David Wei Dai
Biographic Data
| ID | 6036719 |
|---|---|
| NAME | David Wei Dai |
| GIVEN NAMES | David Wei |
| FAMILY NAME | Dai |
| SIGNATURE | DAI D W |
| AFFILIATIONS | University College London |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-3575-131X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 16 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 0 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 16 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 0 |
Investigating transpositioning as an interactional achievement
In social interaction, we take on and are ascribed multiplex social categories. The capacity to transform, transcend, and transgress the boundaries of categories is the ability to transposition, a necessity for thriving in social life in the 21st century. This paper has two related goals. Theoretically, it argues that transpositioning is an interactional achievement and to understand this process, one needs to inspect on a moment-by-moment basis …
Foregrounding human intercultural experiences
This paper responds to the rapidly expanding possibilities and concerns surrounding Generative AI in intercultural professional communication. Extending the concept of Critical Interactional Competence (CritIC, Dai et al., Citation2025a), we argue that professionals can draw on their Life Capital Consoli (Citation2022) to develop critical interactional abilities for moment-by-moment engagement with AI agents. Using Life Capital as an analytic len…
Between heritage and host
Chinese international students (ChISs) often encounter challenges in reconstructing their learner identities when transitioning between distinct educational cultures. Existing studies have predominantly focused on linguistic competence, leaving the broader cultural and pedagogical dimensions of learner identity underexplored. Grounded in MacFarlane's (2018) framework of learner identity negotiation, the learner identity reconstructions are contex…
Digitally Empowered Assessment of Interactional Competence in a Second Language
As language assessment increasingly recognizes interaction as socially co‐constructed, interactional competence (IC) has emerged as a central construct for understanding learners’ ability to manage communication across social and cultural contexts. At the same time, digitally mediated communication environments and artificial intelligence (AI)‐powered conversational agents are transforming both interaction itself and the ways in which it can be a…
Assessing Digital Interactional Competence for Second‐Language and First‐Language Chinese Speakers
Measurement of interactional competence (IC) has attracted increasing interest in language assessment research. One key question is whether proficiency sufficiently accounts for IC, making separate IC assessment unnecessary. This study examines the IC–proficiency relationship using a test that assesses Chinese speakers’ ability to manage multiplex social roles in digital communication. A total of 103 second‐language (L2) and first‐language (L1) C…
How does interaction with LLM powered chatbots shape human understanding of culture? The need for Critical Interactional Competence (CritIC)
Against the proliferation of large language model (LLM) based Artificial Intelligence (AI) products such as ChatGPT and Gemini, and their increasing use in professional communication training, researchers, including applied linguists, have cautioned that these products (re)produce cultural stereotypes due to their training data. However, there is a limited understanding of how humans navigate the assumptions and biases present in the responses of…
Assessment of Interactional Competence
Interactional Competence (IC) describes a language user's ability to interact with others in real‐world contexts that have rich social, cultural, and interpersonal cues. The notion of IC has attracted particular interest from language assessment researchers since existing speaking tests tend to focus on discrete linguistic abilities such as grammar and vocabulary while how these abilities are used for real‐world interpersonal communication is les…
Navigating policy, pedagogy, and the self in Tesol
From time to time, those of us working in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) become acutely aware that the field is evolving in ways that demand our attention. Established conversations take on new contours, and challenges long familiar begin to reveal unfamiliar dimensions. This issue – Volume 34, Number 1 of TESOL in Context – emerges at one such moment. In the current issue, it is clear that our field is grappling with a c…
Exploring AI for intercultural communication
AI is not new. What is new, however, is the speed and depth of its expansion in almost every aspect of our lives. This discussion forum is dedicated to exploring new frontiers and agendas for language and intercultural communication research. In this concluding piece, we invite the contributors to share insights on five key questions: their experiences (Question 1), the challenges and opportunities that we face (Question 2), the strengths and ski…
Generative AI for professional communication training in intercultural contexts
It is a common feature of the 21st century workplace to be multicultural. Working professionals need to possess strong Interactional Competence to handle professional communication in various intercultural encounters in their workplace. This has however posed challenges to professional communication education since educators need to incorporate different cultural practices and interlocutor profiles in their teaching and assessment materials. In t…
When AI meets intercultural communication
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is in the spotlight again.Earlier this year there was a widespread controversy over how Gemini, Google's Gen AI model, generated images of German Second World War soldiers as people of colour.Google swiftly suspended Gemini's image generation function and its chief executive Sundar Pichai, apologized for Gemini's "completely unacceptable" conduct (The Guardian 2024).This is not the first time that AI, or more specific…
On the Promise of Using Membership Categorization Analysis to Investigate Interactional Competence
Interactional Competence (IC) involves speakers’ ability to make social actions recognizable to one another while taking into account individual identities and social role relationships (Hall and Pekarek Doehler 2011). Existing IC research, however, has foregrounded the sequential features of interaction while paying less attention to the categorial resources speakers draw on. This study uses Membership Categorization Analysis (MCA) to explicate …
Nursing and midwifery students’ ethical views on the acceptability of using AI machine translation software to write university assignments
Expanding Kane's argument‐based validity framework
Observing a teacher’s interactional competence in an Esol classroom
Research on translanguaging practices in multilingual contexts has explored how translanguaging highlights the multilingual and multicultural nature of social interactions and its transformative nature in transgressing established norms and boundaries. This article aims to provide an alternative view of interactional competence by connecting it to the notion of translanguaging and its emphasis on the active deployment of multiple linguistic, semi…
Interactional Competence for professional communication in intercultural contexts
In the twenty-first-century working professionals need to possess strong Interactional Competence to handle professional communication in intercultural contexts (PCIC).However, the relationship among the three PCIC constituentsculture, workplace and interactionis undertheorized in current research.This leaves PCIC practitioners oftentimes uncertain of how to better define and develop their communication skills.This article seeks to address the ga…
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On the Promise of Using Membership Categorization Analysis to Investigate Interactional Competence
Interactional Competence (IC) involves speakers’ ability to make social actions recognizable to one another while taking into account individual identities and social role relationships (Hall and Pekarek Doehler 2011). Existing IC research, however, has foregrounded the sequential features of interaction while paying less attention to the categorial resources speakers draw on. This study uses Membership Categorization Analysis (MCA) to explicate …
Nursing and midwifery students’ ethical views on the acceptability of using AI machine translation software to write university assignments
Expanding Kane's argument‐based validity framework
Observing a teacher’s interactional competence in an Esol classroom
Research on translanguaging practices in multilingual contexts has explored how translanguaging highlights the multilingual and multicultural nature of social interactions and its transformative nature in transgressing established norms and boundaries. This article aims to provide an alternative view of interactional competence by connecting it to the notion of translanguaging and its emphasis on the active deployment of multiple linguistic, semi…
Interactional Competence for professional communication in intercultural contexts
In the twenty-first-century working professionals need to possess strong Interactional Competence to handle professional communication in intercultural contexts (PCIC).However, the relationship among the three PCIC constituentsculture, workplace and interactionis undertheorized in current research.This leaves PCIC practitioners oftentimes uncertain of how to better define and develop their communication skills.This article seeks to address the ga…
How does interaction with LLM powered chatbots shape human understanding of culture? The need for Critical Interactional Competence (CritIC)
Against the proliferation of large language model (LLM) based Artificial Intelligence (AI) products such as ChatGPT and Gemini, and their increasing use in professional communication training, researchers, including applied linguists, have cautioned that these products (re)produce cultural stereotypes due to their training data. However, there is a limited understanding of how humans navigate the assumptions and biases present in the responses of…
Assessment of Interactional Competence
Interactional Competence (IC) describes a language user's ability to interact with others in real‐world contexts that have rich social, cultural, and interpersonal cues. The notion of IC has attracted particular interest from language assessment researchers since existing speaking tests tend to focus on discrete linguistic abilities such as grammar and vocabulary while how these abilities are used for real‐world interpersonal communication is les…
Navigating policy, pedagogy, and the self in Tesol
From time to time, those of us working in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) become acutely aware that the field is evolving in ways that demand our attention. Established conversations take on new contours, and challenges long familiar begin to reveal unfamiliar dimensions. This issue – Volume 34, Number 1 of TESOL in Context – emerges at one such moment. In the current issue, it is clear that our field is grappling with a c…
Exploring AI for intercultural communication
AI is not new. What is new, however, is the speed and depth of its expansion in almost every aspect of our lives. This discussion forum is dedicated to exploring new frontiers and agendas for language and intercultural communication research. In this concluding piece, we invite the contributors to share insights on five key questions: their experiences (Question 1), the challenges and opportunities that we face (Question 2), the strengths and ski…
Generative AI for professional communication training in intercultural contexts
It is a common feature of the 21st century workplace to be multicultural. Working professionals need to possess strong Interactional Competence to handle professional communication in various intercultural encounters in their workplace. This has however posed challenges to professional communication education since educators need to incorporate different cultural practices and interlocutor profiles in their teaching and assessment materials. In t…
When AI meets intercultural communication
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is in the spotlight again.Earlier this year there was a widespread controversy over how Gemini, Google's Gen AI model, generated images of German Second World War soldiers as people of colour.Google swiftly suspended Gemini's image generation function and its chief executive Sundar Pichai, apologized for Gemini's "completely unacceptable" conduct (The Guardian 2024).This is not the first time that AI, or more specific…
Investigating transpositioning as an interactional achievement
In social interaction, we take on and are ascribed multiplex social categories. The capacity to transform, transcend, and transgress the boundaries of categories is the ability to transposition, a necessity for thriving in social life in the 21st century. This paper has two related goals. Theoretically, it argues that transpositioning is an interactional achievement and to understand this process, one needs to inspect on a moment-by-moment basis …
Foregrounding human intercultural experiences
This paper responds to the rapidly expanding possibilities and concerns surrounding Generative AI in intercultural professional communication. Extending the concept of Critical Interactional Competence (CritIC, Dai et al., Citation2025a), we argue that professionals can draw on their Life Capital Consoli (Citation2022) to develop critical interactional abilities for moment-by-moment engagement with AI agents. Using Life Capital as an analytic len…
Between heritage and host
Chinese international students (ChISs) often encounter challenges in reconstructing their learner identities when transitioning between distinct educational cultures. Existing studies have predominantly focused on linguistic competence, leaving the broader cultural and pedagogical dimensions of learner identity underexplored. Grounded in MacFarlane's (2018) framework of learner identity negotiation, the learner identity reconstructions are contex…
Digitally Empowered Assessment of Interactional Competence in a Second Language
As language assessment increasingly recognizes interaction as socially co‐constructed, interactional competence (IC) has emerged as a central construct for understanding learners’ ability to manage communication across social and cultural contexts. At the same time, digitally mediated communication environments and artificial intelligence (AI)‐powered conversational agents are transforming both interaction itself and the ways in which it can be a…
Assessing Digital Interactional Competence for Second‐Language and First‐Language Chinese Speakers
Measurement of interactional competence (IC) has attracted increasing interest in language assessment research. One key question is whether proficiency sufficiently accounts for IC, making separate IC assessment unnecessary. This study examines the IC–proficiency relationship using a test that assesses Chinese speakers’ ability to manage multiplex social roles in digital communication. A total of 103 second‐language (L2) and first‐language (L1) C…
Psychology (9 works) · EFL/ESL Teaching and Learning (7 works) · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies (7 works) · Linguistics (7 works) · Pedagogy (6 works) · Social Psychology (6 works) · Sociology (6 works) · Computer Science (5 works) · Intercultural communication (5 works) · Communication (4 works)