Acceptability in Intercultural Communication through Multimodal Uses of English as a Lingua Franca. A (Re)Definition

This paper proposes a redefinition of the notion of acceptability in intercultural communication. The novel definition represents one of the outcomes of the PRIN 2022 PNRR research project “Acceptability Strategies through Variations of English as a Lingua Franca in Multicultural and Multimodal Discourse Types”. Building on and extending van Dijk’s logical model of acceptability, the paper advances a cognitive-functional redefinition that accounts for the multimodal uses of English as a Lingua Franca in the context of intercultural communication. Acceptability is connoted as a notion determining the design on texts after the authors’ communicative intent, as well as their expectation in terms of envisaged addressees and the empirical receivers’ interpretation of texts. After illustrating the phases leading to the alternative definition of acceptability, this paper offers an essential analysis of the multimodal compositions of a selected corpus of reformulations of institutional discourse about migration and international protection. The aim is to give evidence of the theoretical dimensions of the definition of acceptability in digital forms of communication and asynchronous intercultural mediation, revealing the multimodal strategies and practices that are activated by senders to make their messages available and acceptable to intercultural receivers.