A lingua franca, as defined by Thomason (2001: 269), is
[a] language of wider communication – that is, a language that is used for communication between groups who do not speak each other’s languages, as well as between native speakers (if any) of the lingua franca and other groups […]. A lingua franca is by definition learned as a second language by at least some of its speakers.
A lingua franca is thus defined by its function as a common language of communication between speakers who do not share an L1. Within ELF research, this is how most scholars define ELF (see Jenkins et al. 2011: 283) and how ELF is conceptualised in this study, too. Some studies, however, take a narrower view, and define ELF as a contact language used for communication between non-native speakers (NNSs) of English from different linguacultural backgrounds (e.g. Firth 1996; House 1999; Seidlhofer 2001). This means that the studies exlude native speakers (NSs) of English from ELF communication. For instance, Firth (1996) gives the following definition for lingua franca use of English: “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, orginal emphasis). Seidlhofer (2004: 211) has called this kind of lingua franca English “ELF in its purest form”. However, since NSs of English are part of international communities of practice, as also Seidlhofer (2004:
211) points out, I see NSs of English as a natural part of ELF communication, and
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consider it important to explore what the presence of NSs of English means for ELF communication.25
By definition, most speakers of ELF (or any lingua franca) are plurilingual: the lingua franca is an additional language, or in some cases an L1, that forms one part of a speaker’s linguistic repertoire. Monolingual NSs of English make an exception. In order to give more weight to ELF speakers’ plurilingual repertoires, some ELF scholars (Jenkins 2000; Smit 2010) have suggested alternative solutions to talking about L1 and L2 speakers of English26, but since the suggestions have not received widespread acceptance, in this study, I retain the well-established distinction between L1 and L2 speakers. At the same time, however, I shift attention to the negotiation of communal practices, and treat the participants as bi- or plurilingual speakers of English27, who can all have a say in the construction of living norms for the community of practice. What becomes important, then, is whether the participants orient to the distinction of L1 and L2 speakers (of English), either making the distinction relevant or not.
3.1.1 Language users in their own right
Two fundamental differences can be found between mainstream paradigms in L2 research and an ELF perspective to L2 use: (a) the treatment of L2 speakers as learners of English as opposed to users of ELF, and (b) the treatment of deviations from ENL as errors as opposed to differences. The first difference means that whereas in mainstream L2 research L2 speakers are mostly seen as language learners, and treated as such also when analysed in communicative situations, in ELF research, when using English for communicative purposes, L2 speakers of English are seen as users of English in their own right. That the focus is on language use, rather than language learning, does not mean that language learning could not or would not take place in ELF interaction (see Firth 2009), or that the L2 speakers of English in the interaction could not consider themselves as learners of English and attend English-language classes outside the interaction. However,
25 In fact, NSs of English are included in all datasets of the ELFA team’s research projects.
26 Jenkins (2000: 9–10) and Smit (2010: 50–52) argue for alternative solutions to talking about L1 and L2 (or native and non-native) speakers of English. Jenkins (2000: 9–10) proposes that we use the following terms: (1) monolingual English speaker (MES) for monolingual NSs of English, (2) bilingual English speaker (BES) for speakers who have “attained a specified degree of profiency” in two languages, one of which is English, and (3) non-bilingual English speakers (NBES) who are bilingual, but who do not speak English. Smit (2010: 51) ignores Jenkins’s third category, and introduces instead the term “multilingual English speaker” (MuES) to refer to a person who speaks more than two languages.
27 None of the NSs of English in the data used in this study are monolingual speakers of English.
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the point is that learning English is not the main purpose of ELF interaction, and thus the speakers in the interaction are users of English, rather than learners.
Considering that more and more English is used as a lingua franca among L2 speakers of English outside English-speaking countries, the sheer amount of ELF communication calls for a focus on ELF in its own right. This further means a shift in perspective in terms of how to treat deviations from ENL, the second main difference between mainstream paradigms in L2 research and ELF. Typically, L2 speakers’ English has been compared to that of NSs of English, and any deviations have been considered errors. When the purpose of learning English is to integrate into an ENL community, this is of course perfectly valid. However, when we focus on ELF use, ENL standards are no longer automatically relevant as a yardstick for acceptable and correct English. Rather, we need to focus on negotiated communal practices, and measure the “quality” of English used in a specific community against the practices of that specific community (see Canagarajah 2006) – not its closeness to an ENL variety.
3.1.2 Similar to dialect contact
As language use, ELF resembles dialect contact (Mauranen 2011). In ELF settings, much like in dialect contact situations, speakers are exposed to several ‘lects’, or parallel ways of talking English (Mauranen 2011, 2012: 29 calls these similects). The difference is, though, that dialect contact often takes place in situations where a dialect speaker has moved to a different dialect area, and the ensuing contact is between speakers of the two dialects. In fact, dialect contact studies have tended to focus on the movement of individuals, and changes in the language (use) of the inviduals as affected by the dialect spoken in the new environment (see Trudgill 1986; papers in the Journal of English Linguistics 2010). In ELF encounters, then again, the ‘target’ lect is not one but several. When talking about ELF, we are not just dealing with individuals entering established communities with their established norms as is often the case with dialect contact (see papers in JEngL 2010; cf.
Blommaert 2010: 6, 12), but we are also talking about the coming together of individuals and groups of individuals with their different, as Blommaert (2010) calls them, “mobile linguistic resources”.
When ELF is conceptualised as the coming together of speakers with different linguistic resources, we can better understand why the concept community of practice is useful for describing ELF encounters (see Ehrenreich 2009). As was established in chapter 2, a community of practice is “an aggregate of people who come together around
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mutual engagement in an endeavour” (Eckert & McConnell-Ginet 1992: 464). The coming together of people means that their linguistic resources come into contact, and in ELF encounters this is particularly intriguing in terms of the construction of living norms in the communities.
What becomes interesting for ELF research, then, is to consider in what ways the speakers’ resources (of English) are adjusted to the ELF interaction, and what (living) norms are constructed through the process (see chapter 2). When there is no clear ‘target’
lect, there may not be enough exposure to one kind of lect in order for the speakers to change their ways of speaking accordingly – or there may not be any need for that. Also, with no clear ‘target’ lect, we could expect more explicit negotiation of acceptability and correctness of language to occur in interaction.