Intercultural Semantics : Meaning-Making, Metalanguage, and Migration

This volume sets out a new framework for intercultural semantics, an approach to understanding the complexities of meaning-making in language encounters across cultural boundaries, with a particular focus on those shaped by migration.

This volume sets out a new framework for intercultural semantics, an innovative approach to making sense of the complexities of meaning-making in language encounters through the lens of migration. The book moves beyond structuralist approaches and research on English as an international language for a meaning-centered perspective to the study of language and communication. With “language migrants” moving from one linguistic sphere to another in which their lives and livelihoods depend on acquiring new languages, the volume makes the case for a new framework that bridges diverse sub-disciplines across linguistics with that of semantic work on meaning to better understand these realities. The first section introduces the theoretical foundations, drawing on work from migration linguistics, linguistic worldview, and cross-cultural and intercultural pragmatics. The second part highlights case studies across different domains in the Danish context, from children in society to the workplace to interpersonal relationships to climate and the environment, with implications for other geographic contexts. The final section addresses the metalinguistic, idiomatic, technological, and intercultural challenges of intercultural semantics toward outlining future directions for this area of study. This book will appeal to scholars interested in semantics, pragmatics, language and culture, language learning and teaching, and migration studies.