Context-sensitive strategies for effective intercultural communication in English-Medium Instruction

Velilla Sánchez, Mª Ángeles

En : The Pragmatics of Metadiscourse: Insights from Intercultural and Cross-Cultural Communication
2026
The Gruyter Mouton Berlin
ISBN: 9783111388793
Pp: 93-112

Resumen: There is an undeniable need to know more about how those engaged in international teaching-learning academic activities employ English in their daily practices. Particularly, the growing use of English language for university purposes (i.e., to teach, learn and research) together with the international mobility of people and the homogenizing progression in global HE have given rise to a greater contact and interconnectedness among people at the university, often with very different linguistic and cultural backgrounds (Björkman 2008). Hence, this paper reports on a study of English-medium instruction practices at the University of Zaragoza (Spain), focusing on the pragmatic strategies participants use to facilitate understanding. These linguistic practices were analyzed under the scope of English as a lingua franca in academic settings. Results derive from the analysis of a corpus of 12 EMI lectures recorded in two different programs. A Discourse-Pragmatic approach was used to analyze these data sets. The results of the study show that 13 different pragmatic strategies were used by the lecturers in order to fulfil communicative functions such as enhancing explicitness.

Nota: Postprint

DOI: 10.1515/9783111388847-005