English as a Lingua Franca

“ELF is merely a bastardised form of standard English that flouts the norms and rules of Standard English grammar. These Standard English norms are put in place for specific reasons and if the former are flouted, the ELF utterance is rendered incorrect.”

A lingua franca, which is also known as a Bridge Language, is basically a language that is used by two people, that does not share the same Home language, to communicate (Viacheslav, 2008, p. 31). English as a lingua franca (ELF) can then be seen as the use of the English Language as a basis of communication for speakers with different first languages. According to Meierkord (2000) a lingua franca may be used Intranationally or Internationally. Intranational use is when two speakers of the same country use a certain language to communicate, like English, because they both speak a different first language. International use is when two people from different countries speak a language, like English, to communicate because both have different first languages. The main idea of a lingua franca is to make communication possible. When a language is used by second language users with the purpose of communication it becomes clear that the emphasis is placed on function rather than form.

“The main characteristic, then, of English as a lingua franca is its multiplicity of voices. English as a lingua franca is a language for communication, i.e., a medium that can be given substance with different national, regional, local, and individual cultural identities.” (House, 2002, p. 244)

The form of a lingua franca or ELF is often neglected or ignored by the second language users. ELF thus takes on a new grammatical form which differs from Standard English. A few examples of ELF being used by different first language speakers;

Spanish speakers would often refer to the word people in the singular form rather than the plural “the people is angry” rather than “the people are angry” (Burt, Marina, Kiparsky, 2002, p. 53)

Vietnamese speakers tend to not place an article before the word for a profession. “She is student” (Burt, Marina, Kiparsky, 2002, p. 53)

Cantonese speakers tend to not use the plural form of words. “Many good book” (Burt, Marina, Kiparsky, 2002, p. 54)

Even though the grammatical use of the ELF is rendered incorrect, if the purpose of the ELF, which is to communicate, is successful then the main goal of using a lingua franca was achieved. Thus using the language incorrect is not of importance, what is important when using ELF is that the message gets through.

The problem is that first language English speakers often criticize and deem ELF as incorrect, as the statement above suggests which is a negative spin on the use of global English. ELF on its own can be seen, as suggested by Firth (2009), as a hybrid language on its own. This language is specifically created for the sole purpose of making communication possible by two different first language speakers.

When second language speakers use the singular form for the word people instead of the plural, the message which is being conveyed will not be lost. A first language speaker has to accommodate the second language speaker. Some first language speakers might get irritated, but using the singular instead of the plural form would not influence the utterance in such a way as making it not understandable. Second language speakers also tend to use the singular form for overall words regularly instead of the plural. This would be seen as incorrect by many first language speakers, but again first language speakers would understand what is being said. When a second language speaker does not place an article before a word, then the sentence becomes a very simple form of English, this would seem funny to a first language speaker, but the sentence would still be understandable. Whenever the ELF is not understandable, then it has failed its purpose. Fortunately most first language speakers and second language speakers of English would understand the simplified version of communication that ELF produces. A certain element that would make the ELF utterances not understandable would be the accent of the second language speaker which is influenced by his/her first language. “Phonology is a comparatively closed system, and virtually all ELF users speak the language with some trace (more or less pronounced, so to speak) of their L1 accent.” (Seidlhofer, 2004, p. 215)

The personal opinion would be that it does not matter if the ELF is a simplified version of the Standard English language. The main purpose of ELF is to make communication possible for two different first language speakers, and if ELF succeeds by use of a simplified version of English then it is fine by me.

“ELF is merely a bastardised form of standard English that flouts the norms and rules of Standard English grammar.” I agree to a certain extend with this statement. The statement is very crudely put, but ELF is a simplified version of the Standard English language, and actually not really being “flouted” which means to disregard or to mock, but the ELF users really do not have a choice but to use it in that manner, it is after all their second language.

“These Standard English norms are put in place for specific reasons and if the former are flouted, the ELF utterance is rendered incorrect.” I do not agree with this statement. ELF can be used in any way as long as it is understandable and if it can be used for communication purposes. If the use of the ELF is not deemed correct by first language speakers, but could be understood, then the ELF use is still successful.

 Bibliography

Burt, Marina K. and Kiparsky C. (1972) The Gooficon: A Repair Manual for

English. Rowley, MA: Newbury House.

Firth A. (2009) The lingua franca Factor. Intercultural Pragmatics 6:2,147-170. p. 161-162.

House, J. (2002) Communicating in English as a lingua franca. In EUROSLA Yearbook (2): 243-261.

Meierkord C. (2000) An analysis of non-native-/non-native small talk conversations in English. Interpreting successful lingua franca interaction. [Online] Linguistik Online 5. p. 1. Available from: http:/www.linguistik-online.de/1_00/MEIERKOR.HTM

Seidlhofer, B. (2004) Research perspectives on teaching English as a lingua franca. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics (24): 209-239.

Viacheslav A.C. (2008) The problem of the Caucasian Sprachbund. From Linguistic Areas to Areal Linguistics. p. 31.