English as a lingua franca: A new variety in the new Expanding Circle? (original) (raw)
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The Interpreter and Translator Trainer, 2013
, 2011. xvii+244 pp. ISBN 978-0-19-437500-9 (pbk). £32. Barbara Seidlhofer's latest monograph, Understanding English as a Lingua Franca, comes at a moment when the English language, while serving this function since the first colonizations in the 16 th century (Jenkins et al. 2011), has truly established itself as a language of nearly global communication, a language for which the predominant reason for learning has become to interact primarily not with its native speakers, but with other non-native users. The past two decades have accordingly witnessed a burgeoning of articles, dissertations, conferences, corpora, and a dedicated journal devoted to the topic; yet in many circles the phenomenon has still remained unnoticed or unacknowledged, acquired many misunderstandings, is raising mixed opinions or encountering strong resistance. Barbara Seidlhofer, a long-time expert on the subject and one of the pioneers of research in the field, explores and elucidates the many facets and repercussions of the controversial topic at hand. For the purpose of her book, Seidlhofer defines ELF 1 as any use of English among speakers of different mother tongues and linguacultural backgrounds, across all three Kachruvian circles 2. In contrast to some earlier definitions and conceptualizations (e.g. House 1999, Jenkins 2007), this importantly includes native speakers of English (NSs), who for aims of intercultural communication may use ELF as their additional language. The opening chapter sets the scene by casting light on the familiar phenomenon of the growing masses of people learning English worldwide, on a scale unprecedented by any previous lingua franca. Chapter 2 makes readers aware of the deeply rooted and all-pervasive misconception-in both popular and scholarly discourse-that English is the preserve and asset of native speakers, the only legitimate and authoritative provider of standards. In her critique of this linguistic imperialism, Seidlhofer also devotes some space to interrogating the very concept of NS, showing how this stable, homogeneous and hypercorrect construct is an idealized notion and how difficult it is to agree on its satisfactory definition (let alone a definition of an 'educated' NS). Chapters 3 and 4 turn to the reified and equally elusive notion of 'proper', 'real', 'Standard English' (StE) and to why (contrary to Quirk 1985, for instance) it is an inappropriate objective for learning the language. The first interesting chapter for this reviewer is chapter 4, devoted to a discussion of how non-native users adapt and variably alter English ad hoc to suit their communicative purpose (rather than "adopt" it as a "franchise language", per Widdowson (2003:50)). Thus, they preserve their identity without striving to mimic NSs' communicatively irrelevant conventions, and therefore play an active role in the development and spread of the language. The aim of lingua franca interactions is communicative efficiency, which is achieved by accommodating to the interlocutor. This is different from grammatical correctness. In Chapter 5, drawing on data from the VOICE corpus and other empirical studies-though without adequately explaining annotation conventions used in VOICE corpus data-Seidlhofer provides numerous examples of authentic ELF talk that diverge from standard English to illustrate the processes and communication strategies at work. 1 Sometimes also labelled 'English as an International Language' (EIL). 2 'Inner', where English has historically been the mother tongue of the vast majority of the population, 'Outer', where its varieties function as official and second languages, usually owing to colonial history, and 'Expanding', where it is being taught in schools as a foreign language (Kachru 1985).
'Contact With' and 'Use Of' English in Different Circles: a 3-case comparison
Research Reports of The Department of International Studies, Kochi University No. 13, 2012 (国際社会文化研究第13号. ) pp 1-24
Contact With and Use Of English is a dichotomized view of language used in this paper. It is used to consider how English occurs and affects language behaviour incurring English across three zones in Kachru's Three Circles of English: Japan in the Extending Circle; Singapore in the Outer; and Norfolk Island in the Inner Circle. While the lingua franca in Japan is Japanese rather than English, the other two zones have English as lingua francas (ELFs). However different languages and English varieties regularly occur in different situations in language cultures across each of these zones. English that people have Contact With is any ostensibly English text which people in a language community would encounter, consciously or subconsciously, whether the people make sense of meaning or not. This Contact-with/Use-of-English framework is presented in relation to significant domains of English and of discourses pertaining to English varieties in each zone including constitutional and law provisions, English education, English corpora, signage, spoken language events, people's attitudes to English and also English education. This deconstruction can go some way to account for the extensive diglossia, including how people are members of multiple micro language communities within the language cultures in Japan, though more so in Singapore and on Norfolk Island. 本稿では、日本、シンガポール、ノーフォーク島(オーストラリア近隣)にお ける英語との接触と使用についての相対評価を行う。 英語と code-mix 言語様式 のみに限定するのを避けるため、異なったテキストタイプや語用論的なバリエ ーション、さらに各コンテクストで人々が学ぶ言語と教えられる言語の違いに も注意を払う。英語に関しては、学習法・教授法の多様性が、各地域における リンガフランカとしての英語の現状をある程度反映すると言える -This paper addresses an English-as-lingua-franca (ELF) conundrum: that ELF is hard to pin down as to be observable. How then might ELF be realized by different parties, from individuals to students to teachers and syllabus makers to government language policy makers? This is particularly difficult if ELF is considered as a single linguistic entity or phenomenon. My conjecture is that from place to place ELF is hardly ever the same thing. As the title suggests, this paper attempts to dichotomize English as something which people have contact with and also which people use. Could this dichotomized view solve the conundrum just mentioned?
International Journal of English Linguistics
The marginalization of English second (L2) and foreign language (EFL) users in the academic and practical pursuit of English language teaching (ELT) has fueled the hegemonic power of the inner circle of world Englishes (CWE). Because of the inequality among the circles of world Englishes, this paper pursues a dual purpose: firstly, it sets out to determine the sociolinguistic effects of globalization on the CWE; and secondly, it establishes how these sociolinguistic effects contribute to the homogenization of the circles and a seemingly more equitable notion of (world) English(es). Drawing on available qualitative descriptions and empirical data, three practical contexts of sociolinguistics were identified (viz. demographic shifts, economic motivations, and language education policy) to realize the dual research purpose. Based on a qualitative instrumental case study of a purposive sample of one country from each CWE, the study assesses the possibility to justify the proposition that the functions of English across the circles are becoming more similar as globalization homogenizes the global English sociolinguistic ecology. The findings support claims of major evolutionary processes that entail significant implications for the ELT community across the CWE.
Introduction: English as A Lingua Franca
Nordic Journal of English Studies
English continues its triumph as a worldwide language of a previously unknown scale. The numbers of speakers keep expanding, and at the same time, the status of English is dramatically changing as a foreign language: native speakers of the 'core' varieties of British and American English are far outnumbered by bilingual speakers. In a recent report, Graddol (2006) predicts an end to English as a foreign language (EFL) as we know it, with native speakers providing the gold standard. He foresees the teaching of English becoming part of mainstream education worldwide, that is, a basic skill instead of just another foreign language. In this postmodern world, the myth of a uniform standard language becomes less and less relevant and harder to maintain. The spread of English has been both investigated and debated (e.g. Phillipson 1992, Pennycook 1994 Brutt-Griffler 2002), but these studies have not paid much attention to language itself, and how its features take shape in different locations and in different functions. As English has made its way to all corners of the world, it has developed a number of varieties, some of which have institutional status, others not. The varieties indigenised in countries where English has an institutional status, the "outer circle" in Kachru's (1985) terms, such as India, Nigeria, Singapore, South Africa, have not always been easily accepted as varieties in their own right, but with time they have increasingly become subject to linguistic research as well as to codification. The linguistic research community has been much slower to react in the case of English used as a lingua franca. While English as a foreign language (in Kachru's "expanding circle") has been studied extensively for a long time as 'learner language', the actual use of the language outside classrooms and learning contexts has been neglected until very recently. Learner English is of great interest in both practical and theoretical terms, and the need to study second-language use in its own right is not competing with that: it is simply doing different things. Many features of learner language are shared by 'real-world' second language speakers; conversely, we certainly open a new window to understanding secondlanguage use by investigating English as a lingua franca. Discussion on the necessity or desirability of the native speaker model for language teaching has been very much alive since the turn of the millennium, and it started even earlier in applied linguistics. English
Cultures, Contexts, and World Englishes by Yamuna Kachru and Larry E. Smith
World Englishes, 2009
If Yamuna Kachru and Larry Smith had supplied a sub-title for their book, it might have been 'promoting sensitivity to linguistic diversity', since this is the underlying theme that unifies this work. It is presented in three parts: (I) scholarly approaches to the analysis of cultures, verbal interaction and intelligibility; (II) the linguistic building blocks that form interlocutors' exchanges; and (III) conversational and writing styles. The sensitivity that the authors advocate is rooted in a belief that diversity -of Englishes and cultures -can be negotiated ad hoc, whereas ethnocentricity and outdated norms need to be counteracted. The argument is presented convincingly across a range of parameters; overarching political and ideological issues are relegated to a brief concluding chapter. Each part has a short introduction summarising themes, and each chapter has ideas for practical follow-up.