English as a lingua franca Lingua Inglese 2 LM modulo B

 At its simplest, ELF is a way of referring to communication in English between speakers who have different first languages.  ELF interaction can include native English speakers, but in most cases, it is a contact language between people who share neither a common native tongue nor a common national culture, and for whom English is an additional language.  Conceptually it is very different from English as a Foreign Language (EFL).

EFL  Part of modern foreign languages  Deficit perspective  Metaphors of transfer/ interference  Code-mixing and switching are seen as interference errors ELF Part of World Englishes Difference perspective Metaphors of contact/ evolution Code-mixing and switching are seen as bilingual resources

Although ELF is a way of communicating in English not a variety of English we can still look at it in terms of language characteristics:  Phonology  Grammar  Lexis

/hi: cæn du:/ I’mI am /hi: c ə n du:/ /ti:t∫ ə //ti:t∫ ə r/

 What mispronunciations lead to a breakdown in communication? What mispronunciations make no difference to understanding? (Jenkins, 2002)

The following items were found to be essential for good understanding (a selection):  / I / versus /i:/ (‘i’ versus ‘ee’)  /p/, /t/, /k/ versus /b/, /d/, /g/  initial consonant clusters eg. strong  use of tonic stress e.g. He came by TRAIN v. HE came by train.

 /ð/ and /θ/  the schwa sound / ə /

 Place more stress on teaching the items that lead to misunderstanding than on the ones that don’t.

I have / Do you have? I have got / Have you got? We have been waiting for an hour We are waiting for an hour If I had…If I would have … your name is Jenny, isn’t it? your name is Jenny, no? your name is Jenny, right?

 regularisation of verbs:teached, stucked  uncountable/countable:furnitures, researches  non standard use of articlesin Polish language, of the Wilson’s disease  non standard use of prepositionsdiscuss about, obsession in, we’re dealing what is science

Approximate use of prepositions does not cause misunderstanding:  … after that you can nicely focus to even a very very limited aspect...  you have an intuitive interest on a topic and then … ... simply give up this community community comparison and er be satisfied at the policy policy level  we have to discuss more about this kind of theoretical questions

The following do not cause misunderstanding: lack of agreement  i’m really interested in erm how things is continuing there tense slips  … if i got some, er if i get the chance to made a case study… nonstandard quantifiers  …the molecule that bind er bind the iron or make it increase the er the number of iron that you lost

The following do not cause misunderstanding: non-standard interrogative  you try to to see how is the tissue  what you can see here in this picture?  I don’t remember do you, what says the book? missing inflection  so it somehow have to show so so some sort of an achievement... non-standard –ing forms  that was also depending on just a couple of votes

Approximate items are understood if:  they give a sufficient hint of what the target item might be (cf. discuss about)  the context supplies enough backup to enable recognition

 ELFA = English as a lingua franca in academic contexts Possible contexts - Conferences - contexts where EMI (English as a Medium of Instruction) is used, e.g. degree courses in Europe where english is used; what happens in lessons and exams ?

ENL ELF (ELFA) 1. I don’t know I don’t know 2. a lot of a lot of 3. one of the I think that 4. a little bit one of the 5. you have to and so on 6. this is the you have to 7. this is a there is a 8. in terms of I think it’s 9. I don’t think the the the 10. some of the a little bit

ENL ELF (ELFA) 1. I don’t know I don’t know 2. a lot of a lot of 3. one of the I think that 4. a little bit one of the 5. you have to and so on 6. this is the you have to 7. this is a there is a 8. in terms of I think it’s 9. I don’t think the the the 10. some of the a little bit

ENL ELF (ELFA) 1. I don’t know I don’t know 2. a lot of a lot of 3. one of the I think that 4. a little bit one of the 5. you have to and so on 6. this is the you have to 7. this is a there is a 8. in terms of I think it’s 9. I don’t think the the the 10. some of the a little bit

ENL ELF (ELFA) 1. I don’t know I don’t know 2. a lot of a lot of 3. one of the I think that 4. a little bit one of the 5. you have to and so on 6. this is the you have to 7. this is a there is a 8. in terms of I think it’s 9. I don’t think the the the 10. some of the a little bit

Multi-word units = collocations, e.g. take it easy Multi-word units = idioms e.g. as good as gold  MWU’s in all languages:  are frequent  contribute to fluency and predictability  combine lexis and structure Article and prepositions are often part of these MWU’s: e.g. to put an end to

ELF phraseological units are frequently non-standard  …take closer look to the world ... i think that on the end somehow the law has had some results  …how to put the end on it  … it’s on the worst during the first week ... clashes with soviet union was in the matter of few inches

In ELF the lexis of MFU’s stays the same and the structural elements (e.g. articles and prepositions) can vary without making the MWU less intelligible to put an end to it (ENL)to put the end on it (ELF)

S1: but that would allow er people more time to do whatever S2: yeah but i in my point of view that was really good [because] S3: [yeah]  in my view + from my point of view -> a blend, not simplification if in-, interest erm in my point of view in in this kind of usage. b [hm] for example in my point of view daddies always cook what new globalisation in my point of view er but on the other hand i hatever yeah but i in my point of view that was really good [beca can be said and er on my point of view er i will say that the secon market regulation on my point of view are the third world countrie n we have where, on my point of view my humble point of view i nsifies, the world on my point of view if you want we can open fo

ENL corpus for words about gonna say a few words about why this problem is difficult let me say a few words about the solution. um... in my onclude with a few words about Hilbert and his problems. just a few words about the planning committee um solve, and a few words about the solution, and then towards In ENL “words about” collocates with “a few” to form the fixed cluster “a few words about”

ELF corpus for words about some words about (9) a few words about (7) few words about (6) a couple of words about (1)  more variation than in ENL  break-up of an ENL fixed cluster

ELF the preferred pattern is some words about (9) have you have done, then some words about the thickness of the en if we open book er say some words about the nomenclature u are (xx).(xx xx) okay er some words about the state of the art in ified with experiments and some words about er the aspects the uences of er the past, now some words about the problem (xx) 'm at last i'm going to, say some words about the library yeah most important then some words about app- theoretical Speaking ELF generates new phraseological preferences

ELF concordance for matter of fact pite some difficulties that as the matter of fact they come across en in finland, he invented as the matter of fact er many initiatives ontroversial er statements as the matter of fact er soviets were they did they solve it no, as the matter of fact none none have been ns er er i i i when i lecture as the matter of fact these topics i erm nd yet erm something that as the matter of fact er very bad erm and ntest in this context erm is as the matter of fact indirectly empirical data erm and i did as the matter of fact erm i did lecture ns well the democracy will as the matter of fact function well, well nomically their economy is as the matter of fact very much don’t have (xx) but there is as the matter of fact in (xx) there are er but there you have as the matter of fact i mean when

 ‘dropping’ third person –s  interchangeable use of who and which  flexible use of articles (omission or insertion)  invariant tag questions, e.g. ‘isn’t it?’ or ‘no?’ instead of ‘shouldn’t they?’  additional prepositions, as ‘we have to study about..’  frequent use of simple verbs (do, make, have)  heightened explicitness, e.g. ‘black colour’, ‘how long time...?’  infinitives replaced by ‘that’ clauses – I want that (Seidlhofer 2004)

 certain collocations more frequent than in ENL: combinations with “I think”; “and so on”  non standard phraseology  variations of grammatical words in phraseology  more flexible phraseology; ENL fixed expressions are broken up Mauranen