How do “WE” (World Englishes) make sense in ELF communication? Words and their meanings across cultures

Abstract

Abstract English has increasingly been used as a lingua franca among speakers of World Englishes (WE), including speakers of English as a first language, and English-knowing bilinguals and multilinguals. In English as a lingua franca (ELF) communication, it remains a question as to how lexical meanings are coconstructed and negotiated by WE speakers when they interact across cultures and varieties of English. In this paper, we shall explore how meanings of certain lexical items are defined by WE speakers, and how these meanings change and vary. We have adopted a “free-response word association task” (Garrett 2010: 452) for data collection, and collected data through interviews from informants across cultures and varieties of English. Our research questions include: (a) Do WE speakers from different cultures share identical meanings of the same English lexical items? (b) How do WE speakers convey lexical meaning and make sense in ELF communication? (c) What are the implications of this research for ELF communication, and English vocabulary teaching? Data analysis shows that (i) it cannot be taken for granted that common English words share identical meanings among WE speakers; (ii) meanings of English words change and vary in accordance with ELF contexts; (iii) WE speakers co-construct and negotiate meanings in ELF communication; and (iv) English learners should be reminded of the fluidity and variation of ELF lexical meaning when they learn English in the classroom.