A glimpse of ELF
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Anna Mauranen
Abstract
English participates in an unusually multilingual and complex language contact: it is in contact with virtually any other language in the world, and from these contact varieties with traces of the other language, “similects”, arises English as a lingua franca (ELF), a higher-order contact between contact varieties. This chapter presents a conceptualisation of ELF from three perspectives: the macro-social, the micro-social and the cognitive. The author derives a series of hypotheses from theoretical assumptions about ELF and from previous research in related fields. The hypotheses are then examined in the light of data from the corpus of English as a Lingua Franca in Academic Settings (ELFA). The results highlight tendencies towards both simplification and complexification in ELF. The principal processes involving all three perspectives of analysis (the macro, the micro and the cognitive) are approximation and fixing, which also drive change across each of these levels.
Abstract
English participates in an unusually multilingual and complex language contact: it is in contact with virtually any other language in the world, and from these contact varieties with traces of the other language, “similects”, arises English as a lingua franca (ELF), a higher-order contact between contact varieties. This chapter presents a conceptualisation of ELF from three perspectives: the macro-social, the micro-social and the cognitive. The author derives a series of hypotheses from theoretical assumptions about ELF and from previous research in related fields. The hypotheses are then examined in the light of data from the corpus of English as a Lingua Franca in Academic Settings (ELFA). The results highlight tendencies towards both simplification and complexification in ELF. The principal processes involving all three perspectives of analysis (the macro, the micro and the cognitive) are approximation and fixing, which also drive change across each of these levels.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter i
- Table of contents v
- List of abbreviations vii
- Changing English: global and local perspectives xi
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I. Towards the study of Global English
- Editors’ Introduction to Part I 3
- Crisis of the “Outer Circle”? – Globalisation, the weak nation state, and the need for new taxonomies in World Englishes research 5
- The Ecology of Language and the New Englishes: toward an integrative framework 25
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II. Ongoing changes in Englishes around the globe
- Editors’ Introduction to Part II 59
- The Present Perfect as a core feature of World Englishes 63
- Innovative structures in the relative clauses of indigenized L2 Asian English varieties 89
- Morphosyntactic typology, contact and variation: Cape Flats English in relation to other South African Englishes in the Mouton World Atlas of Variation in English 109
- Omission of direct objects in New Englishes 129
- The definite article in World Englishes 155
- Aspects of Verb Complementation in New Zealand Newspaper English 169
- Extended uses of the progressive form in Inner, Outer and Expanding Circle Englishes 191
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III. Expanding the horizons: lingua franca, cognitive, and contact-linguistic perspectives
- Editors’ Introduction to Part III 219
- A glimpse of ELF 223
- Lending bureaucracy voice: negotiating English in institutional encounters 255
- On the relationship between the cognitive and the communal: a complex systems perspective 277
- Transfer is Transfer; Grammaticalization is Grammaticalization 311
- Subject index 331
- Languages and Varieties index 340
- Author Index 343
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Frontmatter i
- Table of contents v
- List of abbreviations vii
- Changing English: global and local perspectives xi
-
I. Towards the study of Global English
- Editors’ Introduction to Part I 3
- Crisis of the “Outer Circle”? – Globalisation, the weak nation state, and the need for new taxonomies in World Englishes research 5
- The Ecology of Language and the New Englishes: toward an integrative framework 25
-
II. Ongoing changes in Englishes around the globe
- Editors’ Introduction to Part II 59
- The Present Perfect as a core feature of World Englishes 63
- Innovative structures in the relative clauses of indigenized L2 Asian English varieties 89
- Morphosyntactic typology, contact and variation: Cape Flats English in relation to other South African Englishes in the Mouton World Atlas of Variation in English 109
- Omission of direct objects in New Englishes 129
- The definite article in World Englishes 155
- Aspects of Verb Complementation in New Zealand Newspaper English 169
- Extended uses of the progressive form in Inner, Outer and Expanding Circle Englishes 191
-
III. Expanding the horizons: lingua franca, cognitive, and contact-linguistic perspectives
- Editors’ Introduction to Part III 219
- A glimpse of ELF 223
- Lending bureaucracy voice: negotiating English in institutional encounters 255
- On the relationship between the cognitive and the communal: a complex systems perspective 277
- Transfer is Transfer; Grammaticalization is Grammaticalization 311
- Subject index 331
- Languages and Varieties index 340
- Author Index 343
