The controversial issues of English as a lingua franca today

Petra Hajdu-Pásztor

The controversial issues of

English as a lingua franca today

A lingua franca is a contact language between people who do not share a first language, meaning that a second language will be used as a bridge between participants for them to express their thoughts. Specially talking about English, English as a lingua franca (ELF) means the usage of English for communication where two or more participants do not have the same mother tongue (Jenkins, 2009) In the following essay the recent findings, developments and problems of ELF will be discussed, after a brief introduction on how it developed. Although English as a lingua franca is an often criticised phenomenon, its importance cannot be argued. English as a lingua franca is the solution to previous enormous problems of the lack of common language with the help of which one can make him or herself understood by most people through the whole world.

      After the exploration of America expeditions started in order to find new territories as a result of which British colonization began. During the three hundred years of colonization colonies adopted English in some cases because people were forced to, in other cases for practical reasons. This spread of English in a specific colony continued even after the end of colonization as a result of which English was declared the official language of these territories. Moreover, in the last decades Apart from Britain, other English speaking countries became leaders of the Economic and political world such as the United States, Australia or Canada.

      When globalisation began, there was a need for a common language to make themselves understood in any situation with anyone, anywhere in the developed world. There was a need for an “international language” for the political and economical life to develop. Since, as previously mentioned, most developed countries had a common language, it is logical that this will be used in their communication. Other countries facing this situation had no other opportunity, but to accept this choice and spread English through their own country. The usage by non-native speakers is shown by the data that only one out of every four users of English in the world is a native speaker of the language (Crystal 2003, as cited in Seidlhofer, 2005).

      Although the benefits of ELF are clear, Jenkins (2013) claims that the spread of research in the field of ELF happened very quickly, it becoming “a serious object of academic study” during the least 20 years. She continues, explaining that language change is always regarded with suspicion and it is prominently true for English as a lingua franca. Because of the essence of a lingua franca, English is spoken throughout the whole world, is used by millions of people in many variations. The result of this is  that “many people who prefer one single standard English see ELF as having far too much variation” (Jenkins, 2013). The result of which are pronunciation problems among the many non-native English speakers. Jenkins argues, that native English speakers are not excluded from ELF communication, contrary to some linguists’ opinion. This, in her view is reasonably because “ELF is not the same as English as a native language so it is additionally acquired for native English speakers too”. Because there are more non-native English speakers than native speakers, ELF is most commonly used without the participation of a native speaker, this is the main difference of ELF and English as a foreign language. Jenkins (2013) claims that phonological accommodation, i.e. how people adjust their language to make it more like the language of their conversation partner, is emerging as one of the most important skills.

      Jenkins (2013) also argues that “non-native English speakers are innovating a lot faster than native speakers” and this innovation is more various because of the diversity of these speakers’ first language background. “There is this feeling among people that it is the natives who somehow ‘own’ English and that any innovation must first be suctioned by native speakers before non-native speakers are allowed to use them without being told that they are making errors” (Jenkins, 2013). As a response to some native critiques of ELF she argues that “a skilled user is no longer someone who has mastered the standard form of British English or standard American English, but it is someone who has acquired the skills that they need to adapt their English in line with the current interaction”. Another problem of ELF is, according to Jenkins (2013) that learners of English find out after finishing school that the English they learnt in the classroom is not the English used as lingua franca mostly in the real world, therefore as she suggest the education of English as a foreign language has to be improved.

       Smit (2010), on the other hand writes about English in higher education claiming that “tertiary education in general is clearly moving towards ‘Englishization’ in response to the steady increase in educational mobility and the rising number of international students at tertiary institutions” (p.3). Because of these universities want not to lose international students and the financial support that come with them, language competence in the diverse national languages is no longer a condition sine qua non. “Reflecting the more recent trends towards ‘elite bilingualism’, English has become the ‘additional language’ that is presupposed at tertiary level and functions increasingly as the lecturers’ and students’ lingua franca.” (Smit, 2010, p.3)

      As Seidlhofer (2005) claims, what is distinctive about ELF is that, it is a contact language between persons who share neither a common native tongue nor a common cultural background. He adds, and for whom English is the chosen foreign language of communication. English is also often referred to as an ‘international language’ or as ‘global language’ or as ‘world language’ or ‘English as a medium of intercultural communication’ (Jenkins, 2009). In the past the term “English as a lingua franca” (Seidlhofer, 2005) was used to express that there are not only language boundaries between the participants of the communication but also lingua-cultural boundaries.

      The consequences of this phenomenon are important. With the economic development of Asian countries it might happen that one of the Asian languages will replace English, this is the question of the future. There is an increasing diversity in the way the language is spoken, a number of accents appeared and since some are difficult to understand the function of ELF as understood by most people is decreasing. Another consequence is that native speakers are in a comfortable position since their mother tongue is understood all around the world. This might lead, in their case, to the decrease of motivation in learning a second language, therefore other common languages like German, French or Spanish became less common. Another consequence is that English speaking countries, and their citizens, have advantage compared to others. While for example non-native speakers have to learn English , in a shorter or longer period of time, in order to do research, travel or have equal chances on the job market, native speakers can use this time and effort for their own purposes, become more qualified, so again, they come to advantage.

      Last, but not least through English being lingua franca it became a more powerful language that is, its speakers are in advantage compared to those who do not speak English, earlier it was a distinctive quality, nowadays it is requested that one can speak English. For this reason English teaching became important, thousands of books are written for this purpose and this trend is likely to continue in the future leading to ELF being one of the greatest issues of applied linguistics.

References

Jenkins, J. (2009). English as a lingua franca: interpretations and attitudes. World Englishes,

28(2), pp. 200-207.

Jenkins. J. (2013. August 28). Prof. Jennifer Jenkins talks about shifting to English as a Lingua Franca   (ELF). Youtube. Retreived May 14, 2014, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YD4xDVMUh5E

Seidlhofer, B. (2005). English as a lingua franca. ELT Journal, 50(4), 339-341.

Smit. U. (2010). English as a lingua franca in higher education: a longitudinal study of classroom discourse.      Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.