When this journal started two years ago, the goal was to include papers from all possible sources, looking at the same issues from different positions, representing not only mainstream thinking but also challenging dominant or ‘received’ discourses within the study and teaching of language(s) and intercultural communication. It is for this reason especially that the Editorials of this journal have urged the connection between scholarship and the experience of lived realities. We persist in this goal, seeking, in Molefi Asante’s words, alternative perspectives on phenomena which we might otherwise take for granted or simply overlook. Indeed, the current political climate provides a strong reminder of this imperative. This Editorial is being written at a time of intense international tension and widespread apprehension about the use of military force. While the governments of many of our readers are tying their colours to the mast, many ‘ordinary citizens’ look on with a complex, disaffected mixture of confusion, frustration and apathy. Thankfully, other citizens take to the streets.

The reality, of course, is that the scholarship of intercultural communication is itself still prescribed and still perpetuated by its own political and epistemological discourses. Claire Kramsch (2002) has, for example, already warned about the ideologies inherent in the project of intercultural communication as a structuring, Eurocentric narrative. In fact, in Vandenabeele’s paper in this issue, we are reminded of Lyotard’s (1989:321) warning that:

Conflicting anecdotes, however, serve to show just how hard it is in practical terms to work against these narratives, to speak against received discourses and have a truly international scholarship. On the one hand, a Chinese colleague reports the trouble he is having in negotiating publication by Western publishers, whereas, on the other, a publisher in Hong Kong is setting out to publish and disseminate precisely those authors who offer alternative, Asian points of view on the received wisdoms and writings of Western academia. As Editors of a journal expressly concerned with the politics and practices of language, we are constantly faced with the practical implications and ideological realities of publishing in English. Despite evidence to the contrary, we know always that there are critical voices resounding from the hegemonically enforced borderlands, and still want to make this journal a place where what Mazrui (2001:118) has called ‘cultural silences and cultural perjuries’ are addressed.

Once again, what often appears to be at root here is the need always to question the stock-in-trade assumptions of our scholarship and to face up to the harsh fact that the notion of ‘intercultural communication’ can appear to many, including critical scholars, a bankrupt one. What is intercultural communication? Is not all communication intercultural? What can the study and teaching of intercultural communication really achieve, say, in terms of international negotiations and interethnic relations? Arguably, such seemingly counter-productive questions have a particular urgency at this historical moment. It is entirely appropriate, therefore, that, in this issue, we have papers which, collectively, address such thorny issues as the inevitability of miscommunication, the impossibility of mutual intelligibility and understanding, the myths of common humanity and universal subjectivity, as well as the politics of postmodernity and globalisation, and relations between the theory and (teaching) practice of language in intercultural communication.

Commenting on Derrida’s (1981) earlier ideas about ‘thinking at the limit’ or ‘double writing’, Stuart Hall (1996:1) offers scholars the possibilities of ‘erasure’ – the deconstruction, detotalization and decentering of previously essentialist notions and concepts.

Although Hall speaks specifically of ‘identity’, we believe much the same may be said of ‘culture’ and the notion of ‘intercultural communication’ itself. Like both Hall and Kramsch, therefore, it seems that, however problematic or inadequate our labels, we may be better off opting for their reconceptualization rather than their abandonment. It is not so much the term ‘intercultural communication’ which is at fault as much as it is the ideas which underpin it and the assumptions it engenders.

In the last Editorial we also asked, ‘What prospect for language in intercultural communication ?’. Usefully, the papers in this issue all continue to address this question in some way – and do so from a variety of places and perspectives. We have papers from Scotland, Belgium, Malaysia, England and Australia. We also have papers which are more theoretically-oriented and others which are more practice-based. Where the first paper (Phipps) deals with language, the second paper (Vandenabeele) concerns the broader semiotic of communication. At the same time, we are also taken from Phipps’ concern with ‘agentics’ to Vandenabeele’s interest in a Lyotardian (or Wittgensteinian) ‘agonistics’; in this way, our focus is usefully shifted from language as power and control, to language as play and struggle. Like Phipps, Vandenabeele reminds us that language is not a ‘box of tools’ and, in his own terms, that ‘there are no right or wrong rules for language considered as a totality’. In moving then from the more abstract or theoretical discussions in these first two papers, the other three papers in this issue (Nair-Venugopal, Fayard, DeNooy & Hanna) turn to consider languages and language learning, shifting the focus also from speakers of World Englishes, to English-speakers learning a foreign language.

The inter-connections between the five papers too are multiple. For example, Phipps’ paper starts by drawing its inspiration from Harry Potter, a prime example of a globalized cultural text emerging from the increasingly global publishing industry. Likewise, in her classroom case-study, Fayard considers the value to linguistic and intercultural awareness raising of engaging students in discussions about a popular global media format like Big Brother. Authors also share a concern for the need raised in our last Editorial for a more rooted, action-oriented intercultural awareness. In her paper, for example, Phipps confronts the matter head-on with her initial quote from Harry Potter:

Then, and echoing Shi-xu and John Wilson’s (2001) earlier argument in this journal, Nair-Venugopal also writes:

Communicating successfully … is essentially about the desire and will to accept and to understand the other first (even if only for economic advantage). [emphasis ours]

The multi-perspective tone of this issue is, in fact, also a precursor to an exciting moment in the more modest, localised history of the journal and of its affiliated association as we plan the launch of both in a special panel presentation at the 53^rd annual conference of the International Communication Association (see full-page advertisement in this issue). This event represents the crossing of some important intercultural borders, not least of which is our desire to invite US scholars into what has so far been a largely Europe-based discussion about the theoretical and practical (or pedagogic) role of language and language learning in intercultural communication. Fittingly, Claire Kramsch, who herself is based at an American university and is a member of this journal’s International Advisory Board, will be our guest speaker at the launch event.

In turning to engage more directly with the intercultural communication scholarship of North America, we are certainly not wanting to reinvent the wheel. On the contrary. Between them, two authors in this issue, Vandenabeele and Nair-Venugopal speak of the value of drawing ideas and inspiration from across the interdisciplinary terrain and of not being afraid to return to the wisdoms of earlier writing. This willingness to remain open to voices from elsewhere and before is a positive model for LAIC scholars. The same is true of giving acknowledgement to work already accomplished by colleagues in other cultures, albeit coming out of different historical and socio-political contexts and perspectives. These, in themselves, provide  us with the opportunity to practice what we preach and to understand more clearly where each of us is coming from. Citing Morwenna Griffiths’ idea of the ‘patchwork self’ and Stuart Hall’s idea of ‘suture’, in her paper here Phipps describes processes of identification in terms of ‘stitching, joining, feeling, relating and speaking’. Meanwhile, in his paper, Vandenabeele notes Lyotard’s observation of the way social life is woven together by the ‘multiple threads of language’. To draw further on this recurrent metaphor, therefore, we surely stand to weave a cloth in richer colours through our commitment to expanded inter-disciplinarity, pluralism of debate and ‘real life’ examples of intercultural communication.

In addition to the current political climate and the official launch in the USA of the association and the journal, there is also another factor which hovers over this issue: the fact that the journal is now two years old. This seems a good moment to reflect on some of the key tensions – or cultural rich-points – in discussions amongst scholars from a range of different disciplinary and institutional backgrounds, many of which have appeared in the pages of LAIC. In particular, the moment provides a striking opportunity to ‘re-envision’ what we mean by Language and Intercultural Communication and, most especially, an opportunity to re-address those discussions surrounding the ‘poetics and praxis’ of language(s) and intercultural communication (cf. Killick et al., 2001) and our ongoing struggle to be intercultural in academic word and deed. We are especially pleased to include in this issue the paper by our editorial colleague Alison Phipps which is perfect for situating and restating many of the issues and concerns which are central to our field and, in doing so, helps to set a valuable agenda. As a scholar whose voice and vision has resonated through the unfolding debates of the International Association for Languages and Intercultural Communication, Alison’s contribution in this issue provides a significant marker in the development of the discourse of both the association and the journal, as well as the expression of a critical but humane voice in uncertain times.

If those of us involved in compiling this journal have felt anything missing since LAIC’s launch, it has been more active feedback from our international readership, critiquing not only the papers we include but also the editorial stance. Working within the existing discourse practice of a scholarly journal, our editorial role is inevitably one of gate-keepers in spite of our best efforts to serve instead as moderators or facilitators of an ongoing discussion with, and by, others. It is for this reason precisely that we would welcome any opportunity to open up the Reviews and Criticism section of the journal for critical responses – not quite a Readers’ Letters page but rather short ‘counterpoint’ articles of up to 1500 words. So, if anything in the journal has provoked a reaction you would like to share, please send it to us. As Vandenabeele rightly comments at one point in his paper, consensus is not an end in itself! Equally, if you would care to look at the journal’s webpage to see the themed issues planned, we invite you to submit ideas for other themed issues. We especially welcome submissions and suggestions from Africa, Latin America, Eastern Europe and Asia. As Editors, we have a strong sense that LAIC is gaining in confidence and sense of purpose. If we can be said to have left our infancy behind, with your continued support, contributing papers and forming a critical readership, we hope soon to gain even fuller maturity.

To conclude, and as a way of tying together a number of themes in this editorial: we are reminded that often iconoclastic artists like Picasso learn first to work within the restrictive, conventional styles of the so called Great Masters precisely in order to subvert them with paradigm-shifting paintings like his 1908 Friendship (see box). As teachers, researchers and students, we too are constrained by, but must also strive to resist, the hegemonic practices of our own discourse.

References

Asante, M.K. (2001) Transcultural realities and different ways of knowing. In V.H. Milhouse, M.K. Asante and P.O. Nwosu (eds) Transcultural Realities: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Cross-Cultural Relations (pp. 71-82). London and New York: Sage.

Cameron, D., Frazer, E., Harvey, P., Rampton, B. and Richardson, K. (1992/1999) Power/knowledge: The politics of social science. In A. Jaworski and N. Coupland (eds), The Discourse Reader (pp. 141-157). London: Routledge.

Derrida, J. (1981). Positions (trans. Bass, A.). London: Athlone Press.

Hall, S. (1996). Introduction: Who needs ‘identity’? In S. Hall and P. du Gay (Eds), Questions of cultural identity. London: Sage.

Killick, D., Parry, M. and Phipps, A. (Eds). (2001). Poetics and Praxis of Languages and Intercultural Communication: Proceedings of the Conference at Leeds Metropolitan University, December 1999. Glasgow: University of Glasgow French & German Publications.

Kramsch, C. (2002) In search of the intercultural. Review article in Journal of Sociolinguistics, 6 (2), 275-285.

Lyotard, J-F. (1989) Universal history and cultural differences. In A. Benjamin (ed), The Lyotard Reader (pp. 314-411). Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Mazrui, A. (2001) Historic struggles between Islamic and Christian worldviews. In V.H. Milhouse, M.K. Asante and P.O. Nwosu (eds) Transcultural Realities: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Cross-Cultural Relations (pp. 109-120). London and New York: Sage.

Shi-xu and John Wilson (2001) Will and power: Towards radical intercultural communication research and pedagogy. Language and Intercultural Communication, 1 (1), 76-93.