Extended cultures: Towards a discursive theory of hybrid space

Abstract

In the contemporary world, individuals and communities from different cultures communicate with their local and international partners through virtual space nearly as often as they speak across their desktops, thereby creating a hybrid communicative space. Discursive theories allow us to capture at least some of these relationships; we may understand the processes of openings and closings, or the transfer and reconfiguration of specific cultural patterns, even those occurring within the same culture. Critical discourse studies allow us to question the specificity of an interaction in a space with a differing ontological status. They reveal the deep structures of this discourse in spheres of reality and hybrid space; they may also inspire multidisciplinary research and the formulation of fundamental issues in the study of hybrid reality and help explicate transgressive features of the hybrid and intercultural spaces.