Abstract

In the last two decades increasing movements of people across countries, due to economic and social reasons, have produced high levels of exchanges among speakers of different languages where English is used globally as a lingua-franca (ELF). Moreover, migration flows across nation states (especially from non-Western countries to Western ones) have encouraged the movement of people, mainly of African and Asian origin, from students to skilled workers, who are often involved in English-mediated interactions where migrants’ native linguacultural background inevitably connects to the language spoken by the host community (e.g., in European countries), and at the same time shapes the use of English as a global means of interaction (Canagarajah, 2013). ELF cross-cultural interactions and translingual processes, naturally occurring in intercultural settings, are particularly remarkable, since they plainly show how ELF speakers, engaged in intercultural interactions, differently appropriate the English language, according to their own native linguacultural patterns, and to specific pragmalinguistic purposes and processes (Guido, 2012, 2018; Mauranen, 2018). This study will address the influence that lexical actualizations in authentic spoken encounters, as well as in written productions in specialized contexts have on the current role and function of English as an international language and which deserve coverage and consideration in lexicographic resources. Research studies on migration narratives, language mediation, cross-cultural conceptual representation and reception of traumatic events, where ELF lexical processes are often activated by the speakers involved, are particularly important to address the development of linguacultural representations that should be covered in dictionaries, lexicons and other lexicographic resources, especially online.

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