Negotiating Common Ground and Rapport in Intercultural First Encounters

초록

Although the openings of intercultural first encounters play a crucial role in shaping subsequent interpersonal relationships, they have typically been treated as a sequence of greetings and introductions. This study reconceptualizes intercultural openings as interpersonal relationship building under conditions of limited shared sociocultural knowledge. Using video-recorded face-to-face intercultural first encounters between university students communicating in English as a lingua franca (ELF), the study investigates how interpersonal relationships are collaboratively established during conversational openings. The analysis identified three interrelated interactional dimensions through which relationship building unfolds: establishing mutual engagement, constructing emergent common ground, and developing rapport. The findings demonstrate that successful intercultural openings depend less on the performance of culturally prescribed routines than on participants’ ability to collaboratively build interpersonal relationships through situated interaction.

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