When culture becomes relevant in intercultural lingua franca communication

Abstract

Literature has argued that (a) culture makes intercultural communication more prone to miscommunication and that (b) culture is a non-issue in intercultural communication. The former has been linked to differences in cultural norms and communicative practices, while the latter has been attributed to the existence of cultural differences even in intracultural communication. While it is true that culture is not always a relevant factor in intercultural communication, it is also true that culture can cause a rift between interactants. In this paper, I explore when culture becomes a relevant factor in intercultural lingua franca communication and under what circumstances interactants make reference to cultural differences. Drawing on data from a wide variety of intercultural encounters observed in informal interactions collected across East Asia and South-East Asia, this paper examines the relevance of culture in intercultural communication and looks at how interactants construe their identity as situated in their respective cultural backgrounds.