From within and without: the virtual and the plurilingual in ELF
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Cornelia Hülmbauer
Cornelia Hülmbauer is an applied linguist specialising in ELF. She has written on various aspects of plurilingual influence as well as on correctness and effectiveness in the lingua franca. From 2007 to 2011 she worked as a researcher for the European FP6 project DYLAN – Language Dynamics and Management of Diversity and has also been involved in the Toolkit for Transnational Communication project. She is currently a research assistant at the University of Vienna.
Abstract
This article explores the shifts of form and meaning involved in the use of unconventional language in English as a lingua franca (ELF). Assuming that ELF speakers as intercultural communicators are less inhibited by standardising forces than speakers in a primary lingua-cultural environment, it points to the fact that “virtual” resources, i.e., latent linguistic possibilities within English beneath the surface of the encoded, play a crucial role in the lingua franca mode. Since ELF emerges in multilingual contexts and can itself be considered a multilingual mode, the virtuality aspect is claimed to interact with elements from without English, namely plurilingual resources from the speakers’ first or other language backgrounds. While the discussion of virtual resources has thus far mainly been focused on morphological flexibility, in this article their interconnection with the plurilingual aspect of ELF is shown to also affect the dimension of meaning. It is thus argued that a valid semiotic framework of ELF needs expansion both on the morphological and on the pragmatic levels. Such an expansion acknowledges virtual and plurilingual aspects as integral parts of the lingua franca and eventually nullifies the initial distinction between influences from within and from without.
About the author
Cornelia Hülmbauer is an applied linguist specialising in ELF. She has written on various aspects of plurilingual influence as well as on correctness and effectiveness in the lingua franca. From 2007 to 2011 she worked as a researcher for the European FP6 project DYLAN – Language Dynamics and Management of Diversity and has also been involved in the Toolkit for Transnational Communication project. She is currently a research assistant at the University of Vienna.
© 2013 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Masthead
- Achieving “comity”: the role of linguistic stance in business English as a lingua franca (BELF) meetings
- Notes on English used as a lingua franca as an object of study
- From within and without: the virtual and the plurilingual in ELF
- Figurative language and ELF: idiomaticity in cross-cultural interaction in university settings
- Express-ability in ELF communication
- ELF and academic writing: a perspective from the Expanding Circle
- ELF in international school exchanges: stepping into the role of ELF users
- A linguistic anthropologist looks at English as a lingua franca
- ELF and EFL: what's the difference? Comments on Michael Swan
- ELF and the bigger picture
- Book Review
- Conferences
Articles in the same Issue
- Masthead
- Achieving “comity”: the role of linguistic stance in business English as a lingua franca (BELF) meetings
- Notes on English used as a lingua franca as an object of study
- From within and without: the virtual and the plurilingual in ELF
- Figurative language and ELF: idiomaticity in cross-cultural interaction in university settings
- Express-ability in ELF communication
- ELF and academic writing: a perspective from the Expanding Circle
- ELF in international school exchanges: stepping into the role of ELF users
- A linguistic anthropologist looks at English as a lingua franca
- ELF and EFL: what's the difference? Comments on Michael Swan
- ELF and the bigger picture
- Book Review
- Conferences
