Introduction

This issue of Language and Intercultural Communication features a selection of the papers presented at the tenth annual conference of the International Association for Languages and Intercultural Communication (IALIC) in association with the Centre for Tourism and Cultural Change at Leeds Metropolitan University in December 2010. The theme of this tenth anniversary conference, chosen to highlight and explore research synergies in the fields of intercultural communication and tourism, was Travelling Languages: Culture, Communication and Translation in a Mobile World. Based on the commonly held assumption that we now live in a world that is ‘on the move’, characterised by growing opportunities for both real and virtual travel and the blurring of boundaries between previously defined places, societies and cultures, the theme is firmly grounded in the interdisciplinary field of ‘Mobilities’. ‘Mobilities’, a term coined and developed by Sociologist John Urry at the turn of the twenty-first century (see, for example, Urry, 1999; 2007), deals with the movement of people, objects, capital, information, ideas and cultures on varying scales, and across a variety of borders, from the local to the national to the global. It includes all forms of travel from forced migration for economic or political reasons, to leisure travel and tourism, to virtual travel via the myriad of electronic channels now available to much of the world’s population. Underpinning the choice of theme was a desire to consider the important role of languages and intercultural communication in travel: an area which has, perhaps surprisingly, tended to remain in the background of Mobilities research. When we travel abroad or enter into virtual relationships and transactions with organisations or individuals in other parts of the world, we often encounter new languages and have to develop new means of communication and interaction, whether by learning new languages ourselves or by seeking the assistance of intermediaries. In both cases, some form of translation between languages and cultures is involved and a degree of intercultural competence, a concept much analysed and debated in the pages of this journal, is required. Scholars with an interest in intercultural communication, language education, and linguistic and cultural translation thus have potentially much to contribute to the Mobilities debate, as is clearly demonstrated in the seven contributions to this Special Issue.