Travelling languages: culture, communication and translation in a mobile world

摘要

This issue of Language and Intercultural Communication features a selection of the papers presented at the tenth annual conference of the International Association for Languages and Intercultural Communication (IALIC) in association with the Centre for Tourism and Cultural Change at Leeds Metropolitan University in December 2010. The theme of this tenth anniversary conference, chosen to highlight and explore research synergies in the fields of intercultural communication and tourism, was Travelling Languages: Culture, Communication and Translation in a Mobile World. Based on the commonly held assumption that we now live in a world that is 'on the move', characterised by growing opportunities for both real and virtual travel and the blurring of boundaries between previously defined places, societies and cultures, the theme is firmly grounded in the interdisciplinary field of 'Mobilities'. 'Mobilities', a term coined and developed by Sociologist John Urry at the turn of the twenty-first century (see, for example, Urry, 1999; 2007), deals with the movement of people, objects, capital, information, ideas and cultures on varying scales, and across a variety of borders, from the local to the national to the global.