Abstract
Intercultural communication has become increasingly important due to the growing internationalization of higher education, even outside the English-speaking world. Similar to multinational corporations, academic environments are believed to be one of the best examples of a social space where English is a lingua franca. In this paper, we question this claim. Focusing on the case of foreign-born scholars who hold academic positions in Poland, a country where the number of international faculty members and researchers is low, we conducted 100 biographically oriented in-depth interviews about their work at Polish universities and their language issues. This sociological qualitative approach enabled us to identify both the domains where English fluency is an asset and the “black holes” (bureaucratic issues, teaching, research collaboration) where English language communication is either impossible or impeded. The study also identifies the facilitators (cultural intermediaries) and strategies (e.g., intercomprehension and niche lingua francas) used to overcome language barriers.
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