ELF as multilingual “edulect” in a bilingual university

Iris Schaller-Schwaner

doi:10.1515/jelf-2018-0005

Article

ELF as multilingual “edulect” in a bilingual university

Iris Schaller-Schwaner
Iris Schaller-Schwaner is EFL Lecturer at the University of Freiburg/Fribourg Language Centre & Department of Languages and Literatures, Multilingualism & Foreign Language and Head of English as a Foreign Language at the University Language Centre. She has published on grammar in ELT textbooks, on English in Swiss billboard advertisements, on developing English for Academic Purposes in multilingual contexts and on ideas that inform reflective foreign language teaching at university level and beyond. She has recently completed her doctoral degree based on a contextual analysis of the agentive use of English as a lingua franca in academic settings of Switzerland’s Bilingual University.

Published/Copyright: March 13, 2018

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From the journal Journal of English as a Lingua Franca Volume 7 Issue 1

Abstract

The role of English at European universities outside English-speaking countries has recently been so dynamic and complex as to merit elaborate acronyms and frameworks of comparison to capture the actual diversity involved in each case of using English, for example in what Dafouz and Smit (Dafouz, Emma and Ute Smit. 2014. Towards a dynamic conceptual framework for English-medium education in multilingual university settings. Applied Linguistics 37[3]: 397–415) subsume under English-medium education in the international university. This contribution, however, looks at ELFFRA, English as a lingua franca in academic settings at the bi- and multilingual University of Fribourg, Switzerland. When English first became officially acknowledged as an additional academic language in 2005, being preceded by a period of “unruly” emergence, it was often the marked case, even in and for its local disciplinary speech events. Its current use at UFR as the default in some English-medium study programmes is by no means uniform or monolingual either. Meanwhile in the promotion of bilingualism in French and German, English is mostly “included” – reminiscent of the semiotics of the 2005 nonce coinage of “bi(tri)lingualism.” This contribution will revisit ideas about the “edulect” role of ELFFRA (Schaller-Schwaner, Iris. 2017. The many faces of English at Switzerland’s Bilingual University: English as an academic lingua franca at the institutionally bilingual University of Freiburg/Fribourg – a contextual analysis of its agentive use. Vienna: University of Vienna doctoral thesis) but look for it in unusual and under-researched places where it is indeed “included” viz. in beginners’ university language courses teaching the local languages French and German. First explorations will be shared and discussed with a view to what this might mean for ELF(A) and edulect.

Abriss

Die Rolle des Englischen an Europäischen Universitäten ausserhalb englischsprachiger Länder hat sich zuletzt so dynamisch und komplex entwickelt, dass es elaborierter Akronyme und Vergleichsrahmen bedarf, um die tatsächliche Vielfalt zu erfassen, die mit jedem Fall der Verwendung von Englisch einhergeht, z. B. gemäss der Dafouz und Smit (Dafouz and Smit 2014. Towards a dynamic conceptual framework for English-medium education in multilingual university settings. Applied Linguistics 37(3): 397–415) sie einordnen unter englischsprachigen Bildungsgängen an internationalen Universitäten. Der vorliegende Beitrag beschäftigt sich jedoch mit ELFFRA, Englisch als Lingua Franca in akademischen Settings an der zwei- und mehrsprachigen Universität Freiburg, Schweiz. Als Englisch 2005 im Anschluss an eine Periode „wilden“ Auftretens erstmals als zusätzliche akademische Sprache offiziell eingeräumt wurde, war es oft der markierte Fall, sogar in den lokalen Sprech-Ereignissen der Fächer, in denen und für die es zur Anwendung kam. Auch ist seine gegenwärtige Verwendung an der UFR als Voreinstellung in manchen englischsprachigen Studienprogrammen keineswegs einheitlich oder einsprachig. Inzwischen ist Englisch aber – an die Semiotik des 2005 neu geprägten Begriffs „Zwei(drei)sprachigkeit“ erinnernd – bei der Förderung der deutsch-französischen Zweisprachigkeit „inbegriffen“. Dieser Beitrag überdenkt die „Edulekt“ Rolle von ELFFRA (Schaller-Schwaner 2017. The many faces of English at Switzerland’s Bilingual University: English as an academic lingua franca at the institutionally bilingual University of Freiburg/Fribourg – a contextual analysis of its agentive use. Vienna: University of Vienna doctoral thesis), sucht sie aber an Orten auf, die ungewöhnlich und noch wenig erforscht sind, und wo Englisch nun tatsächlich „inbegriffen“ ist, nämlich in universitären Anfängersprachkursen für die lokalen Sprachen Französisch und Deutsch. Es sollen hier erste Erkundungen angestellt und diskutiert werden in Hinblick auf ihre mögliche Bedeutung für ELF(A) und Edulekt.

Keywords: the choice of ELF in FLT; academic multilingualism with ELF; bi(tri)lingualism; university language teaching; edulect; beginners’ French and German lessons

Schlagworte: die Wahl von ELF im Fremdsprachenunterricht; akademische Mehrsprachigkeit mit ELF; Zwei(drei)sprachigkeit; universitärer Sprachunterricht; Edulekt; Anfängerunterricht Französisch und Deutsch

About the author

Iris Schaller-Schwaner

Iris Schaller-Schwaner is EFL Lecturer at the University of Freiburg/Fribourg Language Centre & Department of Languages and Literatures, Multilingualism & Foreign Language and Head of English as a Foreign Language at the University Language Centre. She has published on grammar in ELT textbooks, on English in Swiss billboard advertisements, on developing English for Academic Purposes in multilingual contexts and on ideas that inform reflective foreign language teaching at university level and beyond. She has recently completed her doctoral degree based on a contextual analysis of the agentive use of English as a lingua franca in academic settings of Switzerland’s Bilingual University.

Acknowledgements

Many thanks are due to the two lecturers who opened their university language teaching classrooms at the Language Centre of the University of Fribourg to observation and who welcomed and supported the exploratory research reported here with their time and insights. I would also like to thank the reviewers of this article for their helpful comments.

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Published Online: 2018-3-13

Published in Print: 2018-3-26

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Articles in the same Issue

https://doi.org/10.1515/jelf-2018-0005

Keywords for this article

the choice of ELF in FLT; academic multilingualism with ELF; bi(tri)lingualism; university language teaching; edulect; beginners’ French and German lessons