Volume 6, Issue 2

This article explores the question of whether there is anything peculiar—linguistically, discursively, and interactionally—about English as a lingua franca. Is there, in other words, a “lingua franca” factor at play? If, as some have speculated, this is indeed the case, in uncovering unique features of English as a lingua franca, we can hope to produce detailed descriptions and pedagogical materials that will further bolster the status of English as a lingua franca within Applied Linguistics, that will enhance our understanding of matters relating to multilingualism, multicompetence, additional language learning, intercultural communication, and spoken interaction. The article contends that there is a “lingua franca factor,” but argues that it resides not in the language or discourse forms produced, but in two other spheres, one being entailment, the other in metatheory . “Entailment” concerns the inherent interactional and linguistic variability that lingua franca interactions entail. “Metatheory” refers to theoretical underpinnings and dispositions brought about by adopting a lingua franca outlook on language.

This article presents the first empirical corpus-based investigation of the way speakers of English as a lingua franca (ELF) use the marker you know in interaction. While most previous studies of the use of you know stress its interpersonal functions in native English use, this study puts forward the strong hypothesis that ELF use of you know is critically different in that ELF speakers use you know predominantly as a self-serving strategy for purposes of creating coherence and “fumbling for words” in order to gain time for getting their message across. Results of the study which is based on authentic ELF interactions confirm this hypothesis and also substantiate assumptions about the location of you know inside turns and types of talk, about the role of individual variation and you know as a routine formula.

ELF users, in appropriating the language for their purposes, naturally follow what Sinclair calls the idiom principle whereby words are combined in phrases in the interests of effective communication. But in ELF, these phrases are typically co-constructed on line and do not need to correspond to conventional native-speaker idiomatic usage. In this respect there is a primary dependency on the open-choice principle, but this does not preclude adherence to the idiom principle. Online idiomatizing can be seen as a means whereby ELF speakers make use of English as their common communicative resource to accommodate to each other and cooperate by developing pro-tem idiomatic expressions. These phrases serve to facilitate cooperative convergence on shared meaning. However, they also serve to establish rapport, to identify speakers as members of the here-and-now group, and in this respect are also markers of shared territory, expressive of common understanding and attitude. In other words, the co-construction of these pro-tem idiomatic expressions serves not only the cooperative function of communication, but the territorial function of establishing shared affective space.

This paper adopts a linear perspective on analyzing language, based on Sinclair and Mauranen's Linear Unit Grammar (John Benjamins, 2006), and complemented with insights on recurrent patterning discernible in corpus data. The focus is on elements of managing interaction and the way ELF speakers utilize them in co-constructing successful discourse. Interactive phraseological patterns range from very short and fixed expressions up to variable units of around five words; the longer and more variable patterns are more susceptible to unconventional forms. ELF speech manifests approximations of conventional forms. These tend to be close enough to the target to ensure comprehensibility, but at the same time they deviate from conventions with a measure of regularity which suggests emergent patterning rather than random errors.

The investigation of pragmatic strategies in ELF interaction is a relatively new area of research. This paper examines intonation as a pragmatic resource in ELF interaction. There is considerable research pointing to the critical role played by intonational structure in NS-based discourse to establish a state of informational and social convergence (Brazil, The communicative value of intonation in English, Cambridge University Press, 1997; Chun, Discourse intonation in L2, John Benjamins, 2002; Hewings, International Review of Applied Linguistics 33: 251–65, 1995; Pickering, TESOL Quarterly 35: 233–255, 2001; Wennerstrom, Music in everyday speech, Oxford University Press, 2001). The question of whether similar practices can be identified in ELF interaction remains open. In this paper, I review current understanding of the role of intonational structure in NS-based interaction and then examine data from ELF interactions. Using a model of intonation in discourse (Brazil, The communicative value of intonation in English, Cambridge University Press, 1997) to interpret these data, I argue that both pitch movement (tone choice) and relative pitch level (key choice) contribute to intelligibility and interactional success in ELF interaction. Participants appear to orient to pitch cues both as a signal of a possible trouble source and as a means to indicate that negotiation or repair sequences have been accomplished successfully.