Language & Intercultural Communication
Editor: Dr John Corbett (University of Glasgow)
Associate Editor: Robert Crawshaw (Lancaster University)
Reviews and Criticism Editor: Dr Fiona J. Doloughan (University of Surrey)
Editorial Board: Gavin Jack (University of Stirling)
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Volume: 8 Number: 1 Page: 21–35
doi:10.2167/laic298.0
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Intercultural Communication and the Challenges of Migration
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Jef Verschueren
Faculty of Arts, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium and Monash University, Melbourne, Australia
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This paper discusses some basic properties of intercultural communication (treated from the point of view of linguistic pragmatics as fundamentally similar to any other form of communication, and emphasising the need to move radically away from any essentialist substantiation of ‘culture’) against the background of contexts of migration. Three fields of tension are distinguished in the way in which meanings are generated under (predominantly institutional) conditions of asymmetric power relationships: the tension between communicative intentions and inferencing processes; the tension between culture-related assumptions and what is actually said; and the tension between legal frames of interpretation and the intrinsic properties of life stories.
Keywords: intercultural communication, migration, power relationships
© 2008 J. Verschueren
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