Global English

The Indispensable Bridge in Intercultural Communication?

Abstract

We were fooling ourselves if we thought that, by spreading the use of English as a common global language, we were building the ultimate bridge to international peace and understanding. We are now in an era in which globalization increases inequalities and competitiveness between economies and cultures; the “engagement algorithms” of social media not only foster new friendships, they also spread untruths and fear; and the English linguistic sign is increasingly reduced to a commodified or empty signifier.   More than ever, our times call for more than communicative competence, tolerance of and respect for others – values supposedly vehiculated through English in intercultural communication. They urgently call for a critical understanding of the role that symbolic systems like Global English, global marketing discourses and the discourse of global ideological competition play in constituting the distressing world we live in. What we need in language education is a kind of symbolic competence that includes the ability to understand the symbolic universe in which utterances and texts are produced, identify the symbolic power struggles at work in face to face and online interactions, and be wary of the new A.I. systems that risk upending our efforts to understand one another across cultures. On two examples of “intercultural competence”, one in China, the other on Chat GPT, this paper reflects on how the globalization of English has changed the nature of intercultural communication and how an understanding of symbolic power is needed to come to grips with the changes.