Transcultural communication: language, communication and culture through English as a lingua franca in a social network community

Abstract

ABSTRACT SNS (Social Networking Sites) are a ubiquitous social space for many, often involving the use of English as a lingua franca in highly multilingual and multicultural settings. This article presents an ethnographic investigation of communication among a group of international students on a popular SNS. The data illustrates the fluid and complex linguistic and cultural practices present in these social spaces. This has important implications for understanding intercultural communication; in particular, we argue that a transcultural perspective provides a significant new dimension to research in which borders between languages, communities and cultures are transcended, transgressed and transformed.