Volume 1, Issue 2

This article explores the cognitive and communicative strategies involved in the use of ELF in situations of unequal encounters between non-western supplicants (i.e., African immigrants and asylum seekers) and western immigration officials in authority (in this case, Italian mediators – i.e., experts mediating between immigrants and institutions). Evidence from the case studies indicates that each contact group uses ELF with reference to different linguacultural conventions associated with their use of English, as the interactants come from the ‘outer’ and the ‘expanding’ circles respectively (cf. Kachru 1986). In consequence, each party in the encounters tends naturally to transfer the structural features and the meaning conventions of their L1 into the English that they use, each appropriating and “authenticating” the language in accordance not with native speaker norms, but with those of their own L1. Since these norms are not shared, there is the need for accommodation for communication to be achieved, but unequal power distribution in these encounters is not favorable to such accommodation – which, instead, normally obtains in relatively “equal” encounters. The case studies show how the lack of recognition of these variable versions of English may have critical consequences in contexts involving political and ethical questions concerning human rights. It is contended that only a “mutual accommodation” of variable usage would safeguard the participants' social identities and foster successful communication in crosscultural immigration encounters.

The study of ELF and of translation have been conducted with little reference to each other, yet they have a great deal of common ground, and would benefit from greater recognition of their common interests. Both are concerned with crosslinguistic communication in the unprecedented linguistic landscape of the 21st century. Both are central to the understanding and amelioration of contemporary problems. Both can be regarded as branches of applied linguistics. In addition, translation into English is increasingly both by and for non-native speakers. Having surveyed these similarities, the article explores how concepts and theories from translation studies are relevant to the study of ELF: notably the notions of nativisation and foreignisation, and polysystems theory, which conceives of change beginning in the interaction of systems and at their peripheries. In conclusion, the article discusses the range of crucial contemporary issues to which both ELF and translation are relevant and central, but points out some imbalances and omissions on both sides. It is suggested that given their importance in international and intranational issues of all kinds, and their relevance to other social sciences, the two fields of enquiry, expanded in range and working together, could be central rather than peripheral to applied linguistics.

This article explores the use of vague expressions in English spoken as a lingua franca in academic settings. The main focus is on the frequencies of general extenders (e.g. and so on ), vague classifiers (e.g. some sort of ), metadiscourse particles (e.g. so to say ), and indefinite prepositional phrases (e.g. in a way ). The aim of the study is to investigate how non-native speakers using English as a lingua franca employ and modify their repertoire of lexical vagueness in accordance with the speech event type and academic domain. Furthermore, the study also presents comparisons between the frequencies of vague expressions in lingua franca and native speaker data. The main sample is drawn from the English as a Lingua Franca in Academic Settings (ELFA) corpus and the findings are contrasted with a comparable data from the Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English (MICASE). The findings show that, on the whole, lingua franca speakers employ vague expressions almost twice as frequently as native speakers, although the range of different expressions was found to be narrower in the lingua franca data. Vague expressions were most commonly found in dialogic speech events such as doctoral defense and seminar discussions. As regards academic domains, vague expressions were most often used in technology, while in humanities and social sciences their frequencies were lower.

This article explores the link between English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) and super-diversity in the multilingual business context of a small IT company, where English is used as a lingua franca and various linguistic resources play an important role in the company practices. The aim of the study is to examine the practices, orientations to and use of ELF and multilingual resources within an ethnographically-oriented approach, with data collected through observations, interviews, focus groups and recordings of naturally-occurring interactions. The findings show that the company's practices are highly multilingual, whereby ‘languaging’ is a common and positively valued phenomenon. Results also show that ELF is highly collaborative, both in spoken and written communication, and the staff's sociolinguistic repertoire is sensitive to the interlocutors' communicative resources.

In the literature on professional international consulting, the use of a foreign language (such as English) is typically cast as problematic and as an obstacle to successful intervention. In this article, we present evidence to the contrary, showing that conducting a specific form of professional consulting called ‘supervision’ in English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) can be beneficial rather than detrimental to the outcome. We analyze data of one international supervision event using the ethnographic framework of ‘nexus analysis’ (Scollon and Scollon 2004). Nexus analysis operates by investigating how macro-level societal discourses (e.g. professional discourses of supervision) and cultural tools (e.g. the use of ELF) interplay in and mediate local moments of interaction. In our case, using ELF in international supervision can slow down the process, which in turn is actually an important intervention strategy in supervision because it facilitates reflection work and is thus conducive to positive outcomes. We argue that nexus analysis is well poised to investigate the effects of such interplay of ELF use and societal (professional) discourses on the ground. Further, conducting studies that show the benefits of ELF use in supervision can ultimately engender more positive attitudes among professionals in this regard.

This article discusses how current sociolinguistic research in ELF, a comparison of English and Latin as linguae francae (the Latin analogy) and language teaching can be drawn upon to bring the phenomenon of ELF to the attention of young language users and learners in order to help them understand what is happening in the linguistic world around them. The discussion involves considerations of the following issues: (1) the emotionally charged debates, both academically and publicly, of English as a lingua franca; (2) sociolinguistic research on English as a lingua franca; (3) the Latin analogy, making reference to the historical development of Latin as an indicator for the future development of English; (4) the integration of sociolinguistic issues such as the use of English as a lingua franca into the language curriculum; and (5) the development of cross-curricular language teaching units.