Crossing in linguistic communication

Abstract

Abstract Although “crossing” as a new concept comes from Rampton’s seminal work, this article argues that crossing defines linguistic communication in a perspective of process, act, and especially change. As a controlling principle for linguistic communication, it might be in a different way complementary to Husserl’s shared sense, Habermas’s reaching understanding, and Searle’s shared intentionality. Crossing denotes changes in phase, sphere, and universe, characterizing the process of communication and having a meaningful value for continuing interpersonal relationship and reinforcing communicative competence. Crossing is also constitutive of communicative order both in monolingual contexts and in superdiversity multilingual settings. Against the backdrop of globalization, a new communicative order is being shaped in the reality of mobility and diversity. This new order of linguistic communication is characterized by dramatic code-switching, rhetorical mirror effect, and focus on linguistic medium. The mobility of human resources requires crossing to take creative strategies to achieve what monolingual crossing could not.