The aim of this paper is to discuss intercultural competence (IC) from a languacognitive perspective, whose main assumption is the interface between language, cognition and culture manifested in meaning construction. The article first emphasizes the centrality of language in the process of meaning construction. As a result, in the following section, we point to a potential contribution that a cognitive-linguistic perspective with its focus on two complex systems, that is, language and cognition, can bring to research on IC. More specifically, since, as we argue, intercultural competence is an abstract notion incorporating other intangible concepts, its interpretation needs a languacognitive focus. To illustrate the validity of the approach, we analyze meaning construals of IC of the participants of the summer school DICETE. The results highlight the importance of language for interpreting and developing IC in the context of higher education.