English As A Lingua Franca

key concepts in elt
English as a lingua franca
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Barbara Seidlhofer
In recent years, the term ‘English as a lingua franca’ (ELF) has emerged
as a way of referring to communication in English between speakers with
different first languages. Since roughly only one out of every four users of
English in the world is a native speaker of the language (Crystal 2003),
most ELF interactions take place among ‘non-native’ speakers of English.
Although this does not preclude the participation of English native
speakers in ELF interaction, what is distinctive about ELF is that, in most
cases, it is ‘a ‘contact language’ between persons who share neither a
common native tongue nor a common (national) culture, and for whom
English is the chosen foreign language of communication’ (Firth 1996:
240).
Defined in this way, ELF is part of the more general phenomenon of
‘English as an international language’ (EIL) or ‘World Englishes’. (For
comprehensive overviews, see Jenkins 2003; McArthur 1998; Melchers
and Shaw 2003.) EIL, along with ‘English as a global language’ (e.g.
Crystal 2003; Gnutzmann 1999), ‘English as a world language’ (e.g. Mair
2003) and ‘World English’ (Brutt-Griffler 2002) have for some time been
used as general cover terms for uses of English spanning Inner Circle,
Outer Circle, and Expanding Circle contexts (Kachru 1992). The
traditional meaning of EIL thus comprises uses of English within and
across Kachru’s ‘Circles’, for intranational as well as international
communication. However, when English is chosen as the means of
communication among people from different first language backgrounds,
across linguacultural boundaries, the preferred term is ‘English as a
lingua franca’ (House 1999; Seidlhofer 2001), although the terms
‘English as a medium of intercultural communication’ (Meierkord
1996), and, in this more specific and more recent meaning, ‘English as
an international language ’ (Jenkins 2000), are also used.
Despite being welcomed by some and deplored by others, it cannot be
denied that English functions as a global lingua franca. However, what
has so far tended to be denied is that, as a consequence of its
international use, English is being shaped at least as much by its non-
native speakers as by its native speakers. This has led to a somewhat
paradoxical situation: on the one hand, for the majority of its users,
English is a foreign language, and the vast majority of verbal exchanges
in English do not involve any native speakers of the language at all. On
the other hand, there is still a tendency for native speakers to be regarded
as custodians over what is acceptable usage. Thus, in order for the
ELT Journal Volume 59/4 October 2005; doi:10.1093/elt/cci064 339

q The Author 2005. Published by Oxford University Press; all rights reserved.
concept of ELF to gain acceptance alongside English as native language,
there have been calls for the systematic study of the nature of ELF—what
it looks and sounds like and how people actually use it and make it
work—and a consideration of the implications for the teaching and

learning of the language.
Empirical work on the linguistic description of ELF at a number of levels
has in fact been under way for several years now. Research has been
carried out at the level of phonology (Jenkins 2000), pragmatics
(Meierkord 1996), and lexicogrammar (Seidlhofer 2004, which also
offers an overview of descriptive work to date). ELF corpora are now also
being compiled and analysed, such as the English as a lingua franca in
Academic settings (ELFA) corpus (Mauranen 2003) and the general
Vienna-Oxford International Corpus of English (VOICE) (Seidlhofer
2004). While space prevents summarizing the findings of this research
here, two illustrative examples can be mentioned. Thus, Jenkins (2000)
found that being able to pronounce some sounds that are often regarded
as ‘particularly English’ but also particularly difficult, namely the ‘th’
sounds /u/ and /D/ and the ‘dark l’ allophone [ł], is not necessary for
international intelligibility through ELF. Similarly, analyses of ELF
interactions captured in the VOICE corpus clearly show that although
ELF speakers often do not use the third person singular present tense ‘-s’
marking in their verbs, this does not lead to any misunderstandings or
communication problems.
This gradually accumulating body of work is leading to a better
understanding of the nature of ELF, which in turn is a prerequisite for
taking informed decisions, especially in language policy and language
teaching (McKay 2002). Thus, the features of English which tend to be
crucial for international intelligibility and therefore need to be taught for
production and reception are being distinguished from the (‘non-native’)
features that tend not to cause misunderstandings and thus do not need
to constitute a focus for production teaching for those learners who
intend to use English mainly in international settings. Acting on these
insights can free up valuable teaching time for more general language
awareness and communication strategies; these may have more
‘mileage’ for learners than striving for mastery of fine nuances of native-
speaker language use that are communicatively redundant or even
counter-productive in lingua franca settings, and which may anyway not
be teachable in advance, but only learnable by subsequent experience of
the language. It should be stressed, however, that linguistic descriptions
alone cannot, of course, determine what needs to be taught and learnt for
particular purposes and in particular settings—they provide necessary
but not sufficient guidance for what will always be pedagogical decisions
(Widdowson 2003).
References Crystal, D. 2003. English as a Global Language

Brutt-Griffler, J. 2002. World English. Clevedon: (Second edition). Cambridge: Cambridge
Multilingual Matters. University Press.
340 Barbara Seidlhofer

Firth, A. 1996. ‘The discursive accomplishment of Meierkord, C. 1996. Englisch als Medium der
normality. On “lingua franca” English and interkulturellen Kommunikation. Untersuchungen
conversation analysis’. Journal of Pragmatics 26: zum non-native-/non-native speaker—Diskurs.
237–59. Frankfurt/Main: Lang.

Gnutzmann, C. (ed.). 1999. Teaching and Learning Melchers, G. and P. Shaw. 2003. World Englishes.
English as a Global Language. Tübingen: London: Arnold.
Stauffenburg. Seidlhofer, B. 2001. ‘Closing a conceptual gap: the
House, J. 1999. ‘Misunderstanding in case for a description of English as a lingua franca’.
intercultural communication: interactions in International Journal of Applied Linguistics 11:
English as a lingua franca and the myth of mutual 133 –58.
intelligibility’ in C. Gnutzmann (ed.). pp. 73 –89. Seidlhofer, B. 2004. Annual Review of Applied
Jenkins, J. 2000. The Phonology of English as an Linguistics, 24, pp. 209–39. Cambridge:
International Language. Oxford: Oxford University Cambridge University Press.
Press. Widdowson, H. G. 2003. Defining Issues in English
Jenkins, J. 2003. World Englishes. London: Language Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University
Routledge. Press.
Kachru, B. (ed.). 1992. The Other Tongue (Second
edition). Urbana and Chicago: University of The author
Illinois Press. Barbara Seidlhofer is Professor of English and
McArthur, T. 1998. The English Languages. Applied Linguistics at the University of Vienna.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. She is the Director of the Vienna-Oxford
McKay, S. 2002. Teaching English as an International Corpus of English (VOICE) project,
International Language. Oxford: Oxford University which aims to provide a basis for the linguistic
Press. description of ELF. Her most recent book is
Mair, C. (ed.). 2003. The Politics of English as a Controversies in Applied Linguistics (Oxford
World Language. Amsterdam: Rodopi. University Press).
Mauranen, A. 2003. ‘Academic English as lingua
franca—a corpus approach’. TESOL Quarterly 37:
513–27.
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key concepts in elt

English as a lingua franca

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/eltj/article-abstract/59/4/339/371345 by guest on 15 January 2020

ELT Journal Volume 59/4 October 2005; doi:10.1093/elt/cci064 339

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/eltj/article-abstract/59/4/339/371345 by guest on 15 January 2020

References Crystal, D. 2003. English as a Global Language

340 Barbara Seidlhofer

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/eltj/article-abstract/59/4/339/371345 by guest on 15 January 2020

Key concepts: English as a lingua franca 341

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