Intercultural Interaction Dynamics at the Intersection of Globalised English and Technologically Mediated Communication

The global prevalence of English in an AI-transformed international arena is creating a rampant homogenization of cultural trends, leaving multifaceted effects on language education and the linguistic landscape worldwide. With the dominant proliferation of English that accompanied the rise of technology at the beginning of the twenty-first century, higher education institutions were forced to change their educational agendas, academic priorities, pedagogical practices, and training models. Consequently, tertiary education worldwide witnessed constant expansion across several academic trends, such as the use of English as a Medium of Instruction, the emergence of international academic cooperation initiatives, and the rise of global ranking agencies, further entrenching the globalized status of English in academia. With the growing progress and scalability of technological resources and applications and the recent pandemic-prompted transition to online education platforms, scholarly debates about globalized English shifted the focus on English education from a mere lingua franca of academic and professional settings to a technology-driven medium of global communication. The rapidly changing scene that affected education processes globally continued to reshape L2 educational frameworks at the tertiary level, leading to paradigm shifts in language curricula and instruction and necessitating parallel modifications in the relevant scholarly agenda. Challenged by the mainstreaming of linguistically biased and pragmatically restricted AI applications, non-native English users face several limitations in their intercultural interaction with native English users across English as a Foreign Language/English as a Second Language (EFL/ESL) settings and beyond. The risks of these recent trends on cross-cultural communication include overemphasizing the cultural components of dominant cultures, disadvantaging cultures with lower digital visibility, and undermining the effectiveness of cross-cultural interaction.Considering these developments, it has become necessary to redefine key aspects of technologically mediated intercultural interaction in academic settings where English is used as a foreign/second language. Concepts that need to be re-examined by respective studies include cultural identities, cultural loyalty, intercultural sensitivity, political conflict and power dynamics, cultural misunderstanding, intercultural conflict factors and management mechanisms, as well as facets of intercultural cooperation. Moreover, it has become imperative to assess the role of AI tools in human intercultural and intracultural interaction and aspects of AI-mediated intercultural interaction in digital spaces, EFL/ESL classrooms, as well as institutional communication.This issue seeks to explore the complex dynamics at the intersection of English-mediated instruction, AI, and intercultural communication, particularly within EFL/ESL contexts. We welcome original contributions from diverse disciplinary perspectives that critically examine the challenges and opportunities arising from these developments, including but not limited to the following themes:- Linguistic and pragmatic biases associated with the use of AI-powered language tools in academic and professional communication contexts;- Redefining cultural identity in AI-mediated intercultural communication in EFL educational settings;- Analysing intercultural conflict mechanisms and management styles in technologically-mediated EFL settings;- The impact of AI platforms on linguistic diversity and equity in EFL/ESL educational contexts;- Ethical Considerations surrounding the use of AI for Intercultural communication in the academic and professional contexts;- Efficacy of AI tools in developing intercultural competence in EFL settings;- Teacher and learner agency in AI-transformed EFL/ESL classrooms;- Assessing Intercultural Competence in AI-Mediated Environments and- Policy and curricular adaptations for AI-integrated English language education. Topic editors: Abdelrahman Salih, Lamis Omar, Hamisu Hamisu Haruna Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/78898/intercultural-interaction-dynamics-at-the-intersection-of-globalised-english-and-technologically-mediated-communication