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

Beyza Björkman

doi:10.7146/hjlcb.v23i45.97348

Abstract

This paper reports the ﬁndings 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 ﬁndings show that lecturers in ELF settings make less frequent use of pragmatic strategies 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 ﬁndings of earlier studies on the importance of such strategies (Mauranen 2006, Airey 2009, Hellekjær 2010). The ﬁndings 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 proﬁciency. There are important implications of these ﬁndings for lecturers who need to operate in ELF settings. First, increasing interactivity by using pragmatic strategies sufﬁciently 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.

Highlights

European higher education is undergoing a considerable number of changes, triggered primarily by the Bologna process
It should be borne in mind that the type disturbance the present paper investigates in connection with pragmatic strategies is overt disturbance, i.e. the observable breakdown of communication signaled by direct questions, repetition of unclear items, silences, requests of clarification
The present paper investigated an important aspect of lecturing, namely using pragmatic strategies, which have been reported as critical elements in avoiding communicative disturbance and achieving effectiveness in English as a lingua franca (ELF) settings (e.g. Mauranen 2006, Kaur 2009)

Summary

Introduction

European higher education is undergoing a considerable number of changes, triggered primarily by the Bologna process. The reported challenges brought about by using English as the lecturing language ranged from issues caused by proficiency (Flowerdew 1994, Thompson 1994), to vocabulary-related issues (Flowerdew 1994, Thompson 1994), cultural issues (Flowerdew/Miller 1995), and pragmatic issues related to the discourse of lectures (Rost 1994, Allison/Tauroza 1999, Mulligan/Kirkpatrick 2000, Bamford 2000, Hyuk 2003, Crawford-Camiciottoli 2004/2005, Morell 2004) These studies, and many others which cannot be mentioned here, have contributed considerably to our understanding of the implications of lecturing in English to an international audience. It is most likely that different issues arise when both parties are non-native speakers of English who both need to meet the challenges caused by a lecturing language different from one’s own

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