ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the cognitive and communicative processes involved in the production and reception of discourse in English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) that occur within domain-specific contexts where non-native speakers of English interact in centres for legal advice and medical assistance to migrants and asylum seekers. It analyses three case studies accounting for the ways by which experts in intercultural mediation speaking expanding-circle ELF variations interact with African migrants who speak their own nativized outer-circle ELF variations. Analysis has shown how both groups of participants in the interactions differently interpret and authenticate events by activating their different native linguacultural schemata which, eventually, come into conflict. By focusing on these three case studies, the chapter shows evidence of the process by which each participant transfers native pragmalinguistic and socio-cultural behaviours to their use of ELF, which is, in turn, perceived as formally 'deviant' and pragmatically 'marked' by the other participants.
