Understanding and misunderstanding in the Common European Framework of Reference: what we can learn from research on BELF and Intercultural Communication

Abstract

Abstract Building on descriptive findings and theoretical insights from research on Intercultural Communication (IC) and English as a lingua franca (ELF), with a special emphasis on research in business contexts (i.e., BELF), this article examines how understanding and instances of miscommunication such as misunderstanding or breakdown are represented and discursively constructed in the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) (Council of Europe 2001). Using corpus linguistic methods, the analysis shows how the intercultural and linguistically diverse nature of interactions is portrayed as leading to – and being responsible for – the occurrence of misunderstanding in the CEFR. The observed patterns are equivalent to “analytic stereotyping” (Sarangi 1994: 409) of intercultural communication criticized by scholars already twenty years ago. The present paper argues that the deficit portrait of intercultural communication in the CEFR may be based on a number of implicit logical fallacies, such as the idealized notion that L1 communication is perfect and devoid of miscommunication. It is suggested that (E)LT discourse and language teaching practice would benefit from abandoning these essentialist concepts in favor of a more realistic approach to understanding as a jointly negotiated and interactional process as is proposed by many (B)ELF and IC researchers.