English as a lingua franca and interculturality: navigating structure- and process-oriented perspectives in intercultural interactions

Abstract

The growth in streams of online intercultural communication goes hand in hand with the use of English as a lingua franca. In this article, I argue that there are synergies between the theory and analytical notions developed in the frameworks of ELF and Intercultural Studies (specifically the notion of ‘interculturality’). The study of communicative practices in which linguistic and communicative common ground is created in situ can be combined with theoretical reflections on culturality and interculturality coupled with structural and processual understandings of ‘culture.’ The argument is substantiated by the empirical analysis of an interactional sequence in ELF that took place in the context of an online intercultural game.