Phonopragmatic Dimensions of ELF in Specialized Immigration Contexts

The pragmatic dimensions involved in cross-cultural communication, with reference to immigration contexts, are at the basis of this ethnomethodological research. The increasing number of refugees and asylum seekers (not simply ‘economic migrants’), escaping from their countries of origin to Italy and, as a consequence, to the European States, represents an additional reason for a focus on intercultural pragmatics with reference to cross-cultural linguistic mediation processes in specialized domains. Actually, the interactional processes here analysed are those that occur especially within professional domains where non-native speakers of English – namely Western experts and non-Western migrants, refugees and asylum seekers – interact by means of ELF (English as a Lingua Franca) variations in multicultural specialized contexts, more precisely, in centres for legal advice in ‘gatekeeping’ situations (Guido 2008). The use of ELF in situations of ‘unequal encounters’ between non-Western participants (i.e., immigrants and asylum seekers) and Western experts (i.e., Italian/European mediators), is here explored both in the production and in the perception processes by means of a new phonopragmatic approach.