and identity. ELF challenges traditional assumptions concerning the purposed 'inexorable' link between a language and a culture. Due to the multitude of users and contexts of ELF communication the supposed language, culture and identity correlation, often conceived at the national level, appears simplistic and naïve. However, it is equally naïve to assume that ELF is a culturally and identity neutral form of communication. All communication involves participants, purposes, contexts and histories, none of which are 'neutral'. Thus, we need new approaches to understanding the relationship between language, culture and identity which are able to account for the multifarious and dynamic nature of ELF communication.

This book investigates the cultural and intercultural aspects of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF). Authors discuss how ‘culture’ and the ‘intercultural’ can be understood, theorised and operationalised in ELF, and how the concepts can be integrated into formats of ELF-oriented learning and teaching. The various cultural connotations are also discussed (ideological, political, religious and historical) and whether it is possible to use and/or teach a lingua franca as if it were culturally neutral. The chapters consider the communication and pedagogical implications of the cultural and intercultural dimensions of ELF and offer suggestions for new directions in ELF research, pedagogy and curriculum development.

English as a Lingua Franca, or ELF for short, is currently one of the most dynamic topics in the fields of applied and socio-linguistics and English Language Teaching. It has been a thriving field of research for the last twenty years with a growing number of books and journals dedicated to the subject. The field has also seen the foundation of an annual international ELF conference series, which started in 2008 and attracts growing numbers year on year. This book has developed out of contributions to the Second International ELF conference held in Southampton (UK) in 2009. The papers in this volume provide new insights into ELF, by presenting and exploring the implications of some of the latest findings of empirical research in key ELF research areas including business and academic ELF, intercultural communication, language attitudes and ideologies, code-switching, and accommodation. These papers will have a broad appeal among applied- and socio-linguists, both academics and under/post-graduate students, as well as ELT practitioners around the world. They will also be of interest to language planners because of the potential of the research to inform English language policies and practices.

This textbook provides a succinct, contemporary introduction to intercultural communication with a focus on actual language use. With English as a lingua franca and Communicative Accommodation Theory as the underpinning concepts, it explores communication, language use, and culture in action. Each chapter includes discourse extracts so that students can apply what they have learned to real text examples, and supplementary instructor materials including suggestions for discussion points and activities are hosted on springer.com. The book will be key reading for students taking modules on Intercultural Communication or Language, Culture and Communication as part of a degree in Linguistics and Applied Linguistics, or English Language both at undergraduate and postgraduate level.

What is intercultural communication? How does perspective shape a person’s definition of the key tenets of the term and the field? These are the core questions explored by this accessible global introduction to intercultural communication. Each chapter explores the topic from a different geographic, religious, theoretical, and/or methodological perspective, with an emphasis on non-Western approaches, including Buddhist, South American, Muslim, and Chinese perspectives. Featuring the voices of a range of international contributors, this new textbook presents the full breadth of diverse approaches to intercultural communication and showcases the economic, political, and cultural/societal needs for and benefits of communicative competence.

This book illustrates new virtual intercultural practices for language learning from primary to tertiary education and highlights the transversality of these practices throughout the language curriculum. The current English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) perspective sets the framework as a possible vector of cultural exchanges in a variety of contexts, and from which the different authors coming from Europe and all over the world present their studies. The book deploys diverse educational exchanges within a wide range of technological tools and with varied approaches to the intercultural dimension in language learning. Through these virtual exchanges, different languages and educational cultures come together to create emerging communities of practice co-constructed for the limited time-space of the collaborative projects. This volume opens a dialogue with researchers from different backgrounds and theoretical and methodological perspectives as technology can no longer be apprehended without its purposeful human and semiotic meanings and, conversely, human and semiotic meanings can no longer be apprehended without Information and Communication Technology (ICT). Going beyond strict polarised views on the technology or humanistic approaches, this book presents a more nuanced, interrelated stance and will appeal to researchers, scholars, post graduate students, and teachers in applied linguistics, language learning and teaching, education, information studies, cultural studies, and intercultural communication.

Studies of intercultural communication in applied linguistics initially focused on miscommunication, mainly between native and non-native speakers of English. The advent of the twenty-first century has witnessed, however, a revolution in the contexts and contents of intercultural communication; technological advances such as chat rooms, emails, personal weblogs, Facebook, Twitter, mobile text messaging on the one hand, and the accelerated pace of people's international mobility on the other have given a new meaning to the term 'intercultural communication'. Given the remarkable growth in the prevalence of intercultural communication among people from many cultural backgrounds, and across many contexts and channels, conceptual divides such as 'native/non-native' are now almost irrelevant. This has caused the power attached to English and native speaker-like English to lose much of its automatic domination. Such developments have provided new opportunities, as well as challenges, for the study of intercultural communication and its increasingly complex nature. This book showcases recent studies in the field in a multitude of contexts to enable a collective effort towards advancements in the area.

Some of the most frequent questions surrounding business negotiations address not only the nature of such negotiations, but also how they should be conducted. The answers given by business people from different cultural backgrounds to these questions are likely to differ from the standard answers found in business manuals. In her book, Milene Mendes de Oliveira investigates how Brazilian and German business people conceptualize and act out business negotiations using English as a Lingua Franca. The frameworks of Cultural Linguistics, English as a Lingua Franca, World Englishes, and Business Discourse offer the theoretical and methodological grounding for the analysis of interviews with high-ranking Brazilian and German business people. Moreover, a side study on e-mail exchanges between Brazilian and German employees of a healthcare company serves as a test case for the results arising from the interviews, and helps understand other facets of authentic intercultural business communication. Offering new insights on English as a Lingua Franca in international business contexts, Business Negotiations in ELF from a Cultural Linguistic Perspective simultaneously provides a detailed cultural-conceptual account of business negotiations from the viewpoint of Brazilian and German business people and a secondary analysis of their pragmatic aspects.

Bloomsbury World Englishes offers a comprehensive and rigorous description of the facts, implications and contentious issues regarding the forms and functions of English in the world. International experts cover a diverse range of varieties and topics, offering a more accurate understanding of English across the globe and the various social contexts in which it plays a significant role. With volumes dedicated to research paradigms, language ideologies and pedagogies, the collection pushes the boundaries of the field to go beyond traditional descriptive paradigms and contribute to moving research agendas forward. Volume 3: Pedagogies addresses the teaching of English as a world language. Chapters in this volume consider the teaching and learning of English(es) from a range of perspectives and on the basis of experiences and research from many parts of the world.