Diversity of users, settings, and practices: how are features selected into ELF practice?

Alan Thompson

doi:10.1515/jelf-2017-0011

Article

Diversity of users, settings, and practices: how are features selected into ELF practice?

Alan Thompson
Alan Thompson is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Foreign Languages, at Gifu Shotoku Gakuen University in central Japan. His research interests are language contact and change in international and intercultural settings, both in history and in the present (e.g. ELF), and in the role of translation and the use of play scripts in English language teaching and learning.

Published/Copyright: September 9, 2017

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From the journal Journal of English as a Lingua Franca Volume 6 Issue 2

Abstract

This article describes naturally occurring interactions drawn from three disparate English as a lingua franca (ELF) settings, all in Japan but involving diverse multinational groups of users, each bringing with them repertoires of experiences, skills, strategies, and linguistic features. Adaptations were observed in the language practices, including well-attested strategies and non-selections, but also distinct and hybridised patterns (e.g. question–response exchanges, address-reference forms). Although these features can be explained in terms of the improvisational stances of the users, in light of the wide disparities in proficiency, strategies, degrees of success, and of the hybrid forms that came to be locally preferred, a more satisfactory explanatory framework was sought in the broader study of historical language contact and change, especially in Mufwene’s recent re-interpretation of creoles as situated cases of language restructuring. The observed ELF practices are explained as the result of cooperative restructuring, by means of fitness-based selections from the feature pool, or virtual capacity, fed by the diverse repertoires of the participants. Such an approach foregrounds functional interpretations of ELF, and creates an inclusive framework wherein the variables that define different contact situations can be discerned.

摘要

本論文では、日本においての共通語としての英語（ELF）を使った自然発生的な会話を記述し考察する。会話は３つの異なる職場で録音されたものであり、多国籍の言語使用者が会話において、それぞれが自分の経験や技能、ストラテジー、言語力量から成るレパートリーを持ち寄るとされている。本研究では、言語使用者の言語行動において順応性が観測された。先行研究で裏付けられたストラテジーや非選抜特徴が見られた上に、質問・返事、他者を呼び方際等において独特の語形や複合的言語行動もあった。このような特徴は、使用者の即座に会話する姿勢によって説明できる。しかしながら、言語能力や、コミュニケーションストラテジー、会話上の成功の程度などの顕著な差を考慮し、現地で選ばれた独特・複合的言語行動などに照らして、歴史的な言語接触と変化という広範囲の分野に、より好ましい理論的な枠組みが必要であった。特に、クレオールが言語再構成の事例であるという Mufwene の再解釈を適用した。従って、観測されたELFの言語行動は、使用者の多様なレパートリーの流れ込まれた feature pool（言語特徴の蓄え）、つまりvirtual capacity（仮想的使用可能限度）、からの選抜による協力的言語再構成として説明できる。このような取り組みが、ELFの機能的解釈を際立たせ、異なる言語接触的な状況を定義する不確定要素を見分ける包含的な枠組みを生成するだろう。

Keywords: diversity; repertoires; virtual capacity; selection; creoles; language contact

キーワード：: 多様性、レパートリー、仮想的使用可能限度、選抜、クレオール、言語接触

About the author

Alan Thompson

Alan Thompson is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Foreign Languages, at Gifu Shotoku Gakuen University in central Japan. His research interests are language contact and change in international and intercultural settings, both in history and in the present (e.g. ELF), and in the role of translation and the use of play scripts in English language teaching and learning.

Appendix. Transcription key

Adapted from the transcription conventions of the Vienna–Oxford International Corpus of English (VOICE Project 2007).

P, M, etc.: participant (in ICDC data)
S1, S2, etc.: participant (in UpLink and CommCare data)
SX-f, SX-m: unknown participant (f, female; m, male)
SS: all or many participants at once
word.: falling intonation
word?: rising intonation
(.): pause of approx. 0.5 seconds
(2): longer pause, with approximate timing
(xxx): unintelligible syllables (one x per syllable)
ah::: lengthening of sound
DONE: prominent emphasis on syllable
<1> staff </1>: overlapping speech, retaining the numbering from the originally
<1> i b n </1>: transcribed data
i b n: spoken as a sequence of letters (/ai bi εn/)
@@@: laughter
<@> ok </@>: laughter during utterance of word
/bεlis/: approximate phonetic transcription
(please): a good guess at an unclear word
<L1ja> ne </L1ja>: portion of utterance in speaker’s first language (Japanese)

Note: All proper names and acronyms/abbreviations in the transcribed text have been changed with the aim of anonymity for the participants and their institutions. Any resemblance to real individuals or institutions is accidental.

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Published Online: 2017-9-9

Published in Print: 2017-9-26

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Articles in the same Issue

https://doi.org/10.1515/jelf-2017-0011

Keywords for this article

diversity; repertoires; virtual capacity; selection; creoles; language contact