Article published in:
International Journal of Language and Culture
Vol. 1:1 (2014) ► pp. 75–97

Conceptualizing mindfulness–mindlessness in intercultural interaction

| University of Bedfordshire
| University of Warwick
| University of Warwick

The concept of ‘mindfulness’ is increasingly used in the intercultural literature and yet so far it is largely just a heterogeneous construct with underspecified theoretical content. In this paper we draw on multidisciplinary perspectives to address this shortcoming and develop an integrated analysis of this important construct. We relate ‘mindfulness’ explicitly to the Relevance-theoretic concept of “manifestness”, and we incorporate insights from the psychology of motivation. We use extracts of authentic intercultural interactions to help explain and illustrate our arguments.

Keywords: motivation, susceptibility. intercultural communication. attentional state, mindfulness, relevance, manifestness
Published online: 22 August 2014
https://doi.org/10.1075/ijolc.1.1.05zeg
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