Abstract

This chapter introduces intercultural pragmatics, offering a new perspective on communicative processes from a sociocognitive angle. The sociocognitive approach (SCA) defines interculturality as a phenomenon that is not only interactionally constructed but also relies on cultural models and norms that represent the speech communities to which the interlocutors belong. Interculturality is a situationally emergent phenomenon that relies both on relatively fixed cultural norms and models as well as situationally evolving features. Norms and models brought into the interaction from prior experience blend with features created ad hoc in the interaction in a synergetic way and the result is intercultural discourse.