The concept of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) has received great prominence in language studies, both in international and national settings, since the first studies carried out in Europe until its reinterpretation by Brazilian scholars. In addition, the ELF perspective underlies the English language guidelines in three different curricular policies in Brazilian Basic Education,

Recent epistemological and ontological revisions demonstrate a change within the elf geopolitics of knowledge as voices from the global South begin to claim themselves as knowledge producers within a field strongly marked by the European hegemony. This article aims at analyzing the concept and field of inquiry of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) from a decolonial perspective. Founded on the work of one the authors and departing from the decolonial exercise of identification-interrogation-interruption, the article identifies the main ELF tenets, brings up different voices in the field, and interrogates who these voices belong to, and where they come from. Findings show a complex weave of meanings still marked by coloniality traces in which hegemonic European views place themselves as hybris del punto cero despite the multiplicity of elf views and practices all over the globe. The authors advocate for attentive and critical reading of elf, particularly, with regards to where knowledge is generated and who generates such knowledge if one wishes to delink from self-assured global north elf epistemologies. They also propose a decolonial praxis in the reading of elf as a pre-condition towards the interruption of coloniality.

Seu livro mais recente é Democracy Disfigured: Opinion, Truth and the People (Harvard University Press, 2014). A revista Leviathan agradece a autora a gentileza de autorizar esta tradução.