Closing A Conceptual Gap: The Case For A Description Of English As A Lingua Franca

Abstract

Despite momentous developments in the sociopolitics of the teaching of English worldwide, targets have generally remained tied to nativespeaker norms. This paper argues that although this orientation is often recognized as inappropriate and counter-productive, it persists because discussions about 'global English' on the meta-level have not been accompanied by a necessary reorientation in linguistic research: very little empirical work has so far been done on the most extensive contemporary use of English worldwide, namely English as a lingua franca, largely among 'non-native' speakers. The paper seeks to demonstrate that this lack of a descriptive reality precludes us from conceiving of speakers of lingua franca English as language users in their own right and thus makes it difficult to counteract the reproduction of native English dominance. To remedy this situation, a research agenda is proposed which accords lingua franca English a central place in description alongside English as a native language, and a new corpus project is described which constitutes a first step in this process. The paper concludes with a consideration of the potentially very significant impact that the availability of an alternative model for the teaching of English as a lingua franca would have for pedagogy and teacher education.

Review of developments in research into English as a lingua franca

“…Jenkins identified some of the kinds of formal and functional features to which Knapp had earlier referred, and argued on the basis of these features that native English pronunciation is not optimum in ELF communication contexts. Seidlhofer's (2001) publication, a conceptual piece, argued more persuasively than in earlier such pieces that while ELF was 'the most extensive contemporary use of English worldwide ' (p. 133), little description of this linguistic reality was currently available, which both 'preclude [d] us from conceiving of speakers of lingua franca English as language users in their own right' (ibid.) and meant that native English norms continued to be considered the only valid target for learners.…”

“…During the first decade of the third millennium, interest in ELF increased dramatically, at least to some extent in response to the widespread attention given to Jenkins (2000) and Seidlhofer (2001). In addition to an avalanche of research-based and conceptual publications on the subject including dedicated journal issues (e.g.…”

New contexts, new processes, new strategies: the co-construction of meaning in plurilingual interactions

“…Literature on monolingual interactions in pluricultural contexts is very wide and deals with native speakers -non-native speakers (NS-NNS) interaction (PICA, 1994;SHEHADEH, 1999;WIBERG, 2003;SEIDLHOFER, 2001;GONZALEZ-LLORET, 2005;ROGERSON-REVEL, 2006;SWEENEY;ZHU, 2010;DOBAO, 2012) and non-native speakers -non-native speakers (NNS-NNS) interaction (SCHWARTZ, 1980;VARONIS;GASS, 1985;YULE, 1990, PICA;LINCOLN-PORTER;PANINOS;LINNEL, 1996;GARCÍA MAYO;PICA, 2000;MEIERKORD, 1996MEIERKORD, , 1998MEIERKORD, , 2000MACKEY;OLIVER;LEEMAN, 2003, AL-GHATANI;ROEVER, 2012;COGO;DEWEY, 2012), indicating that not only the context of face-to-face interaction but also the setting, the scene and the relationship between interlocutors influence the structure of the negotiation. However, if one of the speakers is using a foreign language, the language deficit determinates what can be said and how it is said, and the unbalanced linguistic proficiency between them (either in NS-NNS interactions and NNs-NNs)…”

The Slaughter of Kachru’s Five Sacred Cows in Brazil: Affordances of the Use of English as an International Language

“…The English language has acquired many different names and adjectives which include but are not limited to: international language (Cain, 2008;Erling, 2005;McArthur, 2004;McKay, 2002); international language of social inclusion (Finardi, Prebianca & Momm, 2013); lingua franca (El Kadri & Gimenez, 2013;Jenkins, 2006;Seidlhofer, 2001;Schmitz, 2012); world or global language (Graddol, 2006;Rajagopalan, 2010); academic language (Mauranen & Ranta, 2008); language of imperialism (Kumaravadivelo, 2006); minor English (Zaidan, 2013) and the most spoken and studied language worldwide (Kramsch, 2014) (Note 1). Though these studies are relevant for pointing out some of the implications of adopting a certain view of English, they say little about how these views are materialized in different contexts.…”

“…Although some efforts have been made in this direction in the applied linguistics literature worldwide (e.g., Kachru, 1996;Rajagopalan, 2010) and in Brazil (e.g., Finardi & Ferrari, 2008;Zaidan, 2013), the transfer of this reflection to English language teaching, use and policies in Brazil (e.g., Finardi & Ferrari, 2008;Finardi & Prebianca, in press) and elsewhere (Bhatt, 2001;Cain, 2008;Jenkins, 2006;Kachru, 1996;McKay, 2003;Seidlhofer, 2001) falls short of its expectations.…”