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This article theorises the relationship between language and intercultural learning from a Bakhtinian dialogic perspective, based on the language learning story of Federica, a mobile student in UK higher education (HE). I first outline the context of UK HE and its internationalisation agenda, discussing how research in this field has conceptualised language, intercultural communication (IC), and international students in terms of a totalising boundary between self and other. I link this to current concerns in IC regarding the philosophical underpinnings of the field, specifically the aporia created as a result of the totalising self/other relation in prevailing IC discourse (MacDonald & O ' , 2013). I then present a means of addressing this aporia through a Bakhtinian theorisation of the relationship between language and intercultural learning. This theorisation offers a relational perspective on the self and the other in which intercultural learning is a process of ideological becoming (Bakhtin, 1981) with the other, enacted in, with and through language F learning English. The article concludes with a call for language and communicative practices to be placed at the heart of HE internationalisation agendas and for HE practitioners to recognise shared responsibility for intercultural communication.Questo articolo teorizza la relazione tra lingua e apprendimento interculturale dalla perspettiva dialogica bachtiana, basato sulla storia di apprendimento di Federica, una studentessa universitaria transnazionale. In primis contestualizzo il percorso formativo universitario del Regno Unito e la sua internazionalizazione, spiegando come gli studi in questo settore possano concettualizzare la lingua, la comunicazione interculturale (IC) e il confine tra sé stessi e gli altri, in particolare degli studenti internazionali. Queste trovano spazio negli ultimi studi di IC in termini filosofici, specificatamente la aporia creata come risultato della relazione totalizzante sé stessi/altri nel suo discorso (MacDonald & O ' , 2013). In seguito presento come indirizzare questa aporia attraverso la teorizzazione bachtiana della relazione tra lingua e apprendimento interculturale. Questa teorizzazione offre una prospettiva relazionale del sé stessi e degli altri di divenire ideologico (Bakhtin, 1981) con gli altri, attivato tra, con e nella lingua, come dalla F L onclude col discutere la necessità di posizionare la lingua e le pratiche comunicative al centro settore possano riconoscere una responsabilità condivisa sul tema della comunicazione interculturale.

This article is a post-hoc reflective theorization of a public engagement event based on research into UK-based international students' experiences of learning English. The event was a work-in-progress theatrical performance called The Translator , devised and produced by theatre company Cap-a-Pie and associates, and staged on two nights in June 2017 in Leeds. Our aim was to create an active learning experience for the public about how they relate to 'otherness' and difference in communication, and how they think about their own responses to difficult communicative situations. Lou first outlines her understanding of intercultural learning (Harvey, 2016, following Bakhtin, 1981), her engagement with Gert Biesta's pedagogy in the interest of publicness , and Biesta's own dialogue with Hannah Arendt on freedom and plurality. We then present filmed rehearsal footage and a written description of some of the scenes from The Translator . This is followed by audience responses, which demonstrate the audience's discomfort arising from different aspects of misunderstanding in the performance and how this prompted them to consider their own 'otherness' and their responsibilities for successful communication. The subsequent discussion draws on Lou's recent thinking in critical human rights theory to demonstrate how The Translator functioned as a public pedagogy of solidarity, in which the audience reflected on our mutual responsibility to work to understand each other regardless of our cultural backgrounds and the languages we speak.

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