Communicating Strategically in English as a Lingua Franca

A Corpus Driven Investigation

Janin Jafari

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000291353
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Communication Studies
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

There have been noticeable demographic changes recently in the use of English around the world. English as a medium of communication is now the contact language of native speakers from many diverse speech communities who interact with each other in multilingual contexts. The use of English as a lingua franca (ELF) and its implications has become a hot topic in applied linguistics and English studies.

Communicating Strategically in English as a Lingua Franca reflects the growing interest in achieving communicative effectiveness in ELF situations and provides a comprehensive account of recent empirical findings in the field of ELF. It analyzes and interprets the author's own large corpus of naturally occurring spoken interactions and focuses on identifying innovative employments in the communicative strategies and pragmatics of speakers involved in ELF interactions.

In doing so, this book makes a considerable contribution to the growing field of empirical studies in ELF. It explores the usage of pragmatic strategies and highlights their significant role in communicative effectiveness in ELF interactions. In showing the processes of classifying communication strategies involved in the identification of newly observed communication strategies, this book will be of great interest to English linguists, applied linguists, graduate and undergraduate students of English, English Language Teaching material developers and teachers of English.

1
The spread of English in a global world

1.1. English as an International Language

The rapid growth of English has increased the number of speakers from various backgrounds, and the English of these speakers takes a variety of forms. English now plays a crucial role in “contexts where people from diverse linguistic, cultural and national background interact and communicate with each other” (Matsuda, 2012, p. 2). Economic, cultural and educational contexts have determined English’s status as an international language. Sharifian (2009, p. 2) conceptualizes English as an international language (EIL) as a “paradigm for thinking, research and practice” and emphasizes that the discipline of EIL does not refer to a specific variety of English, adding that “English, with its many varieties, is a language of international, and therefore intercultural, communication”. Smith (1976, p. vi) indicates that EIL is “the use of English by people of different nations and different cultures in order to communicate with one another”. Hence, “English is not one of our national languages, but it is our international language. And English as an international language is not the same as English as a second or foreign language” (Smith, 1983, p. 7). Considering this fact, both native and non-native English speakers need to be trained in order to communicate with each other effectively in an EIL context.

Although Kachru (1986, 1992) conceptualized World Englishes (WEs) as three concentric circles that describe the distribution of English around the world, many scholars (e.g., Canagarajah, 2006a; Graddol, 1997; Jenkins, 2006a; Pennycook, 2003; Seidlhofer, 2004; Sharifian, 2009) have argued that this model does not include English use in a multilingual context. According to Bolton (2004, p. 367), the term “World Englishes” acts as an “umbrella label referring to a wide range of differing approaches to the description and analysis of English(es) worldwide” and empirically studies the nativized varieties of English which are associated with Kachru’s Outer Circle. Unlike with WEs, which refers to the varieties of English which are spoken in Outer Circle countries, EIL speakers are from different cultural and national backgrounds that do not fit into Kachru’s (1986, 1992) three concentric circles. According to Sharifian (2009), Kachru’s Inner Circle countries, such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia, use English as the primary language. His Outer Circle countries are bilingual and multilingual countries like India and Nigeria in which English is used as a second or institutional language. Finally, his largest circle, the Expanding Circle, consists of countries like Japan, Iran, Germany and France, in which English is learned and taught as a foreign language.

Today, most English users come from Kachru’s Outer Circle countries such as Malaysia and Singapore and the Expanding Circle countries such as China and Egypt. Hence, there is no doubt that these changing demographics have contributed to the improvement in the status of English as an international language. Thus, EIL is a paradigm for increasing “border-crossing communication to foster critical awareness of power and privilege attached to English, attitudes towards affirming differences and communicating across differences and skills to use communicative strategies in and beyond English” (Kubota, 2012, p. 56).

McKay (2002) states that EIL is used not only globally in international communication but also locally “as a language of wider communication within multilingual societies” (p. 12). Similarly, Seidlhofer (2011) distinguishes globalized EIL, which refers to the EIL used among speakers of all three Circles, from localized EIL, which refers to the localized varieties of English as an intra-national language used within the Outer Circle countries. McKay (2002) remarks that since an international language is used globally among people with different linguacultural backgrounds, it cannot belong to a single country or culture. In fact, EIL should be considered as a reflection of the language behavior of its users. Therefore, English as an international language is not Westernized. Instead, EIL should be denationalized (Smith, 1976). In other words, Smith (2015) proposes that “when any language becomes international in character, it cannot be bound to any one culture” (p. 166). Consequently, conforming to the cultural norms of English-speaking countries is not necessary for EIL users/learners. For example, a non-native speaker of English from Italy doesn’t need to imitate the British, American or any other native English–speaking country’s culture in order to use English effectively with another non-native speaker of English from Egypt. Rather, EIL users/learners from different cultural backgrounds need to improve their intercultural competence to facilitate communication. This necessitates that they understand their own culture and reflect on it while relating to that of others (McKay, 2002). According to Smith (2015), “Native speakers need as much help as non-natives when using English to interact internationally” and there is not any “room for linguistic chauvinism” (p. 170).

Furthermore, there are different interpretations of the terms International English (IE) and EIL among scholars. Seidlhofer (2004, p. 210) maintains that “the term International English is sometimes used as a shorthand for EIL”. Used in this way, she argues, it “is misleading in that it suggests that there is one clearly distinguishable, codified and unitary variety called International English, which is certainly not the case”. For example, by using the term International English, Bolton (2004) points to the varieties of English which are used in the Outer Circle countries, although Trudgill and Hanna (2002) add native speakers of English speaking or Inner Circle countries to their definition. In general, IE is explained as being the spread of English norms rather than “the way English has changed to meet international needs” (Seidlhofer, 2009, p. 237). Sharifian (2009) clarifies the definition of EIL by claiming that “EIL in fact rejects the idea of any particular variety being selected as a lingua franca for international communication” (p. 2).

As a paradigm, EIL clearly is seeking “a critical revisiting of the notions, analytical tools, approaches and methodologies within the established disciplines such as the sociolinguistics of English and TESOL, which explored various aspects of the English language” (Sharifian, 2009, p. 2). Focusing on EIL teaching implications in English Language Teaching (ELT), the goal is to teach learners to be aware of pragmatic differences between various cultures and to be able to communicate effectively in intercultural contexts. EIL is a bigger picture paradigm and ELT is the sub-picture of that paradigm.

1.2. English as a Lingua Franca

English as a lingua franca (ELF) can be defined as English being used as “the common language of choice, among speakers who come from different linguacultural backgrounds” (Jenkins, 2009, p. 200). Graddol (2006) reports that “an inexorable trend in the use of global English is that fewer interactions now involve a native-speaker” (p. 87). Therefore, English is the contact language of native speakers from many diverse speech communities who interact with each other in multilingual contexts. Some scholars make a distinction between ELF and EIL by including and excluding English native speakers in interactions. While McKay (2002) uses EIL to refer to non-native English speakers interacting with other non-native English speakers, Seidlhofer (2009) does not exclude interlocutors from Kachru’s Inner and Outer Circles from ELF communication.

Since Kachru proposed his model to illustrate the global distribution of English, there has been, as House (2009) contends, continuous changes in English, its users and uses throughout the world. Likewise, many scholars (e.g. Canagarajah, 2006; Graddol, 2006; House, 2009; Jenkins, 2006; Seidlhofer, 2004; Sharifian; 2009) concur that Kachru’s representation of English will no longer be a reliable tool to describe English in a global context. Sharifian (2009) argues that although some scholars use the term World Englishes to refer to Outer Circle countries’ Englishes, “my usage of the term covers all Englishes from all circles” (p. 3). ELF, a relatively new research area, is developing from the different needs of intercultural communication, in multilingual contexts and “can be associated with the EIL paradigm” (Sharifian, 2009, p. 6).

In recent decades, the use of English in international communication in different areas of study such as politics, business, industry and education has been of interest to many scholars. Empirical research on ELF began in the 1980s for pedagogical purposes; for example, Knapp (1987) which led to empirical work by Firth (1990) and Meierkord (1998). However, Jenkin’s findings on ELF phonology in early 2000 was based on her own data. Moreover, Seidlhofer’s work into ELF lexico-grammar in 2004 and Mauranen’s work into ELF into negotiating meaning in 2006a were the first of many papers based on ELF data from the two available corpora, namely, the Vienna–Oxford International Corpus of English (VOICE) and the English as a Lingua Franca in Academic Settings Corpus (ELFA).

Over the last several years, many studies have explored the communication strategies (CSs) that ELF speakers mostly use to negotiate meaning, resolve misunderstanding and achieve understanding. These studies highlight the communicative effectiveness of spoken ELF interactions in various settings. One of these studies is Firth’s (1996), in which Danish business managers and their customers’ telephone conversations were examined by using conversation analysis (CA) approach. Firth discusses mutual cooperation among ELF interlocutors who try to secure shared understanding without considering correctness by employing a “let-it-pass” strategy, in which interlocutors let an unintelligible message pass and make it normal strategy, when grammatical error is considered normal by the hearer who concentrates on the content and thus reformulates the other’s unclear utterance.

House (2003) shows that English students from different languages employ pragmatic strategies in their own communities to facilitate the process of negotiating meaning and achieving shared understanding with people who are not members of their groups. She further explores how “Asian participants employ topic management strategies in a striking way, recycling a specific topic regardless of where and how the discourse had developed at any particular point” (p. 567). According to Meierkord (2004), although speakers from different varieties of English keep the features of their own varieties, they employ syntactic strategies such as segmentation and regularization to facilitate their interaction. Segmentation includes shortening utterances such as segments of clauses or phrases to provide the basic units of information. Regularization includes shifting the position of information that needs to be focused upon to the front of the utterance. Seidlhofer (2004) adds that these characteristics indicate that ELF communication is “overtly consensus-oriented, cooperative and mutually supportive, and thus fairly robust” (p. 218).

Mauranen (2006a) notes that, to preempt or avert difficulties in understanding (p. 135), speakers use interactional strategic practices which are part of “pro-active work”, a characteristic of ELF communication. Cogo (2009) explores how participants utilize accommodation strategies such as repetition, reformulation or paraphrase and code-switching to make their meaning more intelligible to their conversational partner. Similarly, Kaur (2009) indicates that interlocutors make strategic use of paraphrase and repetition to prevent problems in intersubjectivity when mutual understanding is threatened. As Kaur (2009) puts it, “it is likely that the participants’ anticipation of difficulty in understanding, arising from the lingua franca context, gives rise to increased efforts at maintaining shared understanding” (p. 120). The results of these analyses reveal that speakers in ELF settings make frequent use of interactional strategies to increase the effectiveness of communication and co-construct the message.

Roberts and Canagarajah (2009) broadened ELF research in which mother tongue speakers are excluded from the data collection into ELF which “has a second, broader level of meaning”. For convenience, the authors call this “ELF2” p. 210). Roberts and Canagarajah (2009) examined whether the forms and strategies used in ELF research are applicable to ELF2 where native speakers are present in the speech community. They concluded that ELF2 speakers have negotiation capabilities in English in heterogeneous communication contexts. They also show that participants evolve intuitive competencies in negotiating differences and, rather than following a consistent code or conventions, they construct norms and strategic skills that help them to succeed in ELF communication.

Cogo and Dewey (2012) note that misunderstandings happen not only in inter-cultural encounters, but also in any naturally occurring interaction. After analyzing their first set of their data, Cogo and Dewey found that when non-understanding is apparent, speakers attempt to negotiate meaning using various CSs. The results of the analysis of further data indicate that speakers apply preemptive strategies, offer clarification and check the interlocutors’ understanding before the occur-rence of a non-understanding in order to avoid breakdowns and make meaning more explicit.

1.3. Using communication strategies

The notion of CSs was first explored at the beginning of the 1970s (e.g., Selinker, 1972; Savignon, 1972; Váradi, 1973). CSs scholars found that the inconsistency “between L2 speakers’ linguistic resources and communicative intentions leads to a number of systematic language phenomena whose main function is to handle difficulties or breakdowns in communication” (Dörnyei & Scott, 1997, p. 174). Taking into account the nature of communication, Tarone (1981) describes a communicative strategy as “a mutual attempt of two interlocutors to agree on a meaning in situations where requisite meaning structures do not seem to be shared” (p. 288). L2 learners employ communicative strategies in their second language production to bridge the gap between their linguistic knowledge and that of target language interlocutors in real communication situations (Tarone, 1978). Cohen (1990) defines a communicative strategy as “a major trait of successful speakers” in which “they use strategies to keep the conversation going” (p. 56).

These definitions indicate that CSs are not a part of the linguistic knowledge of speakers. Rather, they describe the use of patterns of learners’ knowledge as they attempt to interact with the native speakers. Tarone (1981) explains that the knowledge of how to use a linguistic system in an appropriate way is communicative competence. Canale and Swain (1980) provide a broader definition of communicative competence which includes grammatical competence, discourse competence, sociocultural competence and strategic competence. Grammatical competence is the speakers’ knowledge of the language code (grammatical rules, lexicons, spelling, pronunciation, etc.) and their ability to employ them efficiently during communication. Discourse competence involves the speakers’ ability to produce and understand texts in different modes (academic paper, medical instruction, political speech transcript, etc.). Sociocultural competence concerns the acceptable and appropriate use of language in a given situation. Strategic competence can be defined as “verbal and non-verbal CSs that may be called into action to compensate for breakdowns in communication due to performance variables or to insufficient competence” (Canale & Swain, 1980, p. 30).

Savignon (1983) shows that, because of their imperfect knowledge of grammar and vocabulary in the target language, L2 learners rely completely on their strategic competence to be able to communicate successfully within their limitations. In other words, strategic competence is activated when speakers wish to communicate intended meanings which their linguistic knowledge does not let them express explicitly or when communication breakdowns occur in the communication process and need to be overcome (Dörnyei & Thurrell, 1991). A paucity of strategic competence may result in a situation where speakers with a good knowledge of vocabulary and grammar are not able to express their communicative intent.

Since communication difficulties may also arise between speakers who have the same mother tongues, strategic competence is relevant to both native and non-native speakers of a language. However, since strategic competence refers to communicative strategies that facilitate interactions in a communicative process, it is of crucial importance for interlocutors who may not have the same language backgrounds. Corder (1981) divides these strategies into two main categories: message adjustment and resource expansion. The first category refers to either a small change or a reduction of the message, and the second includes both a cooperative interlocutor who appeals for help from his/her interaction partner and a non-cooperative interlocutor who exploits his/her own resources without requesting assistance. Other scholars have labeled these strategies differently. For example, Færch and Kasper (1983) and Ellis (1985) have named message adjustment reduction or avoidance and resource expansion achievement strategies.

Wood (2010) conducted a yearlong study and focused on how communication strategy (CS) training influenced the qualitative characteristics of strategy use. The research was based on the instruction of CSs in class along with applying various strategy-based activities. Forty-four first-year university students were introduced to new CSs through activities and were asked to practice using them while interacting with their partners. Throughout the year, different learning tasks were assigned for the students to practice and learn new CSs. Students were then asked to listen to their recorded conversations and reflect on their own progress in CSs. Wood (2010) concludes that the use of CSs helped interlocutors to improve the effectiveness of their communication. The author points out that, if students are to learn to employ the CSs successfully, strategy-based activities must be added to explicit teaching.

1.4. Interacting in ELF settings

Along with the...