Reimagining Intercultural Communication Through Chinese Cosmopolitanism
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 17816374 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Zhen Li (0000-0001-6541-2610, Education University of Hong Kong, corresponding author), Ibrar Bhatt (0000-0002-3577-1257, Queen's University Belfast) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 35 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 1-10 |
| Publication date | 2026-05-07 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Middle East Critique (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1943-6149 • E-ISSN: 1943-6157 |
| Publisher | Taylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/19436149.2026.2663405 |
| OpenAlex | W7159943687 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 35 |
This paper turns to Chinese cosmopolitanism, as articulated in Xiang’s (2023) work ‘Chinese Cosmopolitanism: The History and Philosophy of an Idea’, to explore its potential contribution to intercultural communication and education in applied linguistics. While existing decolonial approaches to language and culture have been significantly shaped by overtly poststructuralist and Western-liberal frameworks, we suggest that deeper engagement with Xiang’s ideas, rooted in Confucianism, may further broaden these conversations by offering more ontologically and epistemologically empowering ways of understanding interculturality. Drawing on Xiang’s account of an organic-harmony model of identity grounded in Confucian relationality, we consider how Confucian relational personhood, processual holism, and non-hierarchical difference might reframe prevailing understandings of language, culture, and selfhood. Positioned within applied linguistics, we approach Chinese cosmopolitanism as a complementary perspective that may enrich interepistemic dialogues. By attending to its metaphysical dimensions that reach beyond current popularised framings of language and culture, we tentatively suggest that intercultural scholarship might draw on Chinese cosmopolitanism to nurture more dialogic and pluralistic modes of inquiry. Xiang’s philosophical ideas hold particular purchase for intercultural studies, offering conceptual resources that are intellectually robust and practically oriented toward deeper understandings of intercultural communication and education.
Cosmopolitanism · Ethnic group · Identity (music) · Immigration · Intercultural communication · Intercultural relations · Global Education and Multiculturalism · Globalization and Cultural Identity · International Student and Expatriate Challenges
The Handbook of Intercultural Discourse and Communication
Innovations and Challenges in Applied Linguistics from the Global South
Translanguaging
Sketches Toward a Decolonial Applied Linguistics
A Decolonial Crip Linguistics
Exploring a Sociolinguistics of Islam
Islam, coloniality, and the pedagogy of cognitive liberation in higher education
Getting critical about critique in higher education
Problematizing the critique of culture
A decolonial critique of diaspora identity theories and the notion of superdiversity
Restating Orientalism
Superdiversity and its explanatory limits
Revisiting the true purpose of the discourse on decolonising
A decolonial critique of ‘diversity’
Cultural diversity is basically a foreign term to me
The essentialisation of China in ‘Critical internationalisation studies’
Why Efforts to Decolonise Can Deepen Coloniality and What Ubuntu Can Do to Help
Epistemological Foundations of Intercultural Education
Decolonising Subjects from the Discourse of Difference
On the problematique of decolonisation as a post-colonial endeavour
In search of the intercultural
Coloniality and Modernity/Rationality
Super-diversity and its implications
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |