Abstract
This paper examines explicitness in English as lingua franca (ELF) spoken interactions. Using a conversationanalysis procedure, about 11h of audio-recorded naturally occuring ELF interactions of 79 incoming Erasmusstudents were analyzed for this purpose. The corpus was compiled by means of 54 speech events, 29 interviews and25 focus group meetings and the participants represented 24 mother tongues. Research into ELF reveals that ELFspeakers tend to use various “explicitness strategies” (Mauranen, 2007) in order to enhance intelligibility. Thefindings of this study show that there are indeed variations from standard ENL forms with respect to the degree ofexplicitness in spoken interactions. There is a tendency among ELF speakers to make the meaning more explicit forthe listeners. Repetitions of same expressions in subsequent sentences, use of over-explicit forms, use of an extrasubject following a relative clause and use of emphatic reference are the emerging patterns observed in this study.
Highlights
English as lingua franca (ELF) have been defined as “a ‘contact language’ between persons who share neither a common native tongue nor a common culture, and for whom English is the chosen foreign language of communication” (Firth, 1996: 240); as “a repertoire of different communicative instruments an individual has at his/her disposal, a useful and versatile tool, a ‘language for communication’” (House, 2003: 559); as “a medium of communication by people who do not speak the same first language” (Kirkpatrick, 2007a: 155); and as “a contact language used only among nonmother tongue speakers” (Jenkins, 2006a: 160)
This paper primarily examines over-explicitness, e.g. “black color rather than just black”, in spoken ELF interactions, which is revealed as a characteristic of ELF communication in previous ELF studies (Seidlhofer, 2004: 220) and addresses the following research question: RQ: Does English as a lingua franca reveal any variations from standard ENL forms with respect to the degree of explicitness?
The results reveal that over-explicitness is an emerging pattern in spoken ELF discourse as proposed in previous ELF studies
Summary
English as lingua franca (ELF) have been defined as “a ‘contact language’ between persons who share neither a common native tongue nor a common (national) culture, and for whom English is the chosen foreign language of communication” (Firth, 1996: 240); as “a repertoire of different communicative instruments an individual has at his/her disposal, a useful and versatile tool, a ‘language for communication’” (House, 2003: 559); as “a medium of communication by people who do not speak the same first language” (Kirkpatrick, 2007a: 155); and as “a contact language used only among nonmother tongue speakers” (Jenkins, 2006a: 160). As Seidlhofer (2011: 7) puts forward, this is not a very accurate definition as ELF interactions include Inner and Outer Circle English speakers as well, e.g. in an academic conference held in Seattle or at a touristic journey to India She defines ELF as “any use of English among speakers of different first languages for whom English is the communicative medium of choice, and often the only option” (Seidlhofer, 2011: 7). ELF speakers who come from diverse ethnic, linguistic, cultural and social backgrounds and use English as a medium of communication are expected to shape the future of English. These observations have greatly impacted the interest in ELF research.
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