English As A Lingua Franca Research Research Articles

SERBIAN ENGLISH THROUGH THE LENS OF THE ELF RESEARCH PARADIGM

Linguists around the world have been researching international English for a long time, forming three paradigms of thought and research – English as an International Language (EIL), World English (WE) and English as a Lingua Franca (ELF). The aim of this paper is to present a review of the research conducted so far regarding English in Serbia and, thus, to offer insight into the inner workings of Serbian English, all in the light of ELF research. Bearing in mind that research within the ELF paradigm framework is not carried out often in Serbia, all the studies presented in this paper view the Serbian English variety as learners’ language. The elimination of contrastive studies was taken as the basic criterion for literature selection, which made it possible to compare the Serbian linguists’ studies with the ELF paradigm framework. Studies within the scope of phonetics/phonology and pragmatics were found. As regards to phonetics and phonology, papers of only two authors fit in with the established criterion. The findings of their studies confirm that Serbian English speakers have acquired the phonetic features necessary for international communication, i.e. the ELF phonetic core. Nonetheless, it was not possible to compare Serbian English pragmatic studies with ELF research – ELF studies involve spoken corpora, while Serbian English studies encompass questionnaires and interviews. Therefore, there is much to be discovered about the Serbian variety of English. Conducting further research into Serbian English within the ELF paradigm would allow comparison with ELF standards and unveil those linguistic elements which students in Serbia need to acquire in order to participate in international communication more efficiently.

Examining ELF-aware teaching and learning: action research as a tool for ELF research and teacher education

Abstract This paper examines the role that action research – including both academic studies and action research undertaken by teachers for the purposes of professional development – might play in helping to close the existing gap between the pedagogical implications of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) research and the practical implementation of an ELF-oriented approach in the classroom. It is argued that the purposes and characteristic features of action research as a research methodology are particularly relevant and fitting to address the kinds of questions relating to pedagogy which remain at this stage of ELF research. To support this thesis, the heart of the paper presents findings from an applied linguistic study investigating the implementation of an ELF-oriented approach in a university-level pilot course in order to illustrate the kinds of insights which classroom-based action research studies can provide. Finally, the concluding section reflects on the role of action research as a part of teachers’ professional development, the potential contributions which such research might make to ELF research and the need for the wider ELF research community to pay more attention to findings from action research undertaken as part of teacher education programs.

The pragmatics of English as a lingua franca

AbstractIn this paper I first briefly define the notion of English as a lingua franca and then give an overview of research into the pragmatics of English as a lingua franca (ELF). Investigations into the phenomenon of ELF started during the last two decades of the previous century. ELF in oral interactions was characterized by interactants’ joint, collaborative action making the discourse robust and ‘normal’ in the face of interactants’ often non-normative use of the English language. Later research focused on how ELF interactants managed to accommodate to each other, how they negotiated meanings and co-constructed utterances often employing ELF-specific pragmatic markers. Researchers also investigated how ELF users turn to pragmatic transfer and code-switching whenever it is necessary to plug competence gaps arising in their use of English. Finally, I list several critical points of ELF research and make a few suggestions for the future of ELF research.

Developing ELF research for critical language education

Abstract Research in English as a Lingua Franca (ELF), that is the medium of communication between people who come from different linguacultural backgrounds, has created a rich body of work in various areas. This article focuses on a more recent development of this research for teachers and teacher educators in the perspective of critical language education (CLE). We explore how ELF research, both the linguistic/discourse-oriented one and the pedagogic-oriented one, can benefit from its links to CLE, with its understanding of teaching for social change. We then refer to aspects of critical transformative theory that become relevant in designing and implementing ELF-aware teacher education programmes, focusing especially on three recursive (non-linear) components, i.e. the phase of exposure, the phase of critical awareness and the phase of development of actions that teachers can implement in their teaching. We finish by exploring the critical role of assessment in language education and conclude by inviting teachers and educators to become involved in ELF research for CLE.

A comparison of spoken and signed lingua franca communication: the case of English as a lingua franca (ELF) and International Sign (IS)

AbstractThis article explores similarities between English as a lingua franca (ELF) and International Sign (IS), two lingua franca phenomena which in the last decades have been subject to increasing, albeit independent, linguistic research. In contrast to spoken intercultural communication, in which English often represents a shared resource that speakers from different linguacultural backgrounds draw on, in the visual-gestural modality no specific sign language has yet gained such global reach. Instead, in many international contexts IS is used: a lingua franca that can be more or less conventionalized and that is not based on one particular sign language. IS use depends on the communicative situation, in which signers flexibly and creatively use different signs from natural sign languages as well as iconic elements and gestures. Despite overt formal differences between ELF and IS, when focusing on the actual communication process, rather than the forms that result from it, the two lingua franca phenomena share many similarities. In fact, both ELF and IS are variable communicative means that get situationally adapted by speakers and signers on the basis of different resources they have at their disposal. Similar discussions about the difficulty of conceptualizing ELF and IS, about the role of multilingual resources, and about interaction processes at play can thus be found in both ELF and IS literature. This insight opens up new possibilities for researchers in the two fields to mutually benefit from the study of lingua franca communication in the other modality, which prompts the need for a cross-modal collaboration between ELF and IS researchers.

Teaching English as a lingua franca in China

The last decade has witnessed a significant increase of research on English as a lingua franca (ELF) as today's world becomes progressively more globalized (Lei & Liu, 2018). However, studies on ELF in the Chinese contexts remain sparse although linguistic research in China has kept pace with the development of international linguistic academia. Moreover, many researchers studying ELF-informed teaching in China are either non-Chinese scholars or researchers working in countries other than China (Si, 2019). In other words, this newly emerged field of research has not yet been widely embraced by Chinese scholars, nor its paradigm has been promoted in English education while traditional native-English-based teaching has been challenged and initiatives have been taken to promote English education within the ELF paradigm in many countries in the expanding circle (see e.g., Sifakis & Tsantila, 2019). In this paper, we address the issue through identifying various hindrances to teaching ELF in Chinese classroom and analyzing the factors leading to the difficulties and problems with implementing the ELF-informed teaching in Chinese context. Following this, we explore the prospects for taking advantage of the pedagogical value of ELF research in the foreseeable future.

Pronunciation in course books: English as a lingua franca perspective

Abstract In recent decades there has been a growing interest in the use of English as a lingua franca (ELF), for example identifying the lingua franca core (LFC), or pronunciation features important for intelligibility in ELF contexts. While some analyses of course books (CBs) have shown ELF research findings are not yet reflected in these materials, few studies have focused specifically on pronunciation in CBs, and none from an ELF perspective. Consequently, this study analysed to what extent pronunciation syllabi of six globally published CBs follow the LFC, and what beliefs informed the CB authors’ choice of pronunciation features. The results show that LFC features represent only between 5 and 33 per cent of the pronunciation syllabi. While most authors were aware of the LFC and eager to focus on intelligibility, they either did not think it was important to follow the LFC or could not do so due to publisher’s demands.

Single case analyses of two overlap sequences in casual ELF conversations from a multimodal perspective: Toward the consideration of mutual benefits of ELF and CA

Since Firth’s (1990, 1996) seminal conversation analytic (CA) work on English as a lingua franca (ELF) interactions, the substantial amount of pragmatic ELF research has explored how interactants achieve intersubjectivity and social action in translingual ELF settings from a participant-relevant emic perspective (e.g., Jenks, 2012; Kaur, 2009). However, non-verbal resources are mostly disregarded in the majority of ELF research with a few exceptions. Meanwhile, mainstream CA research predominantly investigates first language interactions, and thus ELF research is still marginalized in the CA literature (Pietikäinen, 2018b). The primary aim of this paper, therefore, is to discuss the benefit of multimodal CA to analyzing ELF interactions, while the secondary one, that of analyzing ELF data to CA scholars. To these ends, the paper adopted a single case analysis (Sacks, 1992) combined with multimodal CA (Mondada, 2018), and analyzed two types of overlap sequences in casual ELF conversations of international students in British universities. The analysis of multimodal resources revealed interactional sensitivity and deftness of the interactants in the translingual ELF settings. The findings refine the understanding of lingua franca language scenarios and show the powerfulness of multimodal resources also in translingual ELF settings. Finally, a suggestion for future research will be given.

Syntactic complexity in English as a lingua franca academic writing

This study complements previous research on linguistic features of English as a lingua franca (ELF) from a syntactic complexity perspective. Specifically, the present study seeks to find out how ELF users express meaning relations in research articles using different syntactic structures. The same syntactic phenomena are also analyzed in comparable texts written in American English (AmE) to see in which way ELF writing is shaping research writing in English. Our findings show that the values of nine indices from four syntactic complexity dimensions in ELF research articles are significantly different from those in comparable AmE research articles. ELF authors use longer sentences to improve communication efficiency, and more coordinate phrases and complex nominals to enhance clarity and to increase explicitness. In addition, considering phrasal complexity, ELF research articles show greater reliance on nominal phrases in comparison to AmE articles. In other words, the convention of a nominal style is valued in ELF academic written discourse. These features of syntactic complexity illustrate writers’ handling of two competing goals, explicitness and conciseness, in the ELF academic writing. This study is significant in that it offers insights to the description of the emerging use of ELF in academic written discourse.

English as a lingua franca: From theory to practice

English as a lingua franca (ELF) refers to ‘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, p. 7*). ELF research started relatively recently. It was only discussed occasionally in the last century. Landmark changes were the publications of Jenkins (2000*) and Seidlhofer (2001*). These works inspired more research into ELF, as witnessed by a dramatically increased interest in ELF since then, resulting in a large number of journal articles, monographs, edited books (e.g. Mauranen & Ranta, 2009*) and large corpora (e.g. the Vienna-Oxford International Corpus of English, the Corpus of English as a Lingua Franca in Academic Settings, and the Asian Corpus of English). In addition, ELF researchers have launched the annual conference series (International Conference of English as a Lingua Franca), the Journal of English as a Lingua Franca, and the De Gruyter book series Developments in English as a Lingua Franca. These publications move from an initial understanding of ELF as a ‘variety’ or ‘varieties’ to a later conceptualisation of ELF as a dynamic, fluid and variable phenomenon. ELF has become a major focus of discussions and activities among both applied linguists and English language teaching professionals (Jenkins, Cogo, & Dewey, 2011).

Teaching English as a Lingua Franca: The Journey from EFL to ELF

In his plenary address at the 37th AEDEAN Conference back in 2013, Martin Dewey loosed a comment on the room that really stuck in my mind. It was high time, he suggested, for English as a lingua franca (ELF) to move from implication to application (see Dewey 2014). I loved the simplicity of his appeal and couldn’t doubt its sincerity; Dewey has been involved in ELF research since before it became known as ELF, and is also involved in language teaching and language teacher education. Of course, there is always a lag between new theories and their practical application. But the theories from the 1970s that led ELT towards communicative language teaching quickly surfaced in coursebooks such as Starting Strategies (Abbs and Freebairn 1977) or The Cambridge English Course 2 (Swan and Walter 1985). Sadly, this has not happened with ELF, and although I provided guidance to classroom practice for pronunciation teaching some time ago (Walker 2010), what might have been the starting gun for other ELF resource books now looks more like a shot in the dark.

Superficial intersubjectivity in ELF university dormitory interactions

AbstractThe current study investigates the phenomena of “superficial intersubjectivity” occurring in English as a lingua franca (ELF) interactions at an international university dormitory in Japan. “Intersubjectivity” (Rommetveit, Ragnar. 1976. On the architecture of intersubjectivity. In Ragnar Rommetveit & Rolv Mikkel Blakar [eds.],Studies of language, thought, and verbal communication, 93–107. New York: Academic Press) refers to the shared perspective of the social world by the interlocutors. In ELF interactions where shared perspectives cannot be presumed, efforts to achieve intersubjectivity are critical. ELF research has explicated speakers’ efforts and cooperativeness to achieve intersubjectivity or avoid misunderstandings during interactions (Kaur, Jagdish. 2011a. “Doing being a language expert”: The case of the ELF speaker. In Alasdair Archibald, Alessia Cogo & Jennifer Jenkins [eds.],Latest Trends in ELF Research, 53–75. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing; Seidlhofer, Barbara. 2001. Closing a conceptual gap: The case for a description of English as a lingua franca.International Journal of Applied Linguistics11[2]. 133–158). However, few studies have investigated cases where speakers display mutual understanding during a repair sequence even when the understanding is not accurate.Approximately 37 hours of naturally occurring ELF interactions were collected and analyzed using a standard conversation analysis followed by a post-analytic researcher observation. Detailed analyses of repair sequences regarding a word suggest that in non-institutional ELF interactions the accuracy of intersubjectivity is not always prioritized. Rather, statements made by the speaker positioned as the one with relatively stronger linguistic ability seem to hold influence over the repair sequence, which prompts the interlocutor with relatively weaker ability to agree with inaccurate candidate understandings. The study suggests a connection between the positioning of speakers regarding linguistic knowledge and the construction of intersubjectivity in ELF interactions.

Functions of laughter in English-as-a-lingua-franca classroom interactions: a multimodal ensemble of verbal and nonverbal interactional resources at miscommunication moments

AbstractThis study qualitatively examines possible communicative functions of laughter in English-as-a-lingua-franca (ELF) interactional contexts. It particularly focuses on the sequences when students and their instructors deal with miscommunication in multilingual writing classrooms at a US university. Adapting perspectives from the multimodal turn, I conceive of laughter as part of the diverse multimodal interactional resources that speakers in ELF contexts can coordinate with speech and other nonverbal, embodied actions (e.g. smile and body orientation), but that are distinct resources from speech. Combining sequential, multimodal analysis with ethnographic information, the data analysis reveals that laughter can have various functions in ELF classroom interactions at miscommunication moments. Laughter often subtly signals nonunderstanding, which can then lead to interactional repair. Other possible functions of laughter include pre-empting miscommunication by marking a speaker’s problem related to vocabulary; teasing specific interlocutor(s); and building solidarity through shared laughter. Based on the analysis in this article, it can be argued that laughter may in fact be counterproductive in resolving misunderstanding in ELF classroom interactions due to its ambiguous, implicit nature. Findings suggest that ELF researchers benefit from developing a multimodal orientation by integrating nonverbal interactional resources into their discourse analyses in order to examine interlocutors’ complex communicative strategies in a way that meaningfully coordinates various semiotic modes such as laughter and smile. Such an approach would provide a more robust conceptualization of communicative competence or practice of interlocutors in ELF contexts.

Iranian Teacher Trainees’ Attitudes towards English as a Lingua Franca

The present research was an attempt to shed more enlightening light on the current wave of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF), which is gradually sweeping the traditional ideologies in the field of ELT. To that end, this study examined the Iranian teacher trainees’ attitude towards ELF. What makes the present research markedly different from the other language attitude studies is in the context of research, namely Iran, an underrepresented country in the literature concerning ELF. To collect the data, the researchers employed mixed methods design, using questionnaires and follow-up semi-structured interviews. The results indicated that many a participant maintained contradictory and ambivalent attitudes towards ELF-related issues. Whilst they appeared to be favorably inclined to agree with the statements pertaining to ELF, they did not display uniform attitudes about ELF-related issues in an in-depth analysis of the results. In fact, the results revealed an underlying tendency towards NS norms among the participants. Results of the study may have implications for teacher trainers and ELF researchers.

ELF Awareness in English Language Teaching: Principles and Processes

The article proposes a framework for integrating English as a lingua franca (ELF) research in English language teaching (ELT), predominantly pedagogy, but also teacher education, materials development and evaluation, policy design and planning, assessment and testing. The main concept here is ELF awareness, which orientates a set of principles that refer to the knowledge, attitudes, and skillset of ELT stakeholders and ELT products with regard to issues and concerns raised in the ELF (and, by extension, the English as an international language and the World Englishes) research literature, and the extent to which they have relevance for local ELT contexts. The article makes the case that ELF awareness does not characterize a unique instructional approach to teaching and learning, but integrates the learner- and learning-centred ‘ESP approach’ put forward by English for specific purposes scholars in the 1980s and widely accepted subsequently in ELT. Furthermore, ELF awareness is viewed as a continuum that depicts the gradual transformation of stakeholders’ attitudes, to the extent that local contexts and stakeholders’ needs and wants allow.

Current Perspectives on Pedagogy for English as a Lingua Franca

Research on English as a lingua franca (ELF) has both stirred enthusiasm and raised concern in language teaching circles. From its early days in the late 1990s to date, questions have been raised about how exactly to apply ELF research to pedagogy, but answers have been few and far between. The problem is that there are no simple answers. ELF researchers are at times criticized for merely describing how English is used in lingua franca settings, but descriptive research is needed to make pedagogical suggestions that build on actual ELF use. Much of ELF research has also focused on people’s attitudes, but this, too, is important in order to see how receptive people would be to pedagogical practices drawing on ELF research. It takes time to develop viable pedagogical solutions. Bayyurt and Akcan’s edited collection of essays is a welcome contribution to pedagogical discussions around ELF. It aims to explicate the ways ELF research can contribute to practices of teaching and assessing English in different contexts, and importantly, some of the contributions in the volume provide readers with much-sought-after tangible solutions to the challenges of teaching and assessing English in the world today.

Some Critical Issues on English in East Asia and Their Pedagogic Implications

In this study, we evaluated the current situation of English use and English language education in East Asia in conjunction with some critical issues relevant to ELT, such as EMI education, the recruitment of native speaker teachers, and the popularity of English Village. The role and status of English are changing with the globalisation for political, economic, cultural and business cooperation among nations. In several current contexts, English is no longer used to communicate only with native English speakers but is also employed as a common means of intercultural communication or English as a Lingua Franca (ELF). Although the development of Asian ELF studies is at the early stage as compared to European ELF research, some research projects such as the Asian Corpus of English (ACE) have produced empirical findings on Asian ELF. Asian ELF studies provide pedagogic implications including the need for flexible and effective language use rather than native-speaker norms or grammatical accuracy. Therefore, from a curriculum development perspective, English education policy, classroom teaching methods and teacher education programs should take this changing nature of English use under consideration. From a marketing perspective, English language education and teaching approaches in East Asia need to raise student awareness regarding the opportunity English can provide for intercultural communication, which is characterized by variability and diversity, which is what is particularly important for engaging in effective and successful communication.

Identity and interculturality through English as a lingua franca

This paper explores the construction of identity in intercultural communication through English as a lingua franca (ELF). It is argued that ELF provides a valuable lens through which to explore identity due to the huge scale at which ELF communication occurs globally and in the Asian region. ELF research has shown identities constructed and negotiated in a fluid, hybrid and emergent manner in communication across and through a range of scales from the local, to the national and the global. However, at the same time we need to be wary of assuming participants are free to construct any identity they wish and the ascription of identities by others is also a feature of intercultural communication through ELF. The discussion here will focus on the notion of interculturality and identity as an approach which captures this negotiated nature of identity.

The Impact of ELF Concepts on Pre-service English Teachers: Instructor and Student Perspectives

English as a lingua franca (ELF) first emerged in the academic literature at the end of the 20th century. Since then, there has been an ever-increasing amount of research devoted to this topic. This line of research has identified new challenges that educators will likely face as their previous training and current practice might not match the changing landscape of English language use. ELF research has yielded new information related to how individuals communicate in an ELF context; therefore, most researchers have emphasized the need to fully explore the pedagogical impact of the findings from ELF research (Jenkins, 2006; Jenkins, Cogo & Dewey, 2011; Mauranen, 2012).

University students' perceptions of ELF in mainland China and Taiwan

Abstract This study examined mainland Chinese and Taiwanese students' perceptions of two aspects of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF): phonology and lexico-grammar. The researchers surveyed a total of 400 students at two universities in mainland China and at two universities in Taiwan (200 in each area). The results indicated that although students in both groups were aware that they could not speak English as native speakers did, they still preferred to achieve a native speaker accent. They admitted that they spoke with Chinese accents, but they believed that their accents were intelligible and acceptable. Nevertheless, the students in both groups tended to not maintain their local accents in English. With respect to ELF lexico-grammar, both groups considered some features incorrect, but they were uncertain about others. However, they could understand and tended to accept all the ELF sentences. The present study also revealed variations between the two groups with respect to their perceptions of ELF phonology and lexico-grammar. Given that little research has compared ELF users' perceptions across different geographical areas, this study addresses an important research gap by investigating the interaction of ELF perceptions and local contexts. Findings of the study may have important implications for ELF researchers and practitioners.