English as a lingua franca and intercultural communication

This chapter argues that that there is much potential for productive cross-fertilisation between intercultural communication and English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) research. First, ELF is by definition a form of intercultural communication and so offers valuable data for intercultural research. Contemporary approaches in both fields typically adopt post-structuralist perspectives to a number of central concepts such as language, identity, community and culture. Furthermore, both fields are concerned with understanding and documenting multilingual and multicultural communication in which diversity, complexity and fluidity are the norm. ELF research can draw on much of the theoretical and empirical work in intercultural communication for expanded views of identity, culture, community and intercultural competence and awareness. At the same time intercultural communication research can benefit from the extensive empirical and growing theoretical work in ELF studies documenting the relationships between languages, communicative practices, identity, community and culture in the super-diverse and complex scenarios that are typical of intercultural communication through ELF.