‘So where we are?’ Spoken lingua franca English at a technical university in Sweden

Björkman, Beyza

doi:10.1017/s0266078408000187

Cited by 56 publications

(44 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…Similarly, a speaker may have diffi culties in the form dimension and produce non-standard morphosyntax, but be effective in conveying the message across by using appropriate pragmatic strategies, as the results of the initial stages of the present study demonstrated (Björkman 2008a andb/2009a andb). The profi cient/less profi cient or the native/non-native speaker dichotomies, therefore, are not of primary relevance in international settings.…”

Section: Being An Effective Speaker In Elf Settingsmentioning

confidence: 60%

“…With reference to form, only a small number of studies have included lectures (e.g. Mauranen 2006, Björkman 2008aand b, 2009a. As regards pragmatics, most of the work has focused on negotiation of meaning and misunderstandings, reporting a general preparedness for potential breakdown in communication and cooperativeness among those who speak English as a lingua franca (Mauranen 2006, Kaur 2009, Smit 2009, Cogo 2009).…”

Section: Background: Lectures In a Second Language And Lectures In LImentioning

confidence: 99%

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So You Think You Can ELF: English as a Lingua Franca as the Medium of Instruction

Björkman

2017

HJLCB

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This paper reports the fi ndings of a study on spoken English as a lingua franca (ELF) in Swedish higher education. The aim has been to investigate the role pragmatic strategies play in content lectures where English is a lingua franca, i.e. a vehicular language. The fi ndings show that lecturers in ELF settings make less frequent use of pragmatic strategies 1 than students, who deploy these strategies frequently in group-work projects. Earlier stages of the present study showed that despite frequent non-standardness at the morphosyntax level, there is very little overt disturbance in student group-work (Björkman 2008a and b/2009b), most likely owing to a variety of communicative strategies used during interaction and the questions raised (Björkman 2009a). It seems reasonable to assume that, in the absence of appropriate strategies and questions that serve as real-time signals of disturbance, there is an increased risk for covert disturbance in lectures. This view complies with the fi ndings of earlier studies on the importance of such strategies (Mauranen 2006, Airey 2009, Hellekjaer 2010. The fi ndings imply that the effectiveness of a speaker of English in academic ELF settings is determined primarily by the speaker's pragmatic ability and less by his/her profi ciency. There are important implications of these fi ndings for lecturers who need to operate in ELF settings. First, increasing interactivity by using pragmatic strategies suffi ciently frequently appears critical for those involved in English-medium education. It is also important that awareness is raised on target language usage in lecturing in English. Such awareness-raising can be achieved at the macro level by clearly-written language policies that include training for teachers and students who both need to be equipped with the skills needed to cope with the complexities of such settings, and at the micro level, by in-house training and courses that could be administered to both teachers and students.

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Section: Being An Effective Speaker In Elf Settingsmentioning

confidence: 60%

Section: Background: Lectures In a Second Language And Lectures In LImentioning

confidence: 99%

So You Think You Can ELF: English as a Lingua Franca as the Medium of Instruction

Björkman

2017

HJLCB

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“…Other scholars have since collected similar, if smaller, academic ELF corpora and their analyses have, likewise, extended our knowledge of how English is used as an international academic lingua franca. Björkman (2008Björkman ( , 2009, for example, demonstrates how academic ELF shares many lexical and grammatical features with those that have been identified in 'general ELF', but that it has certain other features that are particular to the academic domain. As well as corpusbased approaches such as these, and the ethnographic approach adopted by Smit (2010), the findings of other research into academic ELF have led still other scholars to begin to critique higher education English language policy in so-called 'international universities', that is, in institutions where English is the Medium of Instruction or 'EMI institutions' (e.g.…”

Section: Academic Elf Settingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Review of developments in research into English as a lingua franca

2011

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We begin by considering how the recent phenomenon of English as a Lingua Franca (henceforth ELF) fits in with the older notion of lingua francas in general as well as with older versions of ELF. We then explore the beginnings of ELF in its modern manifestation, including the earliest ELF research, and tackle the thorny issue of defining ELF. After discussing the main locations and domains in which ELF research has been carried out to date, we move on to examining research into three linguistic levels, lexicogrammar, phonology and pragmatics, concluding with a discussion of very recent findings revealing ELF's linguistic fluidity. Next, we discuss research into two domains where ELF has proved especially prevalent: business English and academic English. This is followed by a consideration of ELF as a globalized and globalizing practice. We end the article by exploring the implications of ELF research for ELF-oriented English teaching and the role that attitudes are likely to play in this. We conclude that while the relaxed attitudes towards ELF of younger people are promising, strong resistance is still felt by many others, and that the major challenge remains in convincing the examination boards that they should take account of ELF.

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“…ELF has received a great deal of attention in research circles, with researchers interested in documenting this 'new' form of English and discussing the linguistic rights of non-native speakers (e.g. Ammon 2000;Björkman 2008aBjörkman , 2008bFirth 1996;Jenkins 2007;Mauranen/Ranta 2008;Seidlhofer 2004;Shaw 2008;Smit 2007). This interest is of particular relevance in a higher education context, since more and more courses are being taught through the medium of English (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Ability of Students to Explain Science Concepts in Two Languages

Airey

2017

HJLCB

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This paper analyses the ability of twenty-one physics undergraduates at two Swedish universities to orally describe and explain in both Swedish and English the science concepts met in their lectures. This ability is related back to the language used to teach the concepts (English, Swedish or both languages). Transcripts of student descriptions in both languages are rated using three measures:Fluency (in terms of syllables per second and mean length of runs) 1.Code-switching 2.A judgment about the 'disciplinarity' of what is said. 3.Comparison between languages fi nds that students speak on average 45% slower and have 33% shorter runs in their English descriptions. However, these differences in speaking rate and run length become much lower (28% and 26% respectively) in those transcripts where students appear to have adequately understood the concepts that were presented in the lectures. These latter values are in line with fi ndings in comparative studies of other types of speech event (See Hincks 2010). Analysis of code-switching identifi es some students (n=3) who have great diffi culty describing disciplinary concepts in English. These were fi rst year students and were being taught in English for the fi rst time. It is thus concluded that for some students disciplinary English is indeed a problem. However, from a disciplinary point of view, all other students give similarly good (or bad) descriptions of physics concepts in both Swedish and English, regardless of the language used in the lectures.

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‘So where we are?’ Spoken lingua franca English at a technical university in Sweden

Cited by 56 publications

References 6 publications

So You Think You Can ELF: English as a Lingua Franca as the Medium of Instruction

So You Think You Can ELF: English as a Lingua Franca as the Medium of Instruction

Review of developments in research into English as a lingua franca

The Ability of Students to Explain Science Concepts in Two Languages

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