MA Global Intercultural Communication

How do we successfully communicate with people when we come from different cultures or do not share their language? How can global companies manage their diverse workforce? These are the kind of issues you will learn to address on this MA.

You’ll develop a broad-based approach to the study of language and intercultural communication, both as a cultural resource and a cultural practice. And you’ll gain an understanding of how the new media and mobile technologies that characterise contemporary global networks are affecting communication.

In a world where most people work in professions that routinely operate across linguistic and cultural barriers, our MA in Global Intercultural Communication will enable you to take on a wide range of key roles in a host of professions where an understanding of intercultural communication is critical.

Intercultural communication is crucial to comprehending the world of today and participating in the world of tomorrow. Globalisation has led to ever-greater centrality of knowledge and information. Different linguistic communities have ever-increasing contact – through migration, tourism, education, and information and media flows yet linguistic and cultural barriers persist.

As language and intercultural exchanges become more frequent and diverse – and the media that carry these exchanges proliferate – it is even more crucial to understand intercultural communication and how to use and promote it. This course will equip you to do just that.

You’ll explore how the linguistic forms and patterns within a language give expression to that culture’s worldview, sociocultural norms and values. And you’ll approach linguistic communication as a cultural practice, used to both create and sustain our sense of personal, cultural and national identity. You’ll use a variety of different analytic approaches, ranging from discourse analysis and anthropological linguistics to semiotics and cross-cultural pragmatics.

We do not assume pre-existing knowledge, so we introduce you to all these approaches. However, we do expect an awareness of intercultural communication and a capacity to develop an academic interest. You might already have studied, or have a career in, business, development studies, education, hospitality and tourism, law, management, marketing, psychology or medicine, for example, or a less vocational degree in English, history, geography, media or politics. Or you might have a background in languages and communication. Either way, as graduate of this course you will bring significant added value to your chosen profession.

Our students come from across the globe, and this makes our seminars particularly engaging – you’ll take part in fascinating cross-cultural exchanges both with your peers and your tutors.

You will also study digital technologies which increasingly mediate international human communication, and constitute one of the key infrastructures that enable and inflect global cultural interchange. This will equip you with the theoretical and empirical understanding necessary to explain global cultural communications today.

Students need to have: Bachelors (Hons) degree - 2.2 or equivalent in Humanities or Social Sciences. If you have alternative qualifications that have not been mentioned above then please contact the university directly for further information.