Dealing with topics of potential cross-cultural sensitivity among transnational groups of pre-service language teachers in video-mediated virtual exchange interactions

Conversations involving potentially sensitive topics across cultures pose challenges not only for L2 speakers engaged in intercultural communication but also for researchers seeking to understand the mechanisms of such interactions. Digital spaces have long offered rich affordances to address these challenges — primarily by facilitating easier cross-cultural access and creating pedagogically and interculturally meaningful interactive environments. This article explores one such setting: video-mediated interactions among pre-service language teachers within the scope of a virtual exchange project between Türkiye and Poland. Using multimodal conversation analysis, the study examines how participants manage cross-culturally sensitive topics (e.g., religion and history/war) on a turn-by-turn basis during video-mediated interactions. I argue that virtual exchange contexts can serve as ‘safe’ spaces for ‘brave’ conversations and for engaging with sensitive issues, where topic initiations do not typically lead to tension or conflict — even when the legitimacy of the topic may be negotiable. The findings reveal that sensitive topics are managed through a variety of interactional resources, including laughter, topic continuers or shifters, extended elaborations, or brief and counter-argumentative responses, depending on the topic initiated. The findings offer new insights into the challenges and affordances of digital spaces for applied linguistics, intercultural communication, and language teacher education research.