1.

) Introduction to ELF, Standard English and RP; ELF and World Englishes
Kachrus model of the spread of English:
-

Inner Circle (English as a Native Language)

o norm providing
o Standard English (SE); Received Pronunciation (RP)
o Corpus: British National Corpus
o UK, Australia, Canada, USA, New Zealand
Outer Circle (English as a Second Language)
o norm developing
o varieties in their own right
o Corpus: International Corpus of English
o Indian, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nigeria, Singapore, etc.
Expanding Circle (English as a Foreign Language)
o norm dependent
o exonormative (learners)
o Corpus: Cambridge Learner Corpus
o China, Japan, Egypt, Hungary, Austria, etc.

Critique of Kachrus model:

-

Based on geography
Grey area between Inner and Outer Circles
Grey area between Outer and Expanding Circles
Many English speakers are bi- and multilingual
Cannot account for English for Specific Purposes
Inner Circle implies that speakers from the ENL countries are central

Suggested alternative
I.

monolingual English speaker (MES): speakers of English who speak no other

language
bilingual English speaker (BES): proficient speakers of English and at least one
other language, regardless of the order in which they learned the languages
non-bilingual English speaker (NBES): those who are not bilingual in English but
are nevertheless able to speak it at a level of reasonable competence

II.
III.

VOICE Corpus: The ELF Corpus; naturally occurring, non-scripted face-to-face interactions
in ELF; oral data, speech events, mostly non-native speakers
Definitions:
-

ELF as 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.
ELF as a contact language among people who do not share a first language, and is
commonly understood to mean a second (or subsequent) language of its speakers.

Received Pronunciation (RP): accent of 3% of those living in England, largely confined to

England

2.) Euro-English
Modiano:
-

EFL ESL:
discoursal nativization: European expressions and conceptualisations that are foreign
to native-speaker varieties become valuable communicative tools
fossilization: non-standard sturcutres become acceptable forms of language
EU culture: e.g. Euro
EU vocabulary: e.g. Euro; Berlaymont

Seidlhofer
-

endonormative model: English as a lingua franca in its own right, with its own
description and codification
VOICE Corpus
lexicogrammar
unilateral idiomaticity: the use by speakers and writers of idiomatic language which is
not understood by the other participants in the interaction.
mutual accommodation

Jenkins
-

Lingua Franca Core

Euro-English accent
implications for native speakers

Early findings
-

using the same form for all present tense verbs, as in you look very sad and he look
very sad (3rd person s)
not putting a definite or indefinite article in front of nouns, as in our countries have
signed agreement about this
treating who and which as interchangeable relative pronouns, as in the picture
who or a person which
using just the verb stem in constructions such as I look forward to see you tomorrow
(gerund)
constantly using isnt it? as a universal tag question (i.e. instead of e.g. havent
they? and shouldnt he?), as in Youre very busy today, isnt it?

3.) The evolving definition of ELF

Focus on function (pragmatics) instead of form
ELF is not a monolithic variety which can be pinned down, it involves both common ground
and local variation (polymorphous in nature; it evolves and is negotiated during interaction)
-

less common ground-shared knowledge.

4.) Introduction to pragmatics, The pragmatics of ELF

[1] What does X mean? [2] What did you mean by X ?
-

Semantics traditionally deals with meaning as a dyadic relation, as in [1], while

pragmatics deals with the meaning as a triadic relation, as in [2].

Schematic knowledge: the knowledge which is acquired as a condition of entry into a

particular culture or sub-culture, the knowledge of the world
Systematic knowledge: the knowledge of the language
Speech Act Theory
-

Locution: what is said

Illocution: what is being done in the saying of it
Perlocution: the effect the speaker has on the listener by or through the saying of it

A direct speech act wants to communicate the literal meaning that the words conventionally
express
The indirect speech act wants to communicate a different meaning from the apparent surface
meaning
Grices Co-operative Principle
-

Maxim of Quantity
Maxim of Quality
Maxim of Relevance
Maxim of Manner

Lakoff: cooperative principle (in a general sense) can be reduced to two maxims:
1. Be clear (i.e. accessible)
2. Be polite (i.e. acceptable)
Relevance theory: Human cognition tends to be geared to the maximization of relevance.
5.) Issues in ELF, The future of English
Widdowson: registers (use-related varieties) dialects (user-related varieties)
Crystal: World Standard Spoken English (diglossia: two dialects used by a language
community)
-

WSSE doesnt replace a national dialect: it supplements it

US Influence

The spread and dominance of English

- Criticism Phillipson (linguistic imperialism), Ammon
- English is NOT a threat multilingualism (House): ELF (not a national language)
language for communication and not for identification (L1)
- Covert translation
- Does English contaminate other languages? (House: no changes in the make-up of
German texts)

Implications for ELT:

- Communicative competence, authenticity; not rule but maxim governed behaviour
- Engaging learners in their own terms both schematically and linguistically