Cultural Linguistics and Intercultural Communication

Abstract

Recent years have witnessed the emergence of several new yet complementary approaches to the study of intercultural communication. The fi eld of intercultural communication had been su ering from a dearth of theoretical frameworks and theory building. However, the rapid increase in intercultural communication that has accompanied globalization has inevitably called for conceptual frameworks for exploring the agents, processes, and structures involved in intercultural communication, due to its increased complexity in today’s world (e.g., Holliday, Kullman, and Hyde 2004; Kramsch, this volume; Kecskes, this volume). This chapter provides an account of the development of the emerging fi eld of Cultural Linguistics and its application to the study of intercultural communication beginning with a fi rsthand description of Cultural Linguistics and its development. This will be followed by a discussion of examples of research in Cultural Linguistics focusing on studies of embodied conceptual metaphor together with studies of varieties of English. Finally, the chapter will examine how Cultural Linguistics can be applied to studies of problems in intercultural communication.