ELF and Applied Linguistics (Routledge Studies in Applied Linguistics) [1 ed.] 1032489294, 9781032489292

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Series Information
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
List of Figures
List of Tables
List of Contributors
Acknowledgements
1 Reconsidering Applied Linguistics Research From ELF Perspectives: Introduction
ELF and Applied Linguistics
Introduction to Eeach Ppart and Ccontribution
Concluding Remarks
Notes
References
Part I ELF Research and Communication: Diverse Perspectives
2 Conceptualising ELF and Applied Linguistics
Introduction
Reactions to ELF
The Reason Why
Conventionalised Languages and Language as Resource
Languaging, Translanguaging and Multi-Lingualism
The Applied Linguistic Study of ELF
Conclusion
References
3 Translanguaging and Intercultural Communication: Rethinking ‘Cultural Thought Patterns’
Language and Cultural Thought Patterns
Cross-cultural and ELF Communication
Bilingualism and Multilingualism Research and Translanguaging
Rethinking Cultural Thought Patterns
From Thinking in Named Languages to Thinking for Speaking
Future of Intercultural Communication: Towards Transpositioning
Note
References
Part II ELF and Applied Linguistics Research: Regional Perspectives
4 The Global South Has Been Speaking: ELF and Higher Education
Introduction
Local Tensions: the Case of English in Decoloniality
Decolonizing Modernity: the Case of Some Brazilian Professors
Decolonizing Identities: the Case of Proficiency as Intelligibility
Illustrating Decolonial Practice: a Case of English in Professorship
Initiative 1 – English for Internationalization
Initiative 2 – Academic Writing Center
Initiative 3 – EMI Transversal Course
Initiative 4 – Researching English in Internationalization
Final Remarks
Notes
References
5 English as a Lingua Franca in ASEAN and Implications for Applied Linguistics Research
Introduction
English Language Challenges in ASEAN
English as a Lingua Franca in ASEAN
Analysis of ELF in ASEAN
Example 1: General Characteristics Observed Among ASEAN Postgraduate Students
Example 2: General Characteristics Observed in Academics’ Talking
Example 3: The Use of Particles, ‘Ah’ and ‘Lah’
Example 4: The Use of Repetition and Rephrasing
Implications for Applied Linguistics Research
References
6 ELT in South Korea From the Perspectives of ELF and WE
Introduction
ELF and WE Issues in Korea
ELF and WE in National English Curriculums (NECs)
Korean English Teachers’ Perceptions of ELF and WE
English Teacher Education Programs
Discussion and Conclusion
Notes
References
7 Applied Linguistics in Japan From BELF Perspectives
Development of Applied Linguistics Research in the Japan Association of Applied Linguistics (JAAL)
Changes in Business Communication Since the COVID-19 Pandemic: Preliminary Study
New BELF Project
Survey Methodology, Participants, and Analyses
Participant Characteristics
Results of the Qualitative Survey
Online Meetings
Machine Translation
Chat
Discussion
Future Research Suggestions
Appendix 1
Appendix 2
Notes
References
8 Three Models of ELF Instruction: From a Pedagogical Perspective
Introduction
English Education in China and People’s Attitudes Toward the Native Norm
The First Stage: Recovering Stage – Bringing Chaotic English Instruction Into Normal Order
The Second Stage: Rapid Development – Dramatic Expansion of English Learning and Teaching
The Third Stage: Rational Development – Keeping Down the National Mania for English Learning
Summary
Three Models Or Frameworks of ELF Instruction
A Model of Intercultural Communicative Competence
A Framework of ELF Teaching Content and Objectives
A Model of Scenario-Based Pedagogy in the Production-Oriented Approach
A Brief Description of the POA
Basic Elements of a Scenario
Illustrations of the SBP in the POA
Summary
Conclusion
Notes
References
Part III ELF and Perspectives On Multilingual Communication and Education
9 Rethinking English as a Lingua Franca From Decolonial Perspectives
Introduction
The Theoretical Development of ELF
Decolonization and Perspectives From the Global South
Conceptual Lineages and Possible Limitations of Decolonial Perspectives
Insights of Decolonial Perspectives On ELF: Rethinking Three Possible Assumptions in ELF
Conclusion
References
10 Going Beyond English-Only Medium Instruction: Challenges of Multilingual Education as an LPP Mechanism
Introduction
Overview of LPP Studies as a Subfield of Sociolinguistics/applied Linguistics
EMI as an LPP Mechanism
Study-abroad as an LPP Mechanism
AIMS and APM as an LPP Mechanism
Concluding Remarks
Notes
References
11 Why Aviation English Is Not ELF
Introduction
Similarities and Divergences Between ELF and Aviation Communication
How Well Does ELF Serve Aviation Communication?
Conclusion: Towards Aviation Communication
Notes
References
Part IV ELF and Assessment: Challenging the Assumed Paradigm?
12 A Challenge for Language Testing: The Assessment of English as a Lingua Franca
Introduction
The Feasibility of ELF Tests
Defining the Construct
The Criteria to Be Used to Judge Performance
The Role of Language Proficiency in Performance
The Testability of ELF Performance
The Real Problem: the Politics of ELF
The Conflict Over Values in ELF Tests
Notes
References
13 Writtenness in Assessed English: Implicit Assumptions of a Smooth Read
Introduction
The Englishisation of Contemporary International Higher Education
Writtenness as an Implicit Assessment Criterion
Writtenness in English: the Cultural Construction of Its Stylistic Values
The Proofreading Solution
The Implications of Proofreading for Assessment
Proofreading in Applied Linguistics and Higher Education Research
Proofreading From an ELF Perspective
Some Reader/writer Scenarios
Conclusion
References
Index

Citation preview

ELF and Applied Linguistics

With help from a global cast of scholars, Kumiko Murata explores the remodelling of the discipline of applied linguistics, which traditionally regarded Anglophone native-​speaker English as the standard for English as a lingua franca (ELF). This edited volume probes the dichotomy between the current focus of applied linguistic research and a drastically changed English use in a globalised world. This division is approached from diverse perspectives and with the overarching understanding of ELF as an indispensable area of applied linguistics research. The volume includes theoretical backgrounds to English as a lingua franca, the nature of ELF interactions, language policy and practice from an ELF perspective, and the relationship between multilingualism and ELF. A resourceful book not only to ELF researchers but also to applied linguists in general, as well as policy makers, administrators, practicing teachers, and university students from diverse linguacultural backgrounds. Kumiko Murata is Professor Emeritus of English and Applied Linguistics at the School of Education and the Graduate School of Education, Waseda University. Her research interests include ELF, conversation and discourse analyses, pragmatics, intercultural communication, and language teaching. Her recent edited books include Exploring ELF in Japanese Academic and Business Contexts: Conceptualization, Research and Pedagogic Implications (2016, Routledge), English-​Medium Instruction from an English as a Lingua Franca Perspective: Exploring the Higher Education Context (2019, Routledge), and ELF Research Methods and Approaches to Data and Analyses: Theoretical and Methodological Underpinnings (2021, Routledge).

Routledge Studies in Applied Linguistics

Crosslinguistic Influence in L3 Acquisition Bilingual Heritage Speakers in Germany Eliane Lorenz Bilingual Writers and Corpus Analysis Edited by David M. Palfreyman and Nizar Habash Reflexivity in Applied Linguistics Opportunities, Challenges, and Suggestions Edited by Sal Consoli and Sara Ganassin Korean as a Heritage Language from Transnational and Translanguaging Perspectives Edited by Hyesun Cho and Kwangok Song Interdisciplinary Practices in Academia: Writing, Teaching and Assessment Edited by Louisa Buckingham, Jihua Dong and Feng (Kevin) Jiang Virtual English as a Lingua Franca Edited by Inmaculada Pineda and Rino Bosso Linguistic Discrimination and Diversity Autoethnographies From Women in Academia Edited by Sender Dovchin, Qian Gong, Toni Dobinson and Maggie McAlinden ELF and Applied Linguistics Reconsidering Applied Linguistics Research from ELF Perspectives Edited by Kumiko Murata

For more information about this series, please visit: www.routle​dge.com/​Routle​dge-​Stud​ies-​in-Appl​iedLing​uist​ics/​book-​ser​ies/​RSAL

ELF and Applied Linguistics Reconsidering Applied Linguistics Research from ELF Perspectives Edited by Kumiko Murata

First published 2024 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2024 selection and editorial matter, Kumiko Murata; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Kumiko Murata to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-​in-​Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 9781032489292 (hbk) ISBN: 9781032489308 (pbk) ISBN: 9781003391463 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/​9781003391463 Typeset in Times New Roman by Newgen Publishing UK

Contents

List of figures List of tables List of contributors Acknowledgements 1 Reconsidering applied linguistics research from ELF perspectives: introduction

vii viii ix xiv

1

K U M I K O M U RATA

PART I

ELF research and communication: diverse perspectives

19

2 Conceptualising ELF and applied linguistics

21

H E N RY W I D D OWS ON AND BARBARA S E I DL HOFER

3 Translanguaging and intercultural communication: rethinking ‘cultural thought patterns’

34

L I WE I

PART II

ELF and applied linguistics research: regional perspectives

47

4 The Global South has been speaking: ELF and higher education

49

C L A R I S S A M ENE Z E S JORDÃO

5 English as a lingua franca in ASEAN and implications for applied linguistics research A Z I R A H H A S HI M

66

vi  Contents

6 ELT in South Korea from the perspectives of ELF and WE

82

J O O -​K Y U N G PARK AND KI WAN S UNG

7 Applied linguistics in Japan from BELF perspectives

100

H A J I M E T E R AUCHI , S AYAKO MAS WANA, AND H ISA SH I N A ITO

8 Three models of ELF instruction: from a pedagogical perspective

117

Q I U FA N G WE N

PART III

ELF and perspectives on multilingual communication and education

139

9 Rethinking English as a lingua franca from decolonial perspectives

141

Y U M I M AT S U MOTO AND RYUKO KUBOTA

10 Going beyond English-​only medium instruction: challenges of multilingual education as an LPP mechanism

159

M A S A K A Z U I I NO

11 Why aviation English is not ELF

172

D O M I N I Q U E ES T I VAL AND AL AS TAI R P E NNYCOO K

PART IV

ELF and assessment: challenging the assumed paradigm?

189

12 A challenge for language testing: the assessment of English as a lingua franca

191

T I M M C N A M ARA

13 Writtenness in assessed English: implicit assumptions of a smooth read

207

JOAN TURNER

Index

223

Figures

3 .1 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4

Kaplan’s cultural thought patterns A model of ICC A framework of ELF teaching content and objectives A simplified model of teaching procedures of the POA Basic elements of a scenario

34 123 125 127 129

Tables

6.1 2015 English textbook development guidelines and evaluation criteria 6.2 Eligibility and duties of EPIK teachers 11.1 Where do ELF and Aviation Communication differ? 12.1 Criteria oriented to by non-​expert judges

84 90 179 196

Contributors

Dominique Estival, a researcher at the MARCS Institute, Western Sydney University (Australia), holds a PhD in Linguistics from the University of Pennsylvania (USA) and has investigated computational modelling of language, machine translation, linguistic engineering, spoken dialogue systems, and aviation communication. As a pilot and a flight instructor, her first-​hand experience of student pilots’ difficulties with radio communication informs her research into how pilot training, language background, and contextual factors affect aviation communication. Her 2016 book Aviation English: A Lingua Franca for Pilots and Air Traffic Controllers (Estival, Farris, & Molesworth, 2016, Routledge) is available in paperback. Azirah Hashim is Professor Emeritus at the Department of English Language, Faculty of Languages and Linguistics, Universiti Malaya, Malaysia. Her research interests include English in Southeast Asia and ASEAN, Language and Law, and Higher Education in ASEAN. Recent publications include English in Southeast Asia and ASEAN: Transformation of Language Habitats, Routledge, 2021, and Asia and Europe in the 21st Century: New Anxieties, New Opportunities, Routledge, 2021. She is on the Editorial and Advisory Board of several journals such as English Today, World Englishes, Asian Journal of Applied Linguistics, GEMA Journal of Language Studies, and Journal of Asia-​Europe Insights. She is currently President of the International Association of Applied Linguistics (AILA) and Humboldt Ambassador Scientist of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Germany. Masakazu Iino (PhD, University of Pennsylvania, USA) is Professor of Sociolinguistics at the School of International Liberal Studies (SILS) and the Graduate School of International Culture and Communication Studies (GSICCS), Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan. He teaches courses in ‘Sociolinguistics’ and ‘Language Policy and Planning’. His current research interests include ELF (English as a Lingua Franca), EMI (English-​Medium Instruction) in higher education, translanguaging in multilingual/​contact situations, and technology and language use.

x  List of contributors Clarissa Menezes Jordão holds a PhD in literary education and a master’s degree in English language literatures, both from Brazil. She spent one sabbatical year at the University of Manitoba developing research on cultural studies and another sabbatical year at York University in Toronto studying English as an international language. At present she teaches English and Applied Linguistics at teacher education courses in Brazil, where she also supervises postgraduate students. Ryuko Kubota is a Professor in the Department of Language and Literacy Education at University of British Columbia, where she teaches applied linguistics and language teacher education. Her research draws on critical approaches to language education, focusing on race, intersectional justice, language ideologies, and critical pedagogies. She is a co-​editor of Race, culture, and identities in second language: Exploring critically engaged practice (2009, Routledge), Discourses of identity: Language learning, teaching, and reclamation perspectives in Japan (2023, Palgrave), and others. She has also published many journal articles and book chapters. Li Wei is Director and Dean of the UCL Institute of Education, University College London, where he is also a Chair Professor of Applied Linguistics. His research covers different aspects of bilingualism and multilingualism. He is currently the Editor of the International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism and Applied Linguistics Review. He is a Fellow of the British Academy, Academia Europaea, Academy of Social Sciences (UK), and the Royal Society of Arts (UK). Sayako Maswana is an Associate Professor of English education at Tokyo University of Science, Japan. She also serves as the chair of the Japan Association of College English Teachers (JACET) Special Interest Group on EAP. Her current research interests include genre analysis and academic writing. She has published articles in journals such as the Journal of Asia TEFL, Ampersand, and the Asian ESP Journal. Yumi Matsumoto is an associate professor in the Educational Linguistics Division at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education. Her research areas of expertise include English as a lingua franca, multimodality, multilingual classroom discourse, gesture and L2 learning/​development, and laughter and humour construction. Her work has appeared in major journals, including the Modern Language Journal, Language Learning, TESOL Quarterly, the Journal of English as a Lingua Franca, Journal of Pragmatics, Classroom Discourse, and Harvard Educational Review. Tim McNamara is Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the School of Language and Linguistics at The University of Melbourne, where he was closely involved in the founding (with Terry Quinn) of the graduate program in applied linguistics and (with Alan Davies) of the Language Testing Research Centre. He is best known for his work in language testing, where his research

List of contributors  xi has focused on performance assessment, theories of validity, the use of Rasch models, and the social and political meaning of language tests. He developed the Occupational English Test, a specific purpose test for health professionals, and was part of the research teams involved in the development of both IELTS and TOEFL-​iBT. His work on language and identity has focused on the impact of poststructuralist approaches and is the subject of his recent book Language and Subjectivity (CUP). Tim served as President of the American Association for Applied Linguistics (AAAL) in 2017–​2018. Kumiko Murata is Professor Emeritus of English and Applied Linguistics at the School of Education and the Graduate School of Education, Waseda University. Her research interests include ELF, conversation and discourse analyses, pragmatics, intercultural communication, and language teaching. Her recent edited books are Exploring ELF in Japanese Academic and Business Contexts: conceptualization, research and pedagogic implications (2016, Routledge), English-​Medium Instruction from an English as a Lingua Franca Perspective: exploring the higher education context (2019, Routledge), ELF Research Methods and Approaches to Data and Analyses: theoretical and methodological underpinnings (2021, Routledge). Hisashi Naito is a professor at the Faculty of Business Administration, Hokkai-​ Gakuen University, Japan. He has served as a board member of the Japan Association of College English Teachers (JACET) and is the founder of the ESP Hokkaido Chapter. His research focuses on business communication and the development of materials aimed at enhancing English fluency. Dr. Naito has published works in the field of English for Specific Purposes and Business English. Joo-​Kyung Park is Professor of English Language at Honam University in Korea. Her teaching and research interests are teacher education, speech/​pronunciation, intercultural communication, and ELF. Having been a teacher trainer, program and test developer, textbook evaluator, and researcher, she is a frequent invited speaker to major ELT conferences held in Korea and overseas. She is a former president of Korea TESOL and the Applied Linguistic Association of Korea (ALAK). She has also served as the journal editor-​in-​chief for Korea TESOL and Global English Teachers’ Association (GETA) in Korea. She is an incoming President of AsiaTEFL (2022–​2024). Email: [email protected] Alastair Pennycook is Professor Emeritus at the University of Technology Sydney and Research Professor at the MultiLing Centre at the University of Oslo. His best-​known books include The Cultural Politics of English as an International Language (now a Routledge Linguistics Classic), Global Englishes and Transcultural Flows, and Posthumanist Applied Linguistics. His most recent book (with Sinfree Makoni) is Innovations and Challenges in Applied Linguistics from the Global South. A second edition of Critical Applied Linguistics, a Critical Reintroduction was published in 2021.

xii  List of contributors Barbara Seidlhofer, Professor at the University of Vienna, is the founding director of the Vienna-​Oxford International Corpus of English (VOICE) and founding and honorary editor of the Journal of English as a Lingua Franca. Her research and teaching focus on ELF and the nature of lingua franca communication in general and their implications for teacher education. Kiwan Sung is Professor at Department of English Language & Culture at Kyung Hee University in Korea and former president of the Korea Association of Multimedia-​Assisted Language Learning. He co-​edited two AsiaTEFL Book Series: Secondary School English Education in Asia: From Policy to Practice (2015, Routledge) and Conditions for English Language Teaching and Learning in Asia (2014, Cambridge Scholars). He also co-​edited Critical ELT Practices in Asia (2012, Sense). He has published numerous articles and books and presented at various conferences on topics such as teaching approaches, teacher education, curricular development and materials evaluation, World Englishes, and critical pedagogy. Hajime Terauchi, PhD, is Professor of English language education and President of Takachiho University in Tokyo and Special Adviser to the JACET (Japan Association of College English Teachers). He has a BA in Civil Law from Keio University and an MA and PhD in English Language Teaching from the University of Warwick (UK). His special interests are ESP (Law and Business), EAP, and Applied Linguistics. Joan Turner is an Emeritus Professor at Goldsmiths, University of London, where she was Director of the Centre for English Language and Academic Writing and co-​founder of the MA in Applied Linguistics in the Department of English Literature. She is the author of On Writtenness: The Cultural Politics of Academic Writing (2018), published with Bloomsbury; Language in the Academy: Cultural Reflexivity and Intercultural Dynamics (2011) with Multilingual Matters; and How to Study: A Short Introduction (2002) with SAGE. She has also contributed many articles and book chapters on academic literacies, transnational higher education, and intercultural communication. WEN Qiufang, Professor of applied linguistics, works at Beijing Foreign Studies University (BFSU) as a full-​time researcher at the National Research Center for Foreign Language Education. She is Vice President of Asia TEFL and Vice President of China Association for Comparative Studies of English and Chinese, as well as editor of Chinese Journal of Applied Linguistics (in English) and of Foreign Language Education in China (in Chinese). She has obtained three national and five provincial awards for excellence in teaching. She is also an experienced researcher and writer, having published more than 220 papers and 20 books, and has finished/​is conducting more than 30 research projects. Her research interests include second language teaching and learning, teacher professional development, and national language capacity.

List of contributors  xiii Henry Widdowson is Professor Emeritus, University of London, and Honorary Professor at the University of Vienna. A founding editor of the journal Applied Linguistics and for thirty years the applied linguistics adviser to Oxford University Press, a main interest has been the relationship between linguistic description and language pedagogy. His most recent book is On the Subject of English (2020, de Gruyter).

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Acknowledgements

I would first of all like to thank all the contributors to this volume. Without their cooperation, the book would not have materialised. In the process of editing this volume I have learnt a lot through invaluable exchanges of comments and opinions with them. I greatly appreciate their collaboration. The book will be my sixth and last edited volume. I would also like to thank Senior Publisher of Routledge, Katie Peace, and her editorial assistant, Khin Thazin, for their understanding and patience. Katie Peace, in particular, encouraged me to publish three out of my four edited volumes with Routledge, presiding over the whole processes of publishing. I am very grateful to her for her constant encouragement. My thanks also go to the Production team for their professionalism and to Koichi Saito and Aina Tanaka for assisting me in checking the house style, while finalizing the manuscripts for the submission to the publisher. Finally, I would personally like to dedicate this book to three professors who have been influential in my academic career development, Professor Henry Widdowson for his insightfulness, inspiration and deep understanding of applied linguistics matters ever since I became an MA and PhD student under him; Professor Ikuo Koike, the former JACET President, who has always encouraged young scholars in Japan and beyond to become fully fledged applied linguists, whose advice at the beginning of my academic career in Japan was invaluable, and last but not least, the late Professor Yuriko Otsuka, who demonstrated through her own numerous official roles that women should also play a part in society since my undergraduate days, which is by now nearly 50 years ago. It was remarkable for her to have been the president of two universities in Japan, where women’s status in general is still disappointingly and disproportionately low even now. The expertise, insight and encouragement of these professors have directly and indirectly shaped my academic career. I would like to reiterate my deep appreciation to them all. 8 June 2023 Kumiko Murata

1 Reconsidering applied linguistics research from ELF perspectives Introduction Kumiko Murata

This edited volume explores the relationship between English as a lingua franca (ELF) and applied linguistics (AL), which are closely connected to each other in that if applied linguistics is concerned with ‘real-​world problems in which language is a central issue’ (Brumfit 1997: 93) or ‘real-​world language-​driven problems and concerns’ (Kaplan & Grabe 2000: 4), ‘English’1 used as a lingua franca is a reality for many users of ‘English’ in the globalised world if we focus specifically on the field of English applied linguistics. Under these circumstances, it would seem obvious that applied linguists, in researching their own sub-​fields, such as second language acquisition (SLA), language testing or language policy, planning and practice (LPP) (Ibid.: 5),2 cannot avoid incorporating the phenomenon of ELF communication in their respective research paradigms. This, however, has not been well recognised or understood, or rather not seriously considered among applied linguists in general except for ELF researchers, and thus applied linguistics research has still largely been conducted based on the assumed, taken-​ for-​granted fixed model of English, continuously adopted since its inception. That is, this taken-​for-​granted NES (native English speaker) model has still largely been used as the benchmark for research in many of the sub-​fields of AL, such as as the target for acquisition, the goal for ELT (English language teaching) despite the changes being taken place globally, particularly in the past 50 years or so in the context of ‘English’ use, in other words, despite ‘English’ being increasingly used as a lingua franca (ELF) among the people who do not share their first languages (see Seidlhofer 2011, among others, for a definition of ELF). Despite the wake-​up calls by ELF researchers for the past nearly twenty-​five years, very few sub-​fields of applied linguistics have seriously taken this fact into consideration in conducting their research. Accordingly, the gap between the goals of many sub-​fields of applied linguistics research, particularly in the areas in which, for example, SLA and the assessment (testing) of learners’ achievement are researched, the reliance on the fixed NES model is still pervasive, although it must be acknowledged that there are a small number of applied linguists in respective sub-​fields who are now acutely aware of the changes and think that something has to be done in their fields of applied linguistic research to accommodate to the changes and to the reality DOI: 10.4324/9781003391463-1

2  Kumiko Murata of users’ language use (see, for example, Ortega 2018; McNamara 2012 and this volume). In order to make this close connection between ELF and applied linguistics (AL) research more explicit, it is pertinent to start this chapter by revisiting some definitions of AL in relation to the nature of ELF research. In the following section therefore the relationship between ELF and AL in general will first briefly be reviewed before moving on to the discussion of the details of each part and contribution. ELF and applied linguistics As touched on in the preceding section, it is now well understood, at least among ELF researchers,3 that ELF research comprises a very important part of applied linguistics research. This understanding, however, is not necessarily shared among the wider community of applied linguists in general, where applied linguistics research has been conducted on the basis of taken-​for-​granted native speaker (NS) norms, unchanged since its inception period, which is now nearly 70 years ago (see, for example, Kaplan & Grabe 2000; Kees de Bot 2015 for brief histories of the inception of the field before the current phase of globalisation). This is problematic, particularly in the field of English applied linguistics, as ‘English’ is now also used by a great number of people whose first language is not English compared to the time when the field was yet to be established in the 1960s and 1970s and when it was firmly established in the 1980s represented by the launch of journals, such as Applied Linguistics in 1980 and The Annual Review of Applied Linguistics (ARAL) (Kaplan & Grabe 2000) in 1981, and also the triennial AILA (Association Internationale de Linguistique Applique –​the world congress of Applied Linguistics), being started to be held since the mid-​ 1960s, embracing nation-​specific Applied Linguistics Associations such as BAAL (British Association for Applied Linguistics) and AAAL (American Association for Applied Linguistics) in its formation process around the 1980s (Kaplan & Grabe 2000). The world has drastically changed since then in the use of ‘English’, especially as a lingua franca. English is now not the NES’s birthright, but many of the world population use it as their lingua franca, making it their own, its use being flexible and fluid depending on the context of use and users from diverse linguacultural backgrounds. The native speaker’s assumed ownership of English was aptly criticised as early as in the early 1990s (Widdowson1994) or from a different perspective by advocates of world Englishes (WE) (see Kachru 1985, 1992), although the latter focus on the rights of their own nativised varieties of English as legitimate versions of English in their own right in what Kachru (1985) terms the Outer Circle in comparison with the Inner Circle, which comprises traditional English-​speaking countries such as the UK and the USA. Furthermore, the tendency of the heavy reliance on NES models in some English applied linguistics sub-​fields was also explicitly problematised as early as the beginning of the 21st century in publications such as Seidlhofer (2003) in her discussion on the ‘controversies’ in the field of applied linguistics, particularly in relation to such

Reconsidering applied linguistics research from ELF perspectives  3 fields as SLA and testing. These fields are still very much reliant on NES models, widening the gap between users’ experience in the use of ‘English’ in their communication in the ‘real world’ and the models of teaching and assessment which are often based on research results from these disciplines. If applied linguistics is to be engaged with ‘language related concerns’ (Applied Linguistics, Vol.1, Issue 1, Aims, 1980), surely the field needs to adjust its position to the changes observed in the use of English in the increasingly globalised world. In short, as Widdowson puts it: —​ELF research is —​not located in the field of linguistics but falls squarely into that of applied linguistics as an investigation of what people in the real-​world experience in using ELF as an expedient resource for communicative problem solving. (Widdowson 2021a: 26, emphasis by the current author) The above definition clearly incorporates Widdowson’s earlier definition of applied linguistics as seen below, in this case, however, relating it specifically to learners’ experience as users: —​its [applied linguistics’] central task: the pursuit of pedagogic relevance, the search for a model which will draw on and appeal to the learner’s experience as a language user. (Widdowson 1984: 19, emphasis by the current author) The current author/​editor has explored various issues in relation to ELF use in the ‘real world’, including both academic and business contexts (Murata 2016, 2019a), in particular, also in EMI (English-​medium instruction, or rather ‘ELF’MI, see Murata & Iino 2018) contexts, which are all closely connected to AL concerns in that they deal with the issues with which users of ‘English’ confront while using ‘English’ as a lingua franca (ELF) in their everyday interaction with their peers, colleagues and clients across the globe. As to different sub-​fields of applied linguistics, Kaplan and Grabe (2000) more specifically list the following: bilingual studies, corpus linguistics, forensic linguistics, language contact studies, language testing, language translation and interpretation, language use in professional contexts, lexicography and dictionary making, literacy, second language acquisition, and second language writing research (Kaplan & Grabe 2000: 5) Some of the sub-​fields listed above are in fact to be covered in the current edited volume, which will shortly be discussed in more detail in the following section. Furthermore, many of them have also been central concerns and the themes of ELF appeared in the Journal of English as a Lingua Franca (JELF) as discussed in Seidlhofer (2019) as well as in the current author and her colleagues’ edited

4  Kumiko Murata volumes of Waseda Working Papers in ELF, Volumes 1–​8 (2012–​2019) and also in Murata (2016, 2019a). In addition, as the title of this volume indicates, this volume incorporates contributions of ELF-​related issues seen not only from one global perspective but also from specific local and geopolitical perspectives as the term ‘English as a lingua franca’ and its acronym ‘ELF’ convey different meanings for different people, stakeholders and researchers, depending on their local and geopolitical contexts as well as sociopolitical and academic interests, disciplines and standpoints. Researchers and laypersons alike naturally tend to construe a certain issue from their own diverse perspectives and it is important that this diversity and the varied interpretations it gives rise to should be represented. It is therefore also hoped that the volume offers a good forum for exchanging opinions of different perspectives on the issue of ELF. Bearing the general introduction above and contributions to this volume in mind, the current volume, ELF and Applied Linguistics—​Reconsidering Applied Linguistics Research from ELF Perspectives, is divided into four parts, all exploring the issues related to both ELF and applied linguistics concerns in general. Part I, ELF research and communication: diverse perspectives, comprises two contributions, one by Henry Widdowson and Barbara Seidlhofer and the other by Li Wei, which explore ways of conceptualising the communicative process and its applied linguistic implications from two different but complementary theoretical perspectives. Part II, ELF and applied linguistics research: regional perspectives, on the other hand, contains five contributions, which discuss the relationship between ELF and AL research as well as language policies, practices and pedagogic implications, incorporating insight not only from the theories of AL and ELF but also from the contributors’ own linguacultural and geopolitical backgrounds, which include South America, Southeast and East Asia. Part III, ELF and perspectives on multilingual communication and education, on the other hand, explores the relationship between ELF and AL research in relation, particularly to multi-​lingualism and translingual practices, and contains three contributions, each of which could offer a good forum for discussing the issue of locating ELF and its research more explicitly in the constantly evolving and dynamic multi-​lingual and globalised world, including decolonial and Southern perspectives. The final part, Part IV, ELF and assessment–​ challenging the assumed paradigm?, consists of two contributions which question the taken-​for-​ granted paradigm based on NES norms in assessing learners’ performance: one, questioning the validity of parameters in internationally recognised large-​scale tests, and the other, looking at ideologies in assessing PhD theses in Anglophone higher education. In what follows, a more detailed introduction of each part and contribution will be presented. Introduction to Eeach Ppart and Ccontribution Part I, ELF research and communication: diverse perspectives, discusses the positioning of the research field of ELF within the field of AL. In the first chapter

Reconsidering applied linguistics research from ELF perspectives  5 of Part I, Chapter 2, Widdowson and Seidlhofer start their chapter by discussing different reactions to the phenomenon of ELF communication and its research, which are often characterised by ‘indifference, hostility or ambivalence’. This, they observe, originates from the conceptualisation of ELF as deficient by comparison with English as what they term a normative language (NL), which they define as a community-​based, conventionalised named language. They argue that (E)LF or any other lingua franca should be conceptualised as resource language (RL), language here designated uncountable as it represents language as a ‘communicative resource for expedient adaptive use’. Furthermore, referring to Chapter 3 by Li Wei, Widdowson and Seidlhofer also explore how the concept of RL relates to that of translanguaging, which they argue is a more general languaging process that draws not only on a multi-​lingual repertoire but also on a monolingual repertoire and in both the process is not a matter of transferring linguistic differences but transcending them. By clarifying this, they make the relationship between translanguaging, ELF and multi-​lingualism clear. They then move on to the discussion of ELF and AL, confirming that the former is used as a means to solve real-​world problems, thereby establishing its strong connection with AL. Widdowson and Seidlhofer further explore the notion of ‘problems’ and the different perspectives from which they are defined, specifically highlighting problems with language pedagogy, in particular, ELT. They point out the disparity of its very objective as competence in English as an NL with the reality of the use of English as RL in the globalised world. On the other hand, Li Wei in Chapter 3, as already referred to regarding the definition of translanguaging by Widdowson and Seidlhofer in Chapter 2, reconsiders the meaning of intercultural communication in the current globalised world, which is more dynamic and fluid than the one on which the past research on the same field was based, often bound by the notion of fixed communities, nations, regions and separate languages and cultures, leading to essentialised views of intercultural communication. In his reconsideration, Li Wei revisits one very influential work by Kaplan (1966) as an example, which has had considerable influence in the field of applied linguistics, particularly on academic writing and skills, by presenting by now largely regarded as very essentialised ‘cultural thought patterns’, which were reported to be directly influenced by specific languages and cultures. Since then, the result from this research has been incorporated into many teaching materials and practices and has played a part in essentialising certain named languages and cultures despite its original good intention. As a consequence, learners and users of English from these backgrounds who are assumed to have very different discourse patterns from those of Anglo-​American were often assessed and judged on the basis of the essentialised NES discourse patterns, encouraging non-​NES students or users of English to adjust to the ‘standard’ patterns. Even now a vast number of learners are still taught to be familiarised with the ‘standard’ patterns or norms when learning English despite the fact that even among NESs the ‘standard’ varies. Li Wei by critically reviewing thinking processes particularly from a cognitive perspective persuasively argues against this assumption by giving examples of multi-​linguals whose thought patterns cannot be explained based on one separate

6  Kumiko Murata language or languages and emphasises the importance of transcending these essentialised views, deploying his original term ‘transpositioning’. Part II by contrast explores ELF-​related AL research conducted in different parts of the world from regional perspectives, focusing also on language policies and practices in different regions, which cover South America and East and Southeast Asia, including ASEAN. From South America, Jordão (Chapter 4) introduces the original thinking of the Global South towards ELF and AL, simultaneously deploying post-​structural and decolonial perspectives, not being ‘colonised’ by conceptualisations and terminologies originated in the ‘North’. The chapter starts with a review of the field from a decolonial perspective, advocating an epistemological turn and trying to ‘decolonise’ the hegemonic power of English that originated in the North, while, however, being also acutely aware of the existence of colonial power in the South. In so doing, Jordão not only theoretically presents decolonial and Southern perspectives but also pedagogically illustrates her and colleagues’ several ‘initiatives’ on academic writing and EMI, which they have conducted based on the decolonial theory, vividly demonstrating how the conflicting epistemes of coloniality and decoloniality coexist in the minds of the participants, often consciously or subconsciously deferring to deep-​seated, norm-​ based colonising power despite the fact that they simultaneously resist NS ideology and norms. For decolonial scholars such as Jordão, it must be consequential to deploy the term ‘decoloniality’ in expressing their ambivalence towards English native-​ speakerism with its association with the past history of colonialism and its current global spread. What Jordão is proposing here, however, appears to be exactly what many of the ‘ELF’ researchers in the ‘North’ (from the Southern perspective) have also been doing, albeit not necessarily using the term related to ‘decoloniality’, that is, they have been trying to ‘decolonise’ English with its assumed native-​speakerism without using the decolonial term. Accordingly, how these two seemingly different discourses, that is, those by the North and the South, can communicate in order to contribute to the better understanding and development of the fields of ELF and AL in general is worth further investigating. On the other hand, AL research discussed from ELF perspectives in Asian contexts is very much under the influence of the strong presence of the well-​ established WE (world Englishes) research paradigm. In particular, Southeast Asia, with its close connection with the founder of the field of WE, B. Kachru, holds the strong tradition of WE research, the perspective of ELF having relatively recently been introduced into this paradigm (see, for example, Azirah Hashim, Chapter 5; Kirkpatrick 2010, 2012, 2018, Low & Pakir 2017, 2018). Thus, being under the great influence of the WE paradigm, the emphasis of research is often placed on exploring ‘community-​based’ (see Widdowson 2015b) features of nativised varieties of English, which, of course, has its own academic contributions to the fields of AL and sociolinguistics. The tendency, however, seems to be gradually changing with the emergence and influence of ASEAN and beyond, making it more likely for people to freely move around and communicate with the people in the wider region, which includes not only the traditional Outer Circle countries in mainly

Reconsidering applied linguistics research from ELF perspectives  7 Southeast Asia to use Kachru’s (1985) terms but also Expanding Circle countries such as Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam, for business and educational purposes, and increasingly also those beyond the region, necessitating established WE scholars to also incorporate more ELF-​orientated perspectives (see Azirah Hashim, Chapter 5; Park & Sung, Chapter 6; see also Kirkpatrick, 2010, 2012, 2018) but maintaining some characteristics of the well-​established WE tradition. Under these circumstances, Azirah Hashim (Chapter 5) illustrates the situation of the use of ‘English’ as a lingua franca in ASEAN, where English is designated the ‘official working language’ and the mobility of people within the region is very high. However, although the coverage of geographical areas has been expanded, encompassing both Outer and Expanding Circle countries in the region, the research paradigm in principle still appears to be based on that of well-​ established WE, Singapore and Malaysian Englishes working as the mainstay of the regional ELF communication, while Anglophone-​based NES norms not necessarily being deferred to in this context, Azirah Hashim explains. Starting with this background information on the language policy and the current communicative situation in ASEAN, Azirah Hashim also presents how actual interactions in ELF take place in this context by giving examples of ASEAN academics from diverse linguacultural backgrounds communicating in ELF, on the basis of the ACE (Asian Corpus of English) corpus (see Kirkpatrick 2016). It is intriguing, as Azirah Hashim elaborates, to find that ELF use of these interactants is characterised by some regional characteristics, which are often described as characteristics of Singaporean and Malaysian Englishes by WE scholars. It is therefore also of interest to see the extent to which the established research tradition and paradigm in specific regions influence new conceptualisations and approaches to research both in South America and Southeast and East Asia. This, on the other hand, simultaneously showcases both context-​specific originality and constraints from the well-​established tradition. Park and Sung (Chapter 6) in introducing ELF and WE research in South Korea also reveal that research in this area in South Korea has been very much influenced by the WE tradition. They critically review the recent changes of South Korea’s English education policies which are geared towards English used as a lingua franca at least at the surface level of the use of the terminology and point out the discrepancy in understanding the nature of both ELF and WE at the governmental level, as, they explain, the governmental policies are still very much characterised by American norm-​based native-​speakerism, which is typically observed in the hiring policy of overseas English language teachers and teacher-​training programs despite the proclaimed changes. They further explain that this is reflected in the attitudes of Korean learners of English and Korean English teachers and persuasively present supporting evidence, referring to a great number of studies conducted by Korean researchers in the field. These are mostly based on the well-​established WE research paradigm rather than that of ELF, but results of which are discussed from an ELF perspective, whose research appears to be still limited in number in Korea. Park and Sung therefore conclude by suggesting ways of improving this situation to meet the reality of ‘English’ use in the globalised world.

8  Kumiko Murata On the other hand, ELF and AL research dealing with the Japanese context is not under direct or strong influence of the well-​established tradition of WE4 or the Southern epistemologies, although it could be a matter of degree, and incorporating the latter perspectives or finding situations which involve the latter perspectives more also needs to be considered in future research to be truly more open to diversity. It has, however, strongly been constrained by NES norms (see, for example, Ishikawa 2018, Murata 2019b), great influence of the USA both economically and educationally having been brought into the field of business and ELT, respectively, particularly after WWII (see also the strong influence of American English in Korea detailed by Park & Sung, Chapter 6). Thus, an American English–​based model has become de facto for all walks of life in Japan, not limited to educators and students. The contribution in this volume by Iino (Part III, Chapter 10) discusses this prevailing tendency in an academic context with its EMI (English-​medium instruction) or what Iino terms MME (multi-​lingual-​medium education) context. Terauchi, Maswana and Naito (Chapter 7), on the other hand, while discussing the state of AL in Japan in relation to JAAL (Japan Association of Applied Linguistics), focus their attention on one sub-​field of both AL and ELF research, that is, BELF (ELF in business settings). On the basis of the results from a pilot study of a massive survey, which was just recently administered to a great number of business people in Japan, Terauchi et al. introduce the state of ELF use in business settings and simultaneously explore the influence of the COVID-​19 pandemic in recent years on BELF communication, in particular, focusing on the deployment and role of online technology. Although the number of respondents is limited due to the nature of the pilot study, Terauchi et al. conclude that online BELF communication is here to stay after the COVID pandemic, listing some advantages presented by the respondents’ voices as well as issues to be improved. The fifth and final contributor in Part II, Wen (Chapter 8), introduces her own ‘scenario-​based & production-​oriented pedagogy’, which has been devised to teach English at tertiary level in China, taking an ELF perspective into consideration, particularly in its assessment practice in that it does not follow the native-​speaker norm as its yardstick as, according to Wen, it is not a realistic target for learners, considering also the recent use of ‘English’ as a lingua franca. Wen thus introduces pedagogy, which is meticulously planned and practiced considering the local context of Chinese learners of languages supported with evidence-​based results, and demonstrates its effectiveness. This is a result of systematically investigated and experimented methodology Wen has devised and developed for more than 10 years. Despite the nomenclature the POA (production-​oriented approach), however, the detailed explanation reveals that it is also very much knowledge based, but this, Wen explains, is due to the consideration of the reality of Chinese learning and teaching situations. Thus, the local context also matters when dealing with region-​ specific issues. Part II thus includes discussions from different research paradigms and perspectives in the diverse parts of the world, showcasing region-​specific characteristics, although Iino’s chapter (Chapter 10) briefly touched on above is categorised into Part III, to which we now turn.

Reconsidering applied linguistics research from ELF perspectives  9 Part III investigates applied linguistics research and ELF, foregrounding, in particular, its multi-​lingual nature and context. The close relationship between ELF and multi-​lingualism has long been taken for granted or rather assumed as precondition for understanding ‘English’ used as a lingua franca in the globalised world and its research among ELF scholars since its inception (see, for example, Hülmbauer & Seidlhofer 2013, Seidlhofer 2011). However, with the recent ‘multilingual turn’ (May 2014) in AL, in particular, in sociolinguistics, there is also a tendency among some ELF researchers to more explicitly foreground the multi-​lingual nature of ELF communication (Cogo 2012, 2018, 2021; Jenkins 2015, 2018; Jenkins & Mauranen 2019). In addition, in a broad area of sociolinguistics, there is also a tendency to foreground more fluid and dynamic nature of communication in line with globalisation and the global flow and mobility of people across borders and within communities (Blommaert 2010, 2013). With the resultant diverse and fluid nature of communication under the current acceleration of globalisation, scholars have started using new and different terms in depicting communication under the influence of these phenomena in line with their context of research, with terms such as translingual practice (Canagarajah 2013, 2018), translanguaging (Garcia & Li 2014; Li Wei 2016, 2018, 2020, 2022, this volume), and metrolingualism (Pennycook & Otsuji 2015) having been introduced. They simultaneously question the traditional understanding of multi-​lingualism, which assumes communication in plural ‘named’ languages (see, for example, Makoni & Pennycook’s (2012) and Pennycook & Makoni’s (2020) criticism on ‘plural monolingualism’; also see Otheguy et al. (2015) and Garcia et al. (2021) for the criticism on the assumption on the existence of named languages, and Kubota (2020, 2021), and Li Wei (2022), for the critique of ‘raciolinguistics’, which is partly based on ‘named’ languages, see also Matsumoto and Kubota, this volume), claiming the untenability of clearly demarcating different named languages in communication among interactants from diverse linguacultural backgrounds in globalised contexts. Focusing more on this dynamic and fluid nature of translingual, global communication, the three chapters in Part III specifically and critically explore ELF in multi-​lingual communicative situations, introducing also some case studies in illustrating and illuminating communication in these contexts in supporting their claims. The first chapter (Chapter 9) in Part III by Matsumoto and Kubota, ‘Rethinking English as a lingua franca from decolonial perspectives’, critically scrutinizes the state and role of ELF in the globalised world from decolonial and Southern perspectives, which, the authors argue, are lacking in the existing ELF research (see also Jordão, Chapter 4). They propose that by embracing these perspectives ELF research can be broadened as otherwise, they emphasise, it can be regarded as promoting and enhancing the global spread of English as a lingua franca viewed from these standpoints as long as it retains English in its nomenclature with its association with the past colonialism and the current economic power (see also Estival & Pennycook, this volume), referring especially to O’Regan (2014) in critiquing the nature of ELF research.5 In so doing, Matsumoto and Kubota deploy different interpretations of the acronym ‘ELF’ used by varying stakeholders such as laypersons, policymakers and scholars from diverse fields in their respective

10  Kumiko Murata discourses of ELF in their own contexts: that is, the former two often naively and well-​meaningly appreciating and trying to promote NS-​based English under the pretext of globalisation, while the one used by ‘ELF’ researchers, whose ‘E’ is not based on NESs’, criticising those who promote NES-​norm-​based English, and finally the one used by decolonial researchers, often freely and interchangeably incorporating the preceding two discourses simultaneously in critiquing the use of the term in general. It is therefore also of interest to further explore these differing discourses of the acronym ELF deployed by diverse contributors in the volume. The second contribution in Part III, ‘Going beyond English-​only medium instruction: challenges of multilingual education as an LPP mechanism’ (Chapter 10) by Masakazu Iino, starts with the discussion of the relationship between LPP and ELF research fields with those of applied linguistics and sociolinguistics. After establishing the close connection between them, Iino then illustrates how an EMI program in one faculty at a university in Japan has developed the policy of ‘plurilingual-​multicultural education’ as the key to the solution for overcoming the prevalent view of the ‘E’ in EMI as that of NES. Furthermore, Iino introduces his own original term ‘MME (Multilingual-​medium education)’, which embraces practices such as translanguaging in EMI (or rather ‘ELF’MI, see Murata & Iino 2018) and other language-​medium instruction classes, such as Chinese, French, Korean and Spanish, and asserts that these practices should be more encouraged. Finally, Iino presents some promising results through students’ voices, introducing an example of how more multi-​lingually aware ‘E’MI programs can be conducted, where students can naturally experience ELF use. Chapter 11, the final chapter of Part III, ‘Why aviation English is not ELF’ by Dominique Estival and Alastair Pennycook, discusses characteristics of aviation English in comparison with ELF, also introducing the field of aviation communication in general. Aviation controls are areas that flights all over the world rely on for securing their passengers’ safe travels. As the mobility of people across borders has drastically increased in the globalised world (except for the COVID-​19 pandemic period during the past few years), air traffic control has become an important area of communication between pilots from diverse lingua-​cultural backgrounds and air traffic control officers on arrival and departure, often communicating in ‘English’ as a lingua franca. Estival and Pennycook, however, argue that aviation English is not a type of ELF, albeit admitting that there are some shared features between them, but rather a type of LSP (language for specific purposes)6 and that it is characterised with genre-​specific registers, which are shared with other languages, not specific to English. They therefore propose to use a more generic term, aviation communication, instead of aviation English, which has often been used by researchers in the field. This simultaneously showcases their intention to avoid the use of the term ‘English’, deferring to decolonial and Southern perspectives (see also Jordão and Matsumoto & Kubota, this volume) as retaining ‘English’ in the nomenclature ‘aviation English’, just as doing so with the ‘E’ of English in ELF in discussing lingua franca communication among multi-​linguals, is not relevant, they argue, as, firstly, due to its hegemony carried over from the past colonialism as well as its association with economic power, and secondly, because of the problem

Reconsidering applied linguistics research from ELF perspectives  11 with the use of a singular form ‘lingua franca’ as such communication cannot be clearly demarcated by one specific language and thus, they maintain, should be ‘lingua francas’ rather than ‘lingua franca’, which assumes monolingual mentality (see Makoni & Pennycook 2012; Pennycook & Makoni 2020 for the suggestion for the use of term multi-​lingua francas). Furthermore, Estival and Pennycook’s convincing discussion on the necessity of assessing also NES pilots for their aviation communication ability just as other NNES pilots on the basis of their detailed reviews of the field and its assessment practice is closely connected to the following chapter (Chapter 12) by McNamara in Part IV, where aviation communication is also discussed as an example of the issue related to fair assessment in considering the possibility of test-​making from an ELF perspective, to which we now turn. Part IV, the final part, ELF and assessment—​challenging the assumed paradigm?, combines a typical sub-​field of applied linguistics, that is, assessment or testing of language learners or users’ proficiency (see Kaplan & Grabe 2000) and ELF. As the section title indicates, this is a challenging task as the field of assessment still largely clings on to the NS norm as its yardstick. Assessment of ELF interactions and ELF-​orientated teaching is regarded as one of the pressing issues to be tackled and solved, particularly when considering great influence testing can exert in the field of ELT, i.e., its washback effect on education (see Seidlhofer 2011, Widdowson 2021b). The incompatibility of globally deployed yet very ‘locally’ modelled –​often either American or British –​ and produced ‘international’ English tests for the measurement of ‘English’ ability of people from diverse linguacultural backgrounds who mainly use ‘English’ as a lingua franca in multi-​lingual contexts has long been problematised by ELF scholars (Jenkins 2006, 2014, Jenkins and Leung 2014, 2017, 2019, Mauranen 2012, Seidlhofer 2003, 2011, 2012, 2018, 2019, Widdowosn 2021b, among many others). Yet great difficulty in devising feasible tests from an ELF perspective has also been voiced (see, for example, Harding & McNamara, 2018; Jenkins and Leung, 2017, 2019). Considering that assessment is playing a gate-​keeping role in various educational, business and workplace, and other life-​changing settings such as the assessment of the entry of asylum seekers into a new country (Guido 2012, 2018; see also Seidlhofer 2019; Widdowosn 2021a) and its huge washback effect on education (McNamara 2012; Shohamy 2018, 2019), it is also timely to investigate the issue of assessment, which is truly a real-​world (and therefore simultaneously of an applied linguistics) concern, in relation to ELF. Part IV directly tackles this issue and has two contributions. McNamara (Chapter 12), who is one of the leading figures in the field of language assessment, looks into the possibility of devising international English tests in general from an ELF perspective and first casts a critical view on the current ‘internationally’ available standard language tests, which are based on NES norms. McNamara argues that all communication which involves NNSs of the target language should be regarded as LF (lingua franca) communication, and thus assessment should not be based on NS standard, which is applicable not only to ELF but also

12  Kumiko Murata to any other lingua franca communication. He thus problematises the exemption of ‘native’ English speakers from the assessment of language ability as a political decision and untenable. This also resonates with what Estival and Pennycook argue in Chapter 11 about the current assessment practice of aviation English in which NES pilots are exempt from being tested. In fact, McNamara also gives an example of the assessment practice of air traffic controls referring to Kim’s work (2012). By listing the International Civil Aviation Organization’s (ICAO’s) specifications of requirements for language proficiency levels as an example and examining them in a detailed manner, McNamara asserts that it is not impossible to devise ELF tests, albeit challenging, as after all test-​making for specific situations and purposes, just as seen in ICAO’s specifications, is complex and test-​makers are expected to accommodate to various context-​specific needs. Upon stating this, McNamara further argues that the true reason why ELF tests are yet to be devised is more political and value laden, which is more resistant to changes. What McNamara details in this chapter about assessment is hugely challenging but simultaneously promising in that it should not be impossible to change the current assessment practice. On the other hand, Turner (Chapter 13) discusses assessment of written work at graduate level, in particular, PhD thesis writing and the issue of proofreading, introducing her original term ‘writtenness’ in order to clearly depict the assumed NS norm and the standard language ideology hidden in assessing theses and to point out the inseparable nature of content and form when evaluating them. She explores this hugely important issue particularly in the midst of internationalisation of higher education but very little problematised one (see also Jenkins 2014, 2019). Under these circumstances, tutors often suggest to students that their theses be proofread to ensure clarity and smooth reading without seriously considering the effect of doing so, Turner explains. This often puts students in difficult situations in which they need to find appropriate proofreaders and pay them for their work. Turner critically argues that in this context not only academic but also socioeconomic consequences are brought about. By introducing the historical background originating in the 17th century when English was promoted as a national, scientific language, the author claims that ‘precision’, ‘elegance’ and ‘polished’ writing was promoted for the purpose of the establishment of the English language in line with up-​to-​then widely used Latin as a lingua franca in the academic field and that this has been maintained up to the current academic field despite the acceleration of globalisation drastically changing the picture of academic institutions, where a great number of students, particularly at the post-​graduate level, from diverse linguacultural backgrounds study (see also Jenkins 2014, 2019) and where academic staff are also diversifying. Turner maintains that in this changing academic environment, the criteria for the assessment of a thesis should be more flexible as long as intelligibility of the content is secured and that otherwise there arises unfairness, affluent students employing proofreaders, while other students not being able to do so, leading often (but not always, depending on the quality of the proofreading) to lower assessment. Although the situation dealt with in this chapter is limited to PhD thesis writing, the issue could be applicable to any level of academic writing or publishing practices

Reconsidering applied linguistics research from ELF perspectives  13 and is a very relevant topic for the final chapter of the volume on ELF and applied linguistics to deal with (see also Seidlhofer 2012). Concluding remarks To conclude, this volume explores the nature of ELF and AL research, taking a strong connection between the two fields of enquiry into account, or rather, confirming not only that research on ELF (or lingua franca communication in general) is a typical sub-​field of AL but also that it should underlie all the sub-​ fields of AL. It is therefore natural that this volume explicitly connects the two, or put differently, the two should have been naturally combined for some time in accordance with the changing nature of the use of ‘English’ in the globalised world. As Widdowson (2021a) elucidates, discussing the connection of the two, ELF is often used as a communicative means to solve real-​world issues in communication among people from different linguacultural backgrounds, which is one of the main concerns of AL research as also discussed at the outset of this chapter. The volume, in explicating the relationship of the two, revisits the definition of AL in relation to ELF, particularly in Part I, the theoretical part contributed by Widdowson and Seidlhofer, and Li Wei, the former investigating diverse perspectives on ELF currently existent and the meaning of ELF research to the field of applied linguistics and language teaching, while the latter revisits one of the most cited articles in the field of AL by Kaplan (1966) from intercultural as well as the current globalised world perspectives, where communication often takes place among multi-​linguals from different linguacultural backgrounds. In addition, the contributions by the AL and ELF scholars across the globe in Part II make us aware that each region has its own unique ELF-​AL-​related agenda to be considered, while Part III, by more explicitly discussing the multi-​lingual nature of ELF (or LF) communication in the globalised world, particularly introducing decolonial and Southern perspectives, broadens our horizon to different interpretations of the term and acronym ELF, informing us that in fact both camps are offering different discourses basically in aiming at the same goal of the betterment of society and, in particular, education at various levels. After all, people tend to interpret and understand the same ‘text’ into different discourses (see Widdowson 2007). Part IV explores the possibility of implementing ELF-​aware assessment in making internationally available large-​ scale tests as well as the assessment of PhD theses at Anglophone higher education and problematises the measurement based on the fixed standardised way of assessing people based on NS norms, when the world has diversified and with communication even more diversifying. This volume thus focuses on deepening the understanding of the nature of ELF research and its relationship with AL as well as exploring the most recent findings of ELF research and the development of its conceptualisations through the contributors’ both locally-​and internationally informed expertise. Furthermore, the dimension of multi-​lingual and translingual nature of ELF communication and its research in the increasingly more fluid and dynamic globalised world as well as the assessment of such dynamic use of ELF in contrast to the current situations

14  Kumiko Murata of AL research are also explored. It also briefly touches on differing interpretations or discourses of ELF found in the contributions, expanding the scope of ELF research community, as after all there is no right way of, or regulation for, understanding ELF or what is meant by ELF, diverse scholars and stakeholders in varying contexts freely using the term from their own standpoints, be they educational, ideological, geo-​or sociopolitical, or socioeconomic. Through these explorations, it is hoped that insight from ELF research is organically incorporated into AL research in general to realise truly applied linguistics-​orientated research, which ‘draws on and appeals to the learner’s experience as a language user’ (Widdowson 1984: 19, emphasis by the current author), who uses ELF ‘as the communicative means for engaging with the problems’ with people from diverse linguacultural backgrounds. Notes 1 I am putting ‘English’ in quotation marks here to indicate that I am aware that in lingua franca communication in particular it is difficult to clearly demarcate different ‘languages’ or use just ‘one separate language’ (see Garcia et al. 2021, Garcia & Li 2014, Otheguy et al. 2015, Makoni & Pennycook 2012, Pennycook & Makoni 2020; see also Estival & Pennycook, Li Wei, and Matsumoto & Kuboto, this volume) or a variety of a ‘language’. 2 See Kaplan & Grabe (2000: 5); for the listing of some examples of ‘sub-​fields of study’ in applied linguistics, see also ibid.: 4–​5 for some examples of ‘practical issues involving language use, —​’. 3 But of course it has to be reminded that there are different perspectives on ELF to be also extensively discussed in this volume (see, for example, Chapter 2 by Widdowson & Seidlhofer, Chapter 4 by Jordao, Chapter 9 by Matsumoto & Kubota, and Chapter 11 by Estival & Pennycook). 4 It, however, has to be noted that there is a well-​established field of Asian Englishes (AE) with its own journal founded in Japan, which follows the tradition of WE but focuses more specifically on Asian contexts. 5 However, see also critiques of O’Regan (2014) by scholars such as Baker & Jenkins (2015) and Widdowson (2015a). 6 See also Swales (2000) and Widdowson (1978, 1984), on LSP and ESP.

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16  Kumiko Murata Jenkins, J., and C. Leung. 2019. From mythical ‘standard’ to standard reality: the need for alternatives to standardized English language tests. Language Teaching 52(1), 86–​110. Jenkins, J. and A. Mauranen (eds). 2019. Linguistic diversity in international universities. Oxon: Routledge. Kachru, B. B. 1985. Standards, codification and sociolinguistic realism: the English language in the Outer Circle. In R. Quirk & H. G. Widdowson (eds), English in the world: teaching and learning the language and literatures. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 11–​30. Kachru, B. B. (ed.). 1992. The other tongue: English across cultures (2nd ed.). Chicago: University of Illinois Press. Kaplan R. B. 1966. Cultural thought patterns in inter-​cultural education. Language Learning 16(1–​2), 1–​20. Kaplan R. B. and W. Grabe. 2000. Applied linguistics and the Annual Review of Applied Linguistics. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 20, 3–​17. Kirkpatrick, A. 2010. English as a lingua franca in ASEAN: a multilingual model. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. Kirkpatrick, A. 2012. English as an Asian lingua franca: the ‘Lingua Franca Approach’ and implications for language education policy. Journal of English as a Lingua Franca 1, 121–​139. Kirkpatrick, A. 2016.The Asian Corpus of English–​introduction to the special issue. Journal of English as a Lingua Franca 5(2), 225–​228. Kirkpatrick, A. 2018. The development of English as a lingua franca in ASEAN. In J. Jenkins, W. Baker, & M. Dewey (eds), The Routledge handbook of English as a lingua franca. Oxon: Routledge, pp. 138–​150. Kubota, R. 2020. Confronting epistemological racism, decolonizing scholarly knowledge: race and gender in applied linguistics. Applied Linguistics 41(7), 712–​732. Kubota, R. 2021. Critical antiracist pedagogy in ELT. ELT Journal 75(3), 237–​246. Li, W. 2016. New Chinglish and the post-​multilingualism challenge: translanguaging ELF in China. Journal of English as a Lingua Franca 5(1), 1–​26. Li, W. 2018. Translanguaging as a practical theory of language. Applied Linguistics 39(1), 9–​30. Li, W. 2020. Multilingual English users’ linguistic innovation. World Englishes 39, 236–​248. Li, W. 2022. Translanguaging as a political stance: implications for English language education. ELT Journal 76(2), 172–​182. Low, E. L., and A. Pakir (eds). 2017. World Englishes: rethinking paradigms. London: Routledge. Low, E. L., and A. Pakir. 2018. English in Singapore: striking a new balance for future-​ readiness. Asian Englishes 20(1), 41–​53. Makoni, S., and A. Pennycook 2012. Disinventing multilingualism: from monological multilingualism to multilingual francas. In M. Martin-​Jones, A. Blackledge, & A. Creese (eds). The Routledge handbook of multilingualism. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, pp. 439–​453. Mauranen, A. 2012. Exploring ELF: academic English shaped by non-​native speakers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. May, S. (ed.). 2014 The multilingual turn. Implications for SAL, TESOL and bilingual education. New York and London: Routledge. McNamara, T. 2012. English as a lingua franca: the challenge for language testing. Journal of English as a Lingua Franca 1(1), 199–​202.

Reconsidering applied linguistics research from ELF perspectives  17 Murata, K. (ed.). 2016. Exploring ELF in Japanese academic and business contexts: conceptualization, research and pedagogic implications. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. Murata, K. (ed.). 2019a. English-​medium instruction from an English as a lingua franca perspective: exploring the higher education context. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. Murata, K. 2019b. The realities of the use of English in the globalised world and the teaching of English: a discrepancy? JACET Journal 63, 7–​26. Murata, K., and M. Iino. 2018. EMI in higher education: an ELF perspective. In J. Jenkins, W. Baker, & M. Dewey (eds), The Routledge handbook of English as a lingua franca. Oxon: Routledge, pp. 165–​175. O’Regan, J. 2014. English as a lingua franca: an immanent critique. Applied Linguistics 35(5), 533–​552. Ortega, L. 2018. Ontologies of language, second language acquisition, and world Englishes. World Englishes 37(1), 64–​79. Otheguy, R., O. García, and W. Reid. 2015. Clarifying translanguaging and deconstructing named languages: a perspective from linguistics. Applied Linguistics Review 6(3), 281–​307. Pennycook, A., and S. Makoni. 2020. Innovations and challenges in applied linguistics from the Global South. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. Pennycook, A., and E. Otsuji. 2015. Metrolingualism: language in the city. London: Routledge. Seidlhofer, B. (ed.). 2003. Controversies in applied linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Seidlhofer, B. 2011. Understanding English as a lingua franca. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Seidlhofer, B. 2012. Anglophone-​centric attitudes and the globalisation of English. Journal of English as a Lingua Franca 1(2), 393–​407. Seidlhofer, B. 2018. English as a lingua franca: why is it so controversial? JACET International Convention Selected Papers 5, 2–​24. Seidlhofer, B. 2019. Tracing themes and trends in ELF research in Japan and beyond. Waseda Working Papers in ELF 8, 15–​22. Shohamy, E. 2018. ELF and critical language testing. In J. Jenkins, W. Baker, & M. Dewey (eds), The Routledge handbook of English as a lingua franca. Oxon: Routledge, pp. 583–​593. Shohamy, E. 2019. Critical language testing and English lingua franca. How can one help the other? In K. Murata (ed.), English-​medium instruction from an English as a lingua franca perspective: exploring the higher education context. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, pp. 271–​285. Swales, J. 2000. Language for specific purposes. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 20, 59–​76. Waseda Working Papers in ELF, Volumes 1–​8. Tokyo: Waseda ELF Research Group, Waseda University. Widdowson, H. G. 1978. Teaching language as communication. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Widdowson, H. G. 1984. Explorations in applied linguistics 2. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Widdowson, H. G. 1994. The ownership of English. TESOL Quarterly 28 (2), 377–​389. Widdowson, H. G. 2007. Discourse analysis. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Widdowson, H. G. 2015a. Contradiction and conviction. A Reaction to O’Regan. Applied Linguistics 36(1), 121–​123.

18  Kumiko Murata Widdowson, H. G. 2015b. ELF and the pragmatics of language variation. Journal of English as a Lingua Franca 4(2), 359–​372. Widdowson, H. G. 2021a. Research perspectives on ELF. Linguistic usage and communicative use. In K. Murata (ed.) ELF research methods and approaches to data and analyses: theoretical and methodological underpinnings. London: Routledge, pp. 21–​28. Widdowson, H. G. 2021b. English beyond the pale: the language of outsiders. ELT Journal 75(4), 492–​501.

Part I

ELF research and communication Diverse perspectives

2 Conceptualising ELF and applied linguistics Henry Widdowson and Barbara Seidlhofer

Introduction The extended networks of offline and online interaction, so obviously the driving force of globalisation, have naturally resulted in a corresponding extension of language use as a means of communication beyond the borders of different named languages conventionally associated with separate linguacultural communities. The massive increase in these global interactions, enabled by digitalisation and necessitated by mobility, migration and socio-​economic exigencies, creates the need for a lingua franca as a communicative resource that speakers from these different communities can have recourse to. In the vast majority of such interactions, this lingua franca is ELF, ie, ‘any use of English among speakers of different first languages for whom English is the communicative medium of choice, and often the only option’ (Seidlhofer 2011: 7). As a communicative medium, often the only one available, ELF, then, is integral to globalisation and necessarily involved in the engagement with all the problematic issues it gives rise to. And just as globalisation disrupts the customary realities of what the novelist Anthony Powell called The Acceptance World and requires a rethinking of established assumptions, so does the language used as the communicative medium which serves to enact it. This, of course, poses a very considerable challenge: it is difficult to accept the need for such rethinking since it necessarily not only threatens the individuals’ comfort zone and their security in taken-​for-​granted beliefs and values but also conflicts with the vested interests of institutionalised policies and practices. Nevertheless, many researchers have taken up the challenge, as evident from the extensive work on the description of ELF and its pedagogic implications as represented, for example, by the contents of the Journal that bears its name. The perspectives taken in this work, as one would expect, are many and diverse, and while they provide insights into the descriptive and pedagogic issues that ELF gives rise to, there emerges no one clear overarching conceptualisation of the essential nature of ELF that might relate them. The purpose of this chapter is to suggest such a conceptualisation. It argues that research into ELF and its relationship with applied linguistics call for a radical reappraisal of the way English has been traditionally conceived, both in the academic discipline of linguistics and in the practical domain of English language teaching. DOI: 10.4324/9781003391463-3

22  Henry Widdowson and Barbara Seidlhofer Reactions to ELF We approach the argument by way of first considering different reactions to the very idea that ELF should be taken seriously as a subject of study. A very common reaction is to dismiss it as not warranting any research attention at all. This can take the form of indifference, where ELF is simply seen as a peripheral phenomenon not worthy of scholarly note, as is the case in most academic study of ‘contemporary English’. It can also take the form of opposition, often given strident expression, particularly among those in the practical pedagogic domain of English language teaching. Now, personally, I stopped believing in Father Christmas and the Tooth Fairy when I was a kid, and my belief in ELFs is also non-​existent. … Any attempt to define ELF as an entity distinct from native-​speaker norms is doomed from the outset. If native speakers are no longer to be the model, who is? Kofi Annan? Angela Merkel? You non-​native speaker teachers out there? And, if so, then WHICH of you? Or is the Nigerian security guy at my university who almost none of my students ever seem to be able to decipher? Or is it the Somali cab driver I had drive me to the airport last week, who spoke broken pidginised English? (https://​hug​hdel​lar.wordpr​ess.com/​2012/​04/​17/​elf-​ and-​other-​fairy-​tales/​, last accessed 28/​6/​2023) Interestingly, the same dismissive view of ELF is also expressed from a theoretical perspective. Here it is taken note of, but its study criticised as invalid, even fraudulent, with ELF researchers taken to task for practising a deception that the E of ELF is anything more than established native speaker English, thereby seeking to disguise its inherent many-​faceted dark sides (Piller et al 2010; see also eg, Elder & Davies 2006; O’Regan 2021; Phillipson 2009; Park & Wee 2013). The diversity of reactions, even among those ‘united’ in their negative evaluations of ELF research, is of course due to authors’ radically different theoretical backgrounds, but it can to a large extent also be explained by ‘where people come from’ so that, for instance, academics and ELT practitioners working in an Anglo/​English-​speaking environment such as US or British universities with fairly easy access to prestigious channels of knowledge (re)production –​such as some of the critics mentioned above –​have quite different perspectives (and prospects) from others who in their socio-​economic contexts are more immediately affected by inequities and disenfranchisement in this materialistic globalised world, in which ‘English’ is a crucial factor. Regrettably, and partly also due to conditions and conventions in academic publishing, what tends to happen is that a particular position is presented and defended as the only valid one rather than weighed and evaluated against alternatives in a holistic, inclusive perspective. What is particularly noteworthy about many of these reactions is how hostile they are to the very idea that ELF should be considered worthy of attention. Other reactions are less dismissive. What, for example, emerges from the research on attitudes to ELF among teachers is a deep-​seated ambivalence. On the one hand,

Conceptualising ELF and applied linguistics  23 they recognise that the use of English that is not restricted by considerations of correctness can be liberating, but on the other hand, the feeling remains that this is an indulgence and to be distinguished from the ‘proper’ language, whose normative status should be maintained (Illes 2016; Blair 2017). So what is it about ELF that gives rise to these reactions? We suggest that all of them, whether they be of indifference, hostility, or ambivalence, derive from the same shared perspective: one that sees English as a conventionalised stable construct, normalised by the community of its speakers like any other named language. ‘English is English is English’ (Seidlhofer 2011, ch.1); a language is a language is a language. From such a perspective, language which does not conform to conventional norms, as is frequently the case with ELF usage, is seen as defective, not to be taken seriously; or worse, if it is taken seriously it has the effect of legitimising deviant behaviour and so undermining the status of the proper language and the educational standards that maintain it. So why should such a view of English be so pervasive and persistent? The reason why This normative attitude to English, or indeed to any named language, is deep rooted because it is naturally inbred by upbringing. Individuals only experience language as particular languages associated with particular communities into which they are primarily socialised. Socialisation involves initiation into communally accepted conventions, and the non-​conformist language individuals produce are only interim stages in the process of acquiring proficiency as defined by the socio-​cultural conventions of usage accepted as normal in their community. Not infrequently, they then find, in the secondary socialisation of formal schooling, that this proficiency is inadequate and needs to be extended (Brice Heath 1983/​1996). So language that does not measure up to what is normal is quite naturally negatively associated with partial and inadequate proficiency, developmental stages of learning to be competent in ‘the language’. It is not surprising, therefore, that the non-​conformities of ELF usage are also categorised as evidence of inadequate proficiency, of only partial competence, not essentially different from learner language: usage that although recognisably in English is not recognised as ‘real English’. Given that we are socialised into this normative view of language as a particular communally conventionalised language, it is understandable that it is difficult to think of English in any other way and explains why ELF has provoked the reactions referred to earlier. Although it is acknowledged that learners of English as L2 will produce non-​conformities, as with L1 learners, they are taken to be only interim stages of the learning process and have eventually to be corrected to complete the process. There is, of course, recognition, as with the CEFR ‘can-​ do’ descriptors (Council of Europe 2018; UCLES/​CUP. 2011), that learners can achieve some degree of communication even at these interim stages, but this is nevertheless graded against the benchmark of native speaker competence in the conventional language. Although getting to specified levels, A2 or B2, for example, may be positively represented as degrees of success, measured as they are against

24  Henry Widdowson and Barbara Seidlhofer the scale with C2 as the ultimate objective, they in effect represent degrees of failure, as teachers and learners alike know all too well; for a particularly striking example of this pedagogic deficit approach see McCarthy (2016). Instances of ELF usage can be put into correspondence with any of these grades across the whole scale of proficiency. But the crucial point is that these do not represent interim developmental stages of learning, but the exploitation of language as a resource to meet immediate communicative needs. And this is just what children do with their own L1. They explore and exploit its potential for making meaning and their non-​conformities are not just developmental stages but have their own independent communicative value. The continuing realisation of this potential will lead to conformity to the extent that it serves the process of socialisation, but the meaning potential of the language as resource remains available for realisation for all manner of contexts and purposes which do not have to be conventional. So one can say that learning a language is a matter of knowing how its potential as resource is conventionally realised in a particular community, but then this depends on knowing that such a potential is available. In this sense, learning a language depends on first knowing how to language. Conventionalised languages and language as resource We have here two different but related processes of learning and using English, or any other language, if it comes to that. One process involves the realisation of language potential as resource, and the other involves conformity to the conventional realisation of that potential that defines a particular language. This latter is an état de langue –​the set of current encoding rules and usage conventions assumed to represent the canonical competence of a community of native speakers. With regard to first language acquisition discussed earlier, Halliday refers to these two processes as consecutive developmental stages as the child moves from primary upbringing to formal schooling: Up till now, language has been seen as a resource, a potential for thinking and doing; […]. From now on, language will be not a set of resources but a set of rules. (Halliday 2003 [1977]: 94) Although schooling might be seen as an inhibiting imposition of rules, it is only one factor in the socialisation process in which, to use the title of Halliday’s book, ‘learning how to mean’ is a matter of learning how a particular community means, getting to know how to conform to social norms of linguistic behavior as a condition for communal membership. So, as indicated earlier, it is not surprising that this concept of language is so deeply embedded, and that it has been granted special status as the authorised version of the language. But the fact that this resource has become conventionalised in a particular community does not of course exhaust its potential: as resource, the language is available for anybody to realise its potential in whatever way it is communicatively

Conceptualising ELF and applied linguistics  25 expedient to do so. And this indeed is what we see in ELF communication, where the very non-​conformities of usage show how the potential is uncoupled from the conventional realisations that define English as the property of a particular community and gets appropriated as a generally available resource for meaning making. We can then distinguish two quite different ways of conceptualising language. To focus on one is to think of English, or any other language, as a conventionalised construct defined by the norms of usage of its community of native speakers. This we will refer to with the countable nominal as a normative language, henceforth NL for short. To focus on the other kind of processing is to think of a language as language more generally, as a communicative resource for expedient adaptive use. This we will refer to with the mass nominal as resource language, henceforth RL for short. In the main, the focus of language research, in both the discipline of linguistics and the domain of pedagogy, has been on NLs, on the description and learning of their formal properties or on the socio-​cultural conventions of use that obtain in particular communities. This does not mean that the use of language as resource is disregarded but it is generally taken into account as a subordinate developmental stage on the way to normalisation rather than a communicative process in its own right. The resulting non-​conformities are only recognised as of any significance in linguistic description if they regularise into communal convention to become an NL variety of one kind or another or, in language learning, if they can be identified as interim points on an interlanguage continuum. This explains why when non-​conformities from established Inner Circle varieties get conventionally regularised and normalised in Outer Circle communities, they do become recognised as significant and are accorded the status of world Englishes, independent NLs in their own right. As such they form varieties worthy of inclusion in Trudgill and Hannah (2017) as examples of International English. ELF, not being a variety, does not qualify for inclusion here. Elsewhere, however, it has been included alongside WEs under the heading of ‘Global Englishes’ (Jenkins 2015, Galloway & Rose 2015, Rose & Galloway 2019). But this is misleading since it conflates an essential difference between them. WEs are NLs, whereas ELF is RL and could not function as a lingua franca otherwise. English like other named languages exists as an NL, a conventionalised construct that serves as a normalised frame of reference for its community of users. A lingua franca, on the other hand, is unlike any normal lingua in that its users cannot rely on such a pre-​existing conventional framework to refer to, and they have to construct one expediently as they go along. Of course, a normative language still retains its resource potential, so its native speakers will also exploit it to produce non-​conformities, but these will be adaptations to the known conventions of a normal established lingua. A lingua franca, as its name suggests, is relatively free of such conventional constraints and indeed has to be if it is to serve its intercommunal communicative function. So a lingua franca cannot be a version or variety of an NL lingua, or even a conglomerate of multiple NLs. It is an expedient mode of communication in its own right which does not depend on approximations to an NL norm (Mauranen 2018). ELF users engage in languaging, in the process of making use of whatever meaning-​making RL is available to them.

26  Henry Widdowson and Barbara Seidlhofer Of course, the use of English as language resource in lingua franca communication in a particular group of users is likely to result in the natural emergence of local conventions online, pro tem norms of usage, and obviously the more frequently a group of ELF users get together, the more likely it is that such local norms will emerge, as is demonstrated in Pitzl’s research on the use of ELF in transient international groups (see Pitzl 2018a). This is in accordance with the idiomaticity principle that is naturally activated as part of the process of establishing common points of reference and group identity (Seidlhofer & Widdowson 2022). But the point is that though the use of RL may result in the development of NL, as it does with L1 acquisition, the process itself is not bound to this function but continues independently of it, whether conventions of NL emerge or not. And has to continue as a condition for effective communication. Apart from certain basic transactional uses of formulaic routines, we do not communicate simply by conforming to the conventions of the normal language but only when we exploit the resource potential to adapt expediently to the immediate demands of context and purpose. It is this resource potential that is the dynamic driving force of creativity which Carter calls ‘the art of common talk’ (Carter 2004) and is an all-​pervasive characteristic of all natural uses of language. And creativity, as Pitzl points out, is particularly evident in the use of ELF (Pitzl 2018b). But this is not because ELF users communicate differently from native speakers, but because their resourcefulness is less constrained by convention (for further discussion of ELF creativity see Widdowson 2020a, ch. 15). The RL, we might say, takes precedence over the NL. Languaging, translanguaging and multi-​lingualism But surely, it might be objected, ELF use is essentially different because it is by definition a multi-​lingual mode of communication, so it should be more appropriately named English as a Multilingua Franca (Jenkins 2015). We made the observation earlier that in L1 acquisition children engage in languaging to learn a language. In subsequent discussion we have argued that communication in English, as in any other language, always involves the process of languaging, whether it eventually results in conventionalisation or not. Now if ELF users have at least one other NL in their repertoire, then they also have other resources to language from, and so their communication, other than that of monolinguals, can be said to be distinctive in that it involves multi-​lingual languaging, or what has been referred to as translanguaging (García & Li Wei 2014). The concept of translanguaging has been adduced by ELF researchers in support of Jenkins’ proposal that ELF should be radically reconceptualised as a multi-​lingua franca. For Cogo, for example, it is seen as a theoretical endorsement of what she refers to as the ‘multilingual turn’ in ELF research, which is in line with current criticism of the traditional monolingual approach to language study in general (Cogo 2021). The argument that ELF is a distinctive kind of languaging because it is multi-​lingual depends on the supposition that the repertoire of communicative resource is more extensive in comparison with that of the monolingual. But of course, there is nothing mono about a so-​called monolingual repertoire.

Conceptualising ELF and applied linguistics  27 According to Cogo ‘repertoires are … collections of all the varieties, languages, registers etc. that an individual has accumulated in their lifetime’ (Cogo 2021:40). These accumulations will vary greatly in degree and kind from individual to individual, and a so-​called multi-​lingual one that includes ‘languages’ is in this sense no more likely to have greater range and variety than a so-​called monolingual one that only includes ‘varieties, registers etc.’ –​whatever the etc. might refer to. Furthermore, to refer to languages as items in a collection is surely to reify them as conventionalised constructs, NLs, in precisely the way that the very concept of translanguaging sets out to counter. Li Wei (this volume) describes people translanguaging as follows: They were not switching between abstract codes but making meaning with diverse resources in their communicative repertoire transcending the boundaries between named languages as well as the boundaries between language and other semiotic resources… And he elsewhere in this chapter refers to translanguaging as ‘a fluid, dynamic everyday process’ whereby users go beyond the boundaries between named languages and beyond the boundaries between language and other semiotic systems in their integrated communicative repertoire. So the essential point is that in translanguaging, the linguistic features that might be identified as deriving from a different named conventionalised language get integrated as communicative resource. In reference to the distinction we have drawn between ways of conceiving of a language, translanguaging, then, is essentially about how elements of NL function as RL and in functioning as such they lose their NL status. It is not that these elements transfer from one language to another; they transcend these boundaries. In other words, translanguaging acts against multiplicity and far from being a multi-​lingual process is really the very opposite. It may be, of course, that in accordance with the idiomaticity principle mentioned earlier, a feature deriving from one named language may first be used expediently as resource and subsequently, if taken up recurrently within a group of users, get conventionalised. This is how the adaptive process of language variation driven by communicative expediency can, and often does, result in the formation of a language variety. But the point is that it does not have to, and if we are concerned with understanding how ELF users, or any other language users, actually communicate, whether it does or not is of little, if any, relevance. ELF, we have argued, is essentially a languaging process in that it is the exploitation of a repertoire of linguistic resources –​and, as Li Wei points out, semiotic resources more generally (see also Bierbaumer 2021). This repertoire represents the historical record of the individual’s ‘lived experience of language’ (Busch 2017). It may include elements which are identified as lingually diverse in the sense that they have their origins in different named languages, but equally it might

28  Henry Widdowson and Barbara Seidlhofer include elements from one and the same named language which are ‘only’ lectally diverse in terms of register or style. One might then conclude that repertoires are therefore of two different kinds, one multi-​lingual and the other monolingual, and that only when it is a multi-​lingual repertoire that provides the communicative resource do we have translanguaging. On this account, multi-​linguals, like ELF users, translanguage, monolinguals do not. It is this way of thinking that informs the ‘multilingual turn’ in ELF research that Cogo commends, and which persuades Jenkins to reconceptualise ELF as a Multilingual Franca. But this way of thinking does not, as seems to be supposed, accord with the concept of translanguaging as defined by Li Wei but on the contrary conflicts with it. For in effect it reinstates the very boundaries that are said to be transcended in the integrated repertoires that are drawn on as communicative resources in the translanguaging process. Multi-​lingual features, as pointed out earlier, can only be defined in reference to the conventions of normative languages, NLs, and their conventionality does not transfer but is transcended when used as resource language, RL. Whether a repertoire is linguistically described as lingually or lectally diverse, its use as communicative resource is essentially the same, and the linguistic distinction transcended, whether this process is called translanguaging or just languaging. The applied linguistic study of ELF Where the use of English in lingua franca languaging does, however, differ is in the range of serviceable resource that is available for effective use. More often than not its users have only a limited range of the conventional English language in their repertoire and so they have less of its potential to exploit as RL resource. At the same time, they cannot readily resort to the resource they would customarily draw on as represented by the meaning potential of their own conventional languages. In short, ELF users have to make do with limited resources to communicate, and furthermore to communicate with others whose repertoire resource may well not correspond with their own. So they have to negotiate some convergence on common ground, some agreed terms of reference and engagement. But this is of course what the communicative process in general always involves –​the recognition and reconciliation of lingual and lectal differences and of ‘cultural’ differences of thinking and behaving in communities large and small (for further discussion Widdowson 2020b). But it is a process that poses particular problems for ELF users for the obvious reason that they cannot rely on there being common ground to begin with and so have more work to do to negotiate it in flight. ELF users, then, are faced with the problem of finding appropriate ways of communicating with limited serviceable resources. All communication involves users in the tactical negotiation of common ground, resolving the tension between accommodation to the other and positioning of self, reconciling different often opposing communicative objectives, and so on. But ELF users have to somehow enact this process without the support of the enabling communal conventions they are accustomed to. Whereas normal engagement in the communicative process is

Conceptualising ELF and applied linguistics  29 so familiar to us that its underlying features tend to go unnoticed, in the use of ELF the essential nature of the process itself is exposed, laid bare, so to say, with particular clarity. From this perspective, what stands out as the primary characteristic of ELF communication is that it represents how its users cope with the problem of communicating with outsiders (see Seidlhofer 2020; Widdowson 2021) by making do with limited resources. But this, of course, is only a problem if there is a need to communicate at all. The process of communication is only activated by some purpose, and problems only arise when there are obstacles in the way to achieving it. Limited linguistic resources are obviously just such an obstacle. So what problems ELF users have in using language to communicate are necessarily bound up with non-​language problems they need to communicate about in the first place. This being so, ELF study is located within the field of applied rather than descriptive linguistics, concerned as it is with ‘the theoretical and empirical investigation of real-​world problems in which language is a central issue’ (Brumfit 1997:86). The real-​world problems that ELF users have to cope with may be relatively local and trivial –​as tourists, for example, how to explain their transactional needs in transient service encounters. But many, indeed most, problems in the present digitalised and globalised world, which, willingly or not, for better or worse, ELF users need somehow to come to terms with, are far from trivial or transient. They are problems that, in one way or another, can be traced to globalisation: problems of poverty, deprivation and displacement resulting from economic exploitation, conflict and climate change. ELF is in very many cases indeed ‘the only option’ as a means of engaging with such problems, whether its users are victims of the negative effects of globalisation, like refugees and asylum seekers, or government officials and policy makers at summit meetings seeking to control and alleviate these effects. The problems that ELF users have in communicating are inevitably bound up with the problems they need to communicate about. It is no exaggeration to say that the future well-​being and very survival of most people on the planet are dependent on lingua franca users making effective use of whatever English is available to them as communicative resource. ELF is, as a mode of communication, no different from any other lingua franca. But no other has ever had anything like a comparable range of use or global significance. The applied linguistic perspective on ELF we take here also has a crucial bearing on the pedagogic problems of English language teaching, ELT. Like ELF, ELT is a global phenomenon. It appears as a mandatory subject in just about every school curriculum and does so in institutional acknowledgment of the role of English as an international means of communication. But although one might reasonably suppose that there should be a close relationship between these two global phenomena, with one taking account of the other, in reality there is little if any correspondence between them at all. The E of orthodox ELT is generally defined as the normative language, an NL, and not at all the same as the resource language of ELF. It is communicative competence in ENL –​the acronym denoting both ‘English as NL’ in the sense introduced in this chapter but also the familiar ‘English as a native language’ –​that is prescribed as the pedagogic objective and the problems that arise

30  Henry Widdowson and Barbara Seidlhofer are seen to be those that teachers encounter in getting learners to achieve it. Applied linguistics has often been taken to be an enquiry into how these problems might be resolved. From the perspective of this chapter, the enquiry is misdirected because the real problem of orthodox ELT is that its very objective is misconceived. In orthodox ELT, what counts, and is assessed, as learning is the extent to which it conforms to what is taught. As indicated earlier, failures to conform are seen as errors, and while it is recognised that it is natural for them to occur in the learning process, they are seen to be in need of being remedied if the objective of learning is to be achieved. Many if not most errors can be identified as interference from the learners’ own language and prove stubbornly resistant to correction. But then the question arises as to why this should be so. Why do learners persist in the error of their ways when they are penalised for doing so, and when it would be in their best interests to submit to teacher direction and change their ways? It would seem clear that the imposition of conformity goes against the grain, against some instinctive natural disposition. And this, we would argue, is the natural disposition to learn. While teachers are seeking to inculcate English as the normative language in their minds, learners are exploiting its potential as resource, as they would exploit their own language. They are, in effect, learning by languaging. As pointed out earlier, the non-​conformities in much of ELF usage bear a formal resemblance to those pedagogically defined as errors, and this has led to the dismissive characterisation of ELF as not essentially different from learner language, evidence only of some interim stage of competence acquisition. But then conversely it follows that ELT learner language is not essentially different from ELF user language and putting it this way opens up a very different perspective on how they are related. As we have argued, the limited competence of ELF users does not make them communicatively incapable: what they do is exploit whatever resource the language affords. And this, we have argued, is precisely what learners do. And they do it by exercising the capability they have already acquired in learning and using their own language. This prior experience may indeed interfere with their acquisition of NL competence, and so needs to be discouraged or suppressed if competence is the teaching objective. But if one thinks of English learning as the further development of a communicative capability for languaging in extending an already existing lingual repertoire of resource, then this prior experience does not interfere with learning but on the contrary enables and enhances it. If this is so, then competence teaching that insists on conformity has the effect of suppressing the process of learning how to language by exploiting English as RL, which is the only justification for the worldwide inclusion of English as a school subject in the first place. Conclusion As noted in our introduction to this chapter, and as the other chapters of this book make clear, perspectives on ELF and its significance are diverse, and such diversity is a positive sign of the now widespread research activity that ELF has given rise to and as such is to be welcomed. The more diversity, however, the greater the

Conceptualising ELF and applied linguistics  31 need for a more general theoretical perspective on the nature of ELF, and lingua franca communication more generally, to take research bearings from. This chapter takes such a perspective, as does the chapter by Li Wei alongside it. Indeed, the two are complementary to each other in that both argue that communication is essentially the process of languaging which transcends conventionally defined linguistic borders. We have argued that this process is just what ELF users engage in and involves the exploitation of whatever meaning making resource is available to them and can be put to effective communicative use. To return to the definition of ELF cited at the beginning of this chapter, we need to note, however, that they resort to English as resource language not by choice, but because they have no other option if they are to cope with the real-​world problems they are confronted with. How ELF users translanguage is of course of considerable descriptive interest, but of equal if not more significance, especially for the users themselves, is how, in doing so, they effectively deal with the problem that required them to engage in the process to start with. The challenge for ELF users is not only how they can make do with limited resources to get their meaning across, but how they can direct the process to achieve a favourable outcome. For them, this is the ‘central issue’ and an enquiry into how they deal with it puts ELF research squarely within the scope of applied linguistics. Applied linguistics is an enquiry into language-​related problems, but then the question of course arises as to how a problem is to be defined, from whose point of view, to whose advantage. What makes an interrogation problematic for an asylum seeker is unlikely to correspond with what makes it problematic for the interrogator. And this question of who determines what problem needs to be addressed has direct bearing on the perspective that is taken in the area of applied linguistics concerned with English language teaching. This, as indicated earlier in this chapter, has focused primarily on problems from a teaching point of view, those that arise in getting learners to conform to an imposed objective. There is little consideration of why this should be so problematic from a learner’s point of view, certainly little sign that what this might suggest is that the real problem of orthodox ELT is that, as we have argued, it is based on established assumptions about the nature of language use and learning that call for radical reappraisal (further discussion in Widdowson 2021). Orthodox ELT itself conforms to the kind of established ways of thinking, whose validity, as pointed out in our introduction, is undermined by the realities of globalisation and the use of ELF as a necessary means of communication that is so closely integrated with it. Such ways of thinking are well entrenched and stubbornly resistant to change, particularly when they are endorsed by institutional authority and commercial interests. This being so, the likelihood of any radical shift in perspective seems remote. But to make any change, there has to be an awareness of the need for it, which then prompts a critical enquiry into alternatives. Our purpose in this chapter is to raise such awareness and prompt a critical enquiry into other perspectives, different ways of thinking. That, after all, is what research, at least from our perspective, is all about.

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Conceptualising ELF and applied linguistics  33 Seidlhofer, B. 2011. Understanding English as a lingua franca. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Seidlhofer, B. 2020. Communication and community. An ELF perspective on critical contexts. Lingue e Linguaggi 38, 25–​41. Seidlhofer, B. and H. Widdowson 2022. Intercultural pragmatics from the perspective of English as a lingua franca. In I. Kecskes (ed.), The Cambridge handbook of intercultural pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 445–​468. Trudgill, P. and J. Hannah 2017. International English. A guide to varieties of Standard English. 6th Edition. Abingdon: Routledge. UCLES/​CUP. 2011. English profile. Introducing the CEFR for English. Version 1.1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Widdowson, H. 2020a. On the subject of English: the linguistics of language use and learning. Berlin/​Boston: Mouton de Gruyter. Widdowson, H. 2020b. The elusive concept of culture. Lingue e Linguaggi 38, 13–​23. Widdowson, H. 2021. English beyond the pale: the language of outsiders. ELT Journal 75(4), 492–​501.

3 Translanguaging and intercultural communication Rethinking ‘cultural thought patterns’1 Li Wei

Language and cultural thought patterns I was recently asked to write a short piece reflecting on my experiences of living with Chinese English, an underspecified variety of English produced by Chinese as a first language (L1) speakers and writers (Li Wei 2023a). It triggered my memory of discussions with some American teachers of English at Beijing Normal University in the early 1980s. They told us about Robert Kaplan’s (1966) earlier work on the so-​called ‘cultural thought patterns’. They showed us the graphic representation of these patterns (Kaplan 1966: 15). This diagram has stuck in my mind ever since. The American teachers interpreted it as speakers and writers of English as a first language following a linear thought process, indicated by the straight line. Their communication style, whether in speaking or writing, is direct, stays close to the main subject or topic of interest, and does not go off-​topic. Their main statement and supporting statements follow each other in a hierarchical arrangement. Clearly that is the model for learners of English to follow. In contrast, speakers and writers of Oriental languages follow a very different communicative pattern, represented as a spiral in Kaplan’s well-​ cited diagram. Their communication style is indirect; the topic is not explained in a straightforward manner but dealt with from different perspectives, and oftentimes goes around the central point. I did ask for a copy of Kaplan’s paper and read it closely, several times. It was my first exposure to the so-​called Sapir-​Whorf hypothesis of Linguistic Relativity. I accepted and agreed with Kaplan’s point that rhetoric ‘evolves out of culture;

Figure 3.1 Kaplan’s cultural thought patterns. Source: From Kaplan (1966: 15).

DOI: 10.4324/9781003391463-4

Translanguaging and intercultural communication  35 therefore varies from culture to culture and even from time to time within a given culture’. ‘It is affected by canons of taste within a given culture at a given time’, as Kaplan put it (1966: 2). But I was puzzled when I read his claim that The English language and its related thought patterns have evolved out of the Anglo-​European cultural pattern. The expected sequence of thought in English is essentially a Platonic-​Aristotelian sequence, descended from the philosophers of ancient Greece and shaped subsequently by Roman, Medieval European, and later Western thinkers. (ibid.: 4) In his diagram, however, Romance language speakers do not appear to follow a simple and straight line, but follow a ‘digressive style by bringing in related points’ in their writing. Why were they not following the English way, since Romance languages users are also part of the ancient Greek, Roman, and Medieval European heritage, at least to my simple Chinese mind at the time? Such a style applies to German writers too, apparently. Moreover, Russian writers follow the Romance model, but with more freedom for dividing the pieces of the argument as the author proceeds to the conclusion. I wanted to know more of the causal relationship between patterns of language and patterns of thought. And since Kaplan was talking mainly about foreign students learning English, I also wanted to know if it is only the native culture, and the native language, that affects one’s thought patterns. To what extent can we change the way we think through learning different languages? Kaplan’s own position on these questions was not made entirely clear in that article. He focused on advancing what he called ‘contrastive rhetoric’ which he argued would ‘help the foreign student to form standards of judgement consistent with the demands made upon him by the educational system of which he has become a part’ (1966: 15). At the same time, by accounting for the cultural aspects of logic which underlie the rhetorical structure, this approach may bring the student not only to ‘an understanding of contrastive grammar and a new vocabulary, which are parts of any reading task, but also to a grasp of idea and structure in units larger than the sentence’ (ibid.: 15). Our American teachers clearly thought that despite the fact that we wrote structurally well-​formed English, the way we, as Chinese L1 speakers, presented our arguments in English was not quite right in view of the English L1 writer’s rhetorical tradition. So language determined thought, or more precisely, the way thought is articulated. But it is one’s native language, or L1, that had the determinant effect. Learning a foreign language would expose the learner to a different rhetorical style, but presumably one has to be pretty close to native speaker proficiency level to be able to articulate one’s thought in the same way native speakers do, or would a non-​ native speaker (sic) ever to be able to change their ‘cultural thought patterns’? Cross-​cultural and ELF communication Whilst it is not always explicitly acknowledged, Kaplan’s work has had a huge impact on business and professional communication in cross-​cultural contexts.

36  Li Wei There are numerous training manuals that are designed on the basis of the assumption that native speakers of Japanese and Chinese, for example, have very different thought patterns from native speakers of English (e.g., Barnlund 1989; Gudykunst and Nishida 1994; Gudykunst 1993; Gao and Ting-​Toomey 1998). Young (1994) discussed how Chinese and Americans are often misled by the ‘cultural trappings of talk’ and unwittingly communicate at cross purposes. She focused particularly on the rhetoric patterns of the ‘eight-​legged essay’ and how they continue to manifest in the corporate boardrooms. Yamada (1997) explored the causes of misconceptions and miscommunications between the Japanese and Americans: Japanese see Americans as pushy and selfish, while Americans see Japanese as evasive and inscrutable. She pointed out that Americans and Japanese have very different cultural values: Japanese value mutual dependency, whereas Americans value independence and individuality. However, rather than following the language-​determines-​thought line of argument, Yamada suggested that the language of both cultures is designed to display and reinforce these values so that words, phrases and expressions in one language can have completely different connotations in another, leading to all manner of misunderstanding. Yamada provides numerous examples. For instance, the Japanese use word order to express emphasis, while Americans use vocal stress: a listener unaware of this difference may easily misunderstand the import of a sentence. Yamada also analysed a number of real-​life business and social interactions in which these differences led to miscommunication between the Japanese and Americans. Some of the guidebooks and training manuals remind me of the earlier publications on gender difference in talking styles in business and other professional contexts (e.g., Gray 1992; Tannen 1991, 1994). Whilst their intentions might have been honourable, as they purportedly aimed to help women to improve their chances to get senior management roles in big corporate companies that were dominated by middle-​aged men at the time, the expectations for accommodative behavior tended to be rather one-​sided, i.e., women needed to adopt a male style of communication in order to get their voices heard in the boardroom, or even to enter it as part of the senior management. Similarly, non-​native speakers of English are expected to adopt a typical way of speaking, or writing, by native speakers and writers in order to succeed in their professional career or in academic studies. Over the last two decades, the field of intercultural communication has shifted its conceptual and analytical attention significantly away from this kind of ‘comparative fallacy’, a term coined by Bley-​Vroman (1983) with reference to linguistic structures produced by second language learners, to the idea of interculturality. Interculturality emerges out of enhanced globalisation, migration, and multiplex (multiple +​complex) contacts that we are experiencing in the 21st century and emphasises equitable interaction of diverse cultures and the possibility of generating shared cultural expressions through dialogue and mutual respect (studies in Dervin and Risager 2014; see also Zhu 2015 and Dietz 2018). Rather than focusing primarily on differences between people of different cultural backgrounds and communication barriers thus caused, interculturality highlights the contributions each party in an intercultural interaction makes, the added value of such contributions,

Translanguaging and intercultural communication  37 and the new understandings each would get out of the intercultural encounters. It also places bilinguals and multilinguals at the heart of the discussion and focuses on the ways they navigate the complex and ever-​shifting terrains of intercultural communication. A great deal of work on English as a lingua franca (EFL) communication, for example, challenges the native speaker norm (Murata 2015; Murata and Jenkins 2009), and shows the creativity and criticality of bilinguals and multilinguals from diverse cultural backgrounds bring to such communicative encounters. ELF studies also raise critical questions about the ownership of English in particular (Seidlhofer 2011, 2012, 2020; Widdowson 2020). This, in my view, is a major step change from the World Englishes paradigm, towards equity, inclusion, and social justice in studying communication amongst speakers of English with different linguistic and cultural experiences and values. Sweeney and Zhu (2010), for example, demonstrated that the so-​called native speakers do not always have the privilege of succeeding in effective ELE communication. They need to learn how to accommodate their communicative strategies to their multilingual interlocutors. A particularly interesting recent study by Dai (2023) shows that if the assessment criteria are designed in a socially inclusive way, focusing on a broadly defined notion of Interactional Competence as opposed to simply conversational sequencing abilities, L1 speakers do not have any particular advantage over L2 or Lx speakers in dealing with interactional tasks effectively. Nevertheless, the question about the roots to the ‘cultural thought patterns’ and their links to languages remains largely unaddressed in intercultural communication research. And some of the assumptions in the Linguistic Relativity hypothesis seem to continue to influence research design and methodology, and L2 and Lx users continue to be expected to adapt to L1 speakers’ hegemonic normativity. Bilingualism and multilingualism research and translanguaging As a transnational researcher, intercultural issues are very relevant to my experience and work. Although I was initially trained in the Labovian variationist sociolinguistics paradigm, the relevance of which will become apparent later, my main research interest has been in bilingualism and multilingualism. We know for a fact that there are different types of bilinguals: some are born into a bilingual family, exposed to multiple languages from birth, have never had a monolingual experience, and are living an entirely bilingual and multilingual life, whereas others have acquired additional languages later in life, through schooling or marriage or migration or some other means, and are also living a bilingual and multilingual life. There are people who have had extensive experience with multiple languages and are very proficient in many but live a more or less unilingual life in the sense that they keep their languages in their linguistic repertoire separate and use one language at a time. Over the years, I have researched different aspects of bilingualism and multilingualism, but all are ultimately related to the issue of choice and decision making.

38  Li Wei We all make choices and decisions, of various kinds, all the time. Bilingual and multilingual speakers have to make decision as to which language to speak to whom, when, and how. In most situations we know the answer exactly because we have been socialised into a specific and consistent pattern. But bilinguals and multilinguals can also manipulate the pattern by making deliberate and unexpected choices, to achieve specific rhetorical and communicative effects. When they change their choice of language during an interactional episode, whether it is spoken or written, it would result in something that linguists have traditionally called ‘code-​ switching’. Some of these changes can be very rapid and highly complex, such as the following example that I have discussed elsewhere (Li Wei 2018: 13–​14): Seetoh:

Jamie:

Seetoh:



Aiyoh (discourse particle), we are all (自己人 =​own people, meaning ‘friends’), bian khe khi ( 免客气 =​don’t mention it). Ren lai jiu hao ( 人来就好 =​good of you to come), why bring so many “barang barang” (’things’). Paiseh ( 歹示 =​I’m embarrassed). ‘Nei chan hai yau sum’ ( 你真有心 =​you are so considerate). Don’t say until like that. Now, you make me malu (‘shame’) only. You look after my daughter for so many years, mei you gong lao ye you ku lao ( 没有功劳也有苦劳 =​you have done hard work even if you don’t want a prize). I feel so bad that I could not come earlier. ‘Mm hou yi si’ ( 不好意思 =​I’m embarrassed). I was so shocked to hear about it Seetoh, tsou lang ham ham (做人 ham ham—​meaning life is unpredictable), jie ai shun bian. (节哀顺变 =​hope you will restrain your grief and go along with the changes) ta lin zou de shi hou hai zai gua nian (他临走的时候还在挂念 =​He was thinking of Natalie before he passed away) Natalie (Jamie’s daughter). Of all your children, he “saying” (‘love’) her the most Bold: Hokkien; In angle brackets < >: Teochew; Underlined: Mandarin; In double quotation marks: Malay; In single quotation marks: Cantonese; Italics: Singlish; Standard font: English (The example was provided to me by Ng Bee Chin of the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore who recorded an exchange between Jamie, a Chinese Singaporean in his 50s, and an old family friend, Seetoh, who had just lost her husband.)

A code-​switching analysis of such examples would need to begin by assigning different bits of the exchange to named languages. But there are often occasions where it is hard to decide which language a particular element belongs to. Such analysis is rather pointless from the speaker’s perspective, because they are thinking of the meanings of the messages that they want to convey when they are mixing the different elements in producing the utterances or texts rather than which language they are speaking; that is, they are not thinking about the language names and labels. But are they thinking in different languages, or more precisely, are they switching their ‘cultural thought patterns’ when they are switching between different named languages? Personally I find it hard to imagine that they are.

Translanguaging and intercultural communication  39 This is where the notion of translanguaging comes in. As it is widely known now, the idea of translanguaging originated in the Welsh revitalisation programs where the school policy expected Welsh to be used as language of the medium of instruction. The sociolinguistic reality of the community is such that there is no Welsh monolingual; all Welsh speakers are also speakers of English and other languages. In fact, the majority of the school pupils in these Welsh revitalisation programs were more proficient and comfortable in English than in Welsh. Cen Williams, an experienced teacher and teacher trainer, observed a commonly occurring classroom situation where the teacher would give instructions and ask questions in Welsh, as the school policy expected, but the bilingual pupils would respond in English, naturally. Occasionally they would read something in English and discuss it in Welsh. So listening, speaking, reading, and writing were done alternatively in either Welsh or English and sometimes a mixture of the two. Rather than viewing this practice simply as a violation of the school language policy, Williams argued that this practice, which he termed as trawsieithu (Williams 1994), could be a way of maximising bilingual potential in learning. Williams’ doctoral supervisor Colin Baker introduced the idea to the English-​speaking world in the second edition of his textbook, Foundations of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism (Baker 2001), by adding the trans-​prefix to languaging, thus evoking the extensive scholarship on languaging that has existed in many different fields such as distributed cognition and anthropology, and not least in the sociocultural theories of second language acquisition as well (e.g., Swain 2006). Building on this education-​oriented work, García and Li (2014) described translanguaging as a dynamic process whereby language users draw on different linguistic, cognitive, semiotic, and modal resources to make meaning and make sense, transcending the boundaries between named languages as well as the boundaries between language and other meaning-​and sense-​making resources. It is premised on the scientific fact from neuropsychology that different named languages such as Japanese, English, or Chinese are not represented in different parts of the human brain, and the neural networks responsible for language processing are responsible for all named languages and indeed for many other cognitive functions such as memory, attention, and emotion at the same time. It emphasises the integratedness of different languages in the bilingual’s communicative repertoire—​‘trans’ emphasising mutual infiltration and going beyond, as opposed to ‘multi’ in parallel existence. The idea of translanguaging caught my imagination in the early 2000s as I was studying the interactions, both in-​person and digital, among multilingual Chinese youth (Li Wei 2011). As alluded to earlier, I was initially trained in the variationist sociolinguistics paradigm. Variationist sociolinguistics has a particular interest in linguistic innovation and change. Language contact, or more precisely, contact between speakers of different languages, is generally taken as a key factor leading to linguistic change. But the conventional studies of linguistic innovation and change focus exclusively on what the monolingual native speaker does in the language: they create new expressions by ‘borrowing’ (in terms of vocabulary and sentence structure) and ‘copying’ (sounds) speakers of other languages. Bilinguals and multilinguals are generally not considered ‘native speakers’ of any individual

40  Li Wei language, and they, and all those who are considered to be ‘non-​native-​speakers’, cannot innovate in their non-​L1s (see further discussion in Li Wei 2020). The multilingual Chinese youths, getting together in British universities but coming from various parts of the world, were clearly creating a great deal of novel expressions that are socially and linguistically fascinating to study. They were not switching between abstract codes but making meaning with diverse resources in their communicative repertoire, transcending the boundaries between named languages as well as the boundaries between language and other semiotic resources; they were translanguaging! Rethinking cultural thought patterns My interest in translanguaging has led me to rethink about the relationship between language and thinking. As I said before, I had always been sceptical about the strong determinist view of the relationship, particularly that the native language determines one’s ‘cultural thought patterns’. My scepticism grew over the years as my own research interest became more focused on different types of bilinguals and multilingualism, but especially those who have not had a monolingual experience, and those who are living a multilingual life and who simply and naturally use bits of all the named languages in their linguistic repertoire in a highly dynamic and integrated way in their everyday interaction as the Singaporean example above shows. What is the relationship between their languages and their thinking? There seems to be considerable confusion between the theoretical hypothesis that human thinking takes place in a Language of Thought (Fodor 1975), i.e., thought possesses a language-​like or compositional structure, and lay assumption that we think in the language we speak. Two basic sociolinguistic principles, highlighted in variationist sociolinguists’ work, are particularly relevant here, and they are: (i) no two speakers speak in exactly the same way; in variationist sociolinguistics terms, that is ‘speaker variation’; and (ii) no speaker speaks in exactly the same way all the time; and that is ‘social variation’. Sociolinguists have studied in detail the range of variables that affect language variation, including for speaker variation, socioeconomic class, gender, age, education level, region of origin, ethnicity, social networks, attitudes, and for social variation, genre, register, or style, attention to speech, audience design, social networks, and acts of identity. Whilst members of a speech community (Labov 1972) usually show similar patterns of using their languages, the language we individually produce is an idiolect, our own unique, personal language. No two idiolects are likely to be the same, and no single individual’s idiolect is likely to be the same over time. As Otheguy et al. (2015) point out, a bilingual person’s idiolect would consist of lexical and grammatical features from different socially and politically defined languages, just as a so-​called monolingual’s idiolect would consist of lexical and grammatical features from regionally, social class-​wise and stylistically differentiated varieties of the same named language. So if we follow the we-​ humans-​think-​in-the-​language-​we-​speak argument, we think in our own, personal

Translanguaging and intercultural communication  41 idiolect, not a named language. The language-​of-​thought must be independent of these idiolects. Moreover, sociolinguists have long argued that the names and labels of languages, e.g. English, German, Dutch, or Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, or Hindi, Punjabi, or Mandarin, Cantonese, Chinese, etc., are assigned by linguists to sets of structures that they have identified, often with reference to race, nation-​state, and some other cultural-​political and ideological notions. From a historical perspective, human languages evolved from fairly simple combinations of sounds, gestures, icons, symbols, etc., and gradually diversified and diffused due to climate change and population movement. It was the invention of the nation-​state that triggered the invention of the notion of monolingualism and subsequently institutionalised it and its counterpart of multilingualism as parallel coexistence of different named linguistic entities (Gramling 2016, 2021). So what we call translanguaging is using one’s idiolect, i.e., one’s linguistic repertoire, without regard for socially and politically defined language names and labels. From the translanguaging perspective, then, we human beings do not think in named languages; we think beyond the artificial boundaries of named languages in the Language-​of-​Thought. As part of the language socialisation process, we become aware of the association between race, nation, and community on the one hand and a named language on the other and of the discrepancies between the boundaries in linguistic structural terms versus those in sociocultural and ideological terms. But our experience and socialisation also gives us the capacity that enables us to resolve the differences, discrepancies, inconsistencies, and ambiguities, if and when they need to be resolved, and manipulate them for our strategic gains. From thinking in named languages to thinking for speaking Before going any further, let us consider for a moment what thinking is. Thinking is a sociocognitive activity of making sense of the world around us and deciding how to respond to it. It entails a number of integrated processes, beginning with recognising. That is, when the real-​time stream of information hits our senses, we must very quickly identify an answer to the question ‘What is that?’. We build a pattern recognition system over time, which is very powerful in helping us to come up with the right answers, but part of it is also to recognise that certain things can be obscure or obscured and we may get it wrong. Facts exist whether or not we can observe them. Remembering is another key part of the thinking process. It involves both storing important information and retrieving the information when it is needed. It also involves complex categorisation processes to ensure that information is stored in systematic ways so that it is available within one’s cognitive reach in specific circumstances. Deciding is often seen as the last crucial step in the thinking process before acting, where options are considered and choices made. Even though we may be fairly confident at the moment of deciding, there are many factors that can change our decisions very quickly (see Evans 2017 for further details).

42  Li Wei People, however, do not usually think of thinking in terms of these integrated processes, but only of one process, namely reasoning. At the very basic level, reasoning is assessing facts and causality to determine what actions may lead to what outcomes, and how probable success or failure might be for various strategies and tactics. It typically employs a great deal of ‘if-​then’ thinking and hopefully leads to reliable plans. Planning, though, is a related but different process where many different factors can lead to biases that affect our reasoning, and therefore leading to plans that do not work (Evans 2017). Whilst these processes all seem very structured and rational, there are other processes that affect our thinking in quite fundamental ways that have received relatively little attention. Imagining is a key factor that distinguishes humanity in our ability to be creative and imagine possible futures. It allows us to think about what may happen and how we can influence this. This includes planning for avoiding potential disasters and achieving one’s objectives. The outcomes of imagining can be life-​changing. Emoting can also affect our reasoning and planning. Often, some primitive emotional processes can override the more reasoned thinking, leading us to rash actions that we may later regret. It therefore is very helpful to pay attention to emotions, both in ourselves and in others, to cognitively better understand what is going on so that we have a better chance of avoiding undesirable actions and consequences. Our ability to think develops naturally in early life. When we interact with others, it becomes directed, for example, when we learn values from our parents and knowledge from our teachers. We learn that it is good to think in certain ways and bad to think in other ways. Indeed, to be accepted into a social group, we are expected to think and act in ways that are harmonious with the group culture. But it is important to remind ourselves that none of the thinking processes as outlined here need language in the conventional sense of speech and writing to be accomplished. Thinking motivates us to do things, including saying things aloud and writing things down, but thinking itself does not necessarily require speech or writing. This takes us to a different theoretical hypothesis, namely the ‘thinking for speaking’ hypothesis by the developmental psychologist and psycholinguist Dan Slobin (e.g., Slobin 1996). Although sometimes dubbed as a moderate version of the Sapir-​Whorf hypothesis, thinking-​for-​speaking highlights the human capacity to reconceptualise internally what they perceive in the external world as it were in language-​specific ways, in order to articulate one’s thought in a specific, external language. The hypothesis is built on the premise that the mechanisms for and cognitive processes of perception and thinking are universal across race and language. But members of different social groupings are socialised into culturally specific ways of articulating their thoughts through specific, named languages. And this applies not only to speakers of different named languages but also to those speaking the same named languages. British, American, Indian, Singaporean, and South African speakers of English use different vocabularies and sentence structures in describing the same object or event.

Translanguaging and intercultural communication  43 With regard to second language learning, then, to become a competent speaker of a specific named language requires learning to articulate one’s thought in certain language-​ and culture-​specific ways, without denying the existence of common humanity on which cross-​lingual and cross-​cultural understanding can be built. Without commonality across the human race, culture, and language, no mutual understanding would be possible. And thinking-​for-​speaking itself is a common human thinking capacity shared by speakers of different named languages. Speakers of different languages may observe and describe motion events or shades of color differently, and some may not have the vocabulary to differentiate all the details. But they for sure can see the difference when presented to them. In fact, one of the distinctive abilities of bilinguals and multilinguals is to distance the objects and events they observe and the linguistic labels they would use in different named languages to describe them. This distancing ability is a key contributor to the cognitive advantage of bilingualism that has been observed in psycholinguistic experiments (Bialystok 2009). Future of Intercultural communication: towards transpositioning For a long time, intercultural communication scholarship and training remained focused on ‘cultural differences’, despite the terminological shift from ‘cross-​ cultural’ to ‘intercultural’. Culture, however, as numerous scholars have pointed out, means different things to different people (Kramsch 1998; Holliday 1999; Kramsch and Zhu 2020). There can be place-​based cultures, such as Japanese culture versus English culture, or English culture versus Scottish culture; group-​ based cultures, such as youth culture, builders’ or truckers’ culture, the elderly culture; practice-​based cultures, such as pop culture, coffee culture; institution-​based cultures, such as the Whitehall culture, university or school culture, workplace culture; and identity-​based cultures, such as gay culture. Applied linguists have been particularly interested in language-​based cultures. But what is language vis-​à-​vis the above list? Is it a group, place, practice, or identity feature, or is it something separate and different? Cultural differences of rhetorical patterns as Kaplan identified exist, and that is an observable fact. But what led to the differences? The assumption seems to be that it is one’s first language. I have tried to reflect on this critically in this chapter by starting with bilinguals and multilinguals rather than the ill-​defined monolinguals as my point of reference. I focus on their fluid, dynamic, everyday practice of translanguaging, that goes beyond the boundaries between named languages and beyond the boundaries between language and other semiotic systems in their integrated communicative repertoire to argue that (i) humans do not think in named languages, which after all are political and ideological constructs; therefore the specific structures of named languages cannot determine the thinking process; (ii) the human thinking capacity as exemplified through the processes of recognising, remembering, and deciding are shared among humanity, and one specific capacity that is common to all humans is thinking-​for-​speaking, the ability

44  Li Wei to learn and adapt one’s thinking to ways in which thought is articulated through language and other semiotic means in specific cultural contexts. This capacity for thinking-​for-​speaking is particularly important in the 21st century, an era that Bauman (1999) vividly characterised as Liquid Modernity, where traditional patterns of socialisation and identification would be replaced by self-​ chosen ones, where entry into the globalised society was open to anyone with their own stance and their own ability to fund it, resulting in a mindset with emphasis on shifting rather than on staying and on provisional in lieu of permanent, or solid, commitment. Liquid Modernity is the trans-​era, transcending multiple coexistences to create new communicative spaces, both physical and virtual, each with their own ecological specificities that shape meanings made within them. Meaning-​making in this trans-​era not only shows increased rapidity, complexity and reach across greater diversities of peoples and places, and more expansive modes and means, but also requires the interweavings of communications, relations, identities and belongings. Current scholarship in the field of intercultural communication, including ELF communication, emphasises in-​betweenness, and what comes out of that in-​betweenness, the trans-​ing, with a spotlight also on the emergent nature of things as exemplified in the -​ing, and regards what comes out of the in-​betweenness as new and interesting. What seems to be required therefore is the ability for transpositioning—​a process where individuals break from their preset or prescribed roles and switch perspectives with others, through communicative practices such as translanguaging and transmodalities, by releasing one’s self from conventions and fostering a greater sense of possibility, freeing ourselves from habitual thinking, and building empathy for others involved in the process (Li Wei 2023b; Li and Lee 2023). Transpositioning is a necessity in effective and equitable intercultural communication, whether it is in business, or in the workplace, or in language learning, without reference to hegemonic normative norms of any named culture or language. In ELF communication, in particular, one needs to learn to transcend the positionings that are prescribed or even imposed on us through schooling and conventional teaching where certain academic written discourse patterns, often modeled on Anglo-​American ones, and assessment based on them, result in essentialised views of language use and cultural thought patterns. A useful and important task for applied linguists, language educators, and professional communication specialists is to foster the learner’s ability of transpositioning. Note 1 A version of this chapter was presented at ELF International Workshop held at Waseda University, Japan, on 25–​26 February, 2023. I am particularly grateful to Professor Kumiko Murata for inviting me to speak at the workshop and to the participants whose comments and questions helped me to develop my ideas.

References Baker, C. 2001. Foundations of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism (2nd edition). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

Translanguaging and intercultural communication  45 Barnlund, D. C. 1989. Communicative Styles of Japanese and Americans: Images and Realities. London: Wadsworth/​Thomson Learning. Bauman, Z. 1999. Liquid Modernity. Oxford: Wiley. Bialystok, E. 2009. Bilingualism: The good, the bad, and the indifferent. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 12(1), 3–​11. Bley-​Vroman, R. 1983. The comparative fallacy in interlanguage studies: The case of systematicity. Language Learning 33, 1–​17. Dai, D. W. 2023. Assessing Interactional Competence: Principles, Test Development and Validation Through an L2 Chinese IC Test. New York: Peter Lang. Dervin, F. and K. Risager (eds.) 2014. Researching Identity and Interculturality. London: Routledge. Dietz, G. 2018. Interculturality. In C. Hilary (ed.), The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology. Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, pp. 1–​19. Evans, J. S. B. 2017. Thinking and Reasoning: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fodor, J. A. 1975. The Language of Thought. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Gao, G. and S. Ting-​Toomey 1998. Communicating Effectively with the Chinese. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications. Garcia, O. and W. Li 2014. Translanguage: Language, Bilingualism and Education. Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Gramling, D. 2016. The Invention of Monolingualism. London: Bloomsbury. Gramling, D. 2021. The invention of Multilingualism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gray, J. 1992. Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus. New York: Harper Collins. Gudykunst, W. B. (ed.) 1993. Communication in Japan and the United States. New York: SUNY Press. Gudykunst, W. B. and T. Nishida 1994. Bridging Japanese/​North American differences. London: Sage. Holliday, A. 1999. Small cultures. Applied Linguistics 20(2), 237–​264. Kaplan, R. B. 1966. Cultural thought patterns in inter-​cultural education. Language Learning 16(1–​2), 1–​20. Kramsch, C. 1998. Language and Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kramsch, C. and H. Zhu 2020. Translating culture in global times: An introduction. Applied Linguistics 41(1), 1–​9. Labov, W. 1972. Sociolinguistic Patterns. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Li, W. 2011. Moment analysis and translanguaging space: Discursive construction of identities by multilingual Chinese youth in Britain. Journal of Pragmatics 43, 1222–​35. Li, W. 2018. Translanguaging as a practical theory of language. Applied Linguistics 39(1), 9–​30. Li, W. 2020. Multilingual English users’ linguistic innovation. World Englishes 39(2), 236–​248. Li, W. 2023a. Living with 中式英语 Zhongshi Yingyu: An autobiographical account. English Today 39(3), 170–​173. doi:10.1017/​S0266078423000184 Li, W. 2023b. Transformative pedagogy for inclusion and social justice through translanguaging, co-​ learning, and transpositioning. Language Teaching, 1–​12. doi:10.1017/​S0261444823000186 Li, W. and T. K. Lee 2023, Transpositioning: Translanguaging and the liquidity of identity. Applied Linguistics. http://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amad065

46  Li Wei Murata, K. 2015. Exploring ELF in Japanese Academic and Business Contexts: Conceptualisation, Research and Pedagogic Implications. London: Taylor & Francis. Murata, K. and J. Jenkins (eds) 2009. Global Englishes in Asian Contexts. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Otheguy, R., O. Garcia and W. Reid 2015. Clarifying translanguaging and deconstructing named languages: A perspective from linguistics. Applied Linguistics Review 6(3), 281–​307. Seidlhofer, B. 2011. Understanding English as a Lingua Franca. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Seidlhofer, B. 2012. Anglophone-​centric attitudes and the globalization of English. Journal of English as a Lingua Franca 1(2), 393–​407. Seidlhofer, B. 2020. Researching ELF communication: Focus on high-​stakes encounters. In K. Murata (ed.), ELF Research Methods and Approaches to Data and Analyses. London: Routledge, pp. 29–​37. Slobin, D. I. 1996. From ‘thought and language’ to ‘thinking for speaking’. In J. J. Gumperz and S. C. Levinson (eds), Rethinking Linguistic Relativity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 77–​96. Swain, M. 2006. Languaging, agency and collaboration in advanced second language learning. In H. Byrnes (ed.), Advanced Language Learning: The Contributions of Halliday and Vygotsky. London: Continuum, pp. 95–​108. Sweeney, E. and H. Zhu 2010. Accommodating toward your audience: Do native speakers of English know how to accommodate their communication strategies toward non-​native speakers of English?. Journal of Business Communication (1973) 47(4), 477–​504. Tannen, D. 1991. You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation. London: Virago. Tannen, D. 1994. Talking from 9 to 5: How Women’s and Men’s Conversational Styles Affect Who Gets Heard, Who Gets Credit, and What Gets Done at Work. New York: William Morrow and Co. Widdowson, H. 2020. On the Subject of English: The Linguistics of Language Use and Learning. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Williams, C. 1994. Arfarniad o Ddulliau Dysgu ac Addysgu yng Nghyd-​destun Addysg Uwchradd Ddwyieithog [An evaluation of teaching and learning methods in the context of bilingual secondary education]. Unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Wales, Bangor. Yamada, H. 1997. Different Games, Different Rules: Why Americans and Japanese Misunderstand Each Other. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Young, L. W. 1994. Crosstalk and Culture in Sino-​American Communication. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Zhu, H. 2015. Negotiation as the way of engagement in intercultural and lingua franca communication: Frames of reference and interculturality. Journal of English as a Lingua Franca 4(1), 63–​90.

Part II

ELF and applied linguistics research Regional perspectives

4 The Global South has been speaking ELF and higher education1 Clarissa Menezes Jordão

Introduction In the context of internationalization of higher education, English language can be a burden to scholars and students who do not feel this language belongs to them. When learning English as a foreign language in a country such as Brazil, where the national language is Portuguese (also the first language of most of the population), such a burden easily becomes a tool of colonization—​colonization both of mouths and minds. In Brazilian higher education, attempts to use English as a medium of instruction have just started, but they are already creating feelings of inadequacy and constructing troubled professional identities among scholars who feel compelled to teach in English for the sake of internationalization. This is the scenario of this chapter, whose aim is to explore alternatives to mainstream approaches to English as a Medium of Instruction in higher education, especially when in the context of internationalization practices. The text that follows will examine how a decolonization process was intentionally developed in an institutional practice geared toward university research professors of different knowledge areas. The course was designed with the aim of tackling professors’ linguistic identity constructions and eventual feelings of uneasiness using English based on a decolonizing discursive perspective. Such practice took place as an extension course to discuss language issues with the participants through the use of English as an International Language as a medium for discussion rather than as a medium of instruction. The present chapter will first set the scene where the course was run. As the course coordinator and one of the teachers from a team of three, I will start by describing the epistemological context where English became a problem in our work lives, offering a poststructuralist perspective on language as a way to decolonize such space and the identities of Brazilian English-​speaker professors. In order to do this, I will briefly map out the local scenario, where English is intertwined with the idea of internationalization, and discuss the dual attitudes to this language, which establish tensions in the ways we relate both to (1) the language and its cultural symbolic capital and (2) the people who are believed to possess such capital. I will also present my take on the relation between modernity and coloniality, based on the perspectives of the Latin-​American research group called Modernity/​ DOI: 10.4324/9781003391463-6

50  Clarissa Menezes Jordão Coloniality, integrated by Quijano, Mignolo, Grosfoguel, Escobar, and others (Ballestrin 2013). By doing so, I expect to go into some detail about what I mean by “decolonize” the local space where I see English becoming a problem that cannot be simply solved by being aware of its violence or by a naïve view of “liberation” from oppression. I will therefore focus on the need to decolonize English, especially English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI), from a more complex perspective that realizes our complicity as modern subjects implicated in the darker side of modernity/​coloniality. In doing so, I will briefly present some local initiatives and their potential to disrupt traditional internationalization practices around EMI. Local tensions: the case of English in decoloniality English is seen in many contradictory ways in Brazilian society. Sometimes its high symbolic capital (Bourdieu 1996) is stressed especially in terms of the superior value people attribute to “native” accents and, along with the accents, to “native” ways of knowing and using English in various domains. English is thus associated with rich countries and receives a positive connotation that extends to the people who are believed to be the “owners” of this language and its cultural capital (as stated also in Widdowson 1994, for example). English is the language of globalization and globalization is a window to the world. Knowing English, in this perspective, aggregates value to a person. English and progress, English and civilization, English and development. Same old. Nevertheless, such positivity associated with English is challenged by another perception of the impact of its distribution in the world, and of course, in Brazil: globalization, when understood as a neocolonial practice that increases differences and relates to neoliberal politics and imperialistic cultural attitudes, brings to its language, English, negative taints and places its “owners”, the “native” speakers, in the position of colonizers oppressing the world. English and imperialism, English and domination, English and oppression. Same old too. Both views very often inhabit the same individual, informed by the infamous Herderian triad that conceives of language as an autonomous grammatical system, corresponding to a neatly bounded worldview and a clearly marked culture within a country’s geographical borders (Canagarajah 2013). One country, one language, one culture. This purported one-​to-​one relation has more recently been challenged and shown to be an abstract construct of linguistics (Harris 2003; Pennycook and Makoni 2020; Estival and Pennycook, this volume), but still very much present and made concrete in our social practices (Pennycook 2007), compared in its materiality to another infamous construct, the “native” speaker. Regardless of the side one takes, privileging one view or the other, we need to realize that the two perspectives are based on a similar concept that positions languages as the domain of one specific country, as belonging to one specific culture and therefore to one specific nation. Or, in a lighter version of the Herderian triad (apud Canagarajah 2013), a view of each language as belonging to more than one specific group of people, but still belonging to some and not to others, depending on where they were born.

The Global South has been speaking: ELF and higher education  51 This way of looking at languages informs our everyday life and thus references our contact with English, producing unequal discrimination according to whether one’s identity is perceived as “native” to English or not. It essentializes categories such as “speaker”, “mother tongue”, and “language”, to name some, and such reification positions the so-​called “non-​native speakers” as illegitimate users of the language, users who will never attain a desirable language proficiency for the simple fact that such proficiency is connected to place of birth: if you are not born “in the right place” you will never be able to use language “really” well. Such view is surely imposed by social and cultural beliefs, constituting what Bourdieu (1996) referred to as habitus, that is, as dispositions to think and do things in a certain way rather than others. Be that as it may, this habitus is also self-​inflicted by complicity and assimilation, but as a construction, therefore, it can be changed so that “non-​native speakers” can be cured of the ever-​so-​often felt Impostor Syndrome (Bernat 2008). However, looking at languages as the domain of nation-​states and expressions of national cultures is not the only possibility. Languages can also be seen as loci for the construction of meanings, as spaces where signification is built, where understandings are created, challenged, and rebuilt, regardless of one’s geographical place of birth. If seen as such spaces, languages become what Geertz (1989) described as “webs of signification” when referring to ethnography: languages are open systems, ever-​changing, flexible, and processual, always allowing for the construction of more interpretive procedures, conferring ownership to those who use them, independently of their nations, places of birth or residence. This is not to say that cultures are irrelevant to languages, of course. I am problematizing power over languages, challenging the attitude that positions “native” speaker uses as better than other uses of language, and consequently confers to the former the authority to decide what is right and what is wrong in terms of language use and, consequently, providing the scales against which all users will be measured in ontoepistemological colonial terms. The tension previously described between attraction to the perceived benefits brought by legitimate use of English and repulsion toward its bond to neoliberal politics and oppressive practices shows the entanglement of desire and resistance in relation to the English language that can be found all over the world, I believe. In Brazil, for instance, language policies related to the internationalization of higher education have been developed mostly for the English language and English has become the only mandatory second language to be offered in schools. Private English-​language institutes thrive all over the country. These connections between English and neoliberalism, however, do not need to be accepted uncritically, for there are ways to construct English that position it as not inherent to such attachments. This is the view I privilege in the space of English in practices of internationalization and will be focusing on for the remainder of this text. Decolonizing modernity: the case of some Brazilian professors Considering decolonial studies in Latin America alongside the work of researchers like Canagarajah (2013) and Kumaravadivelu (2001, 2003), I start from the

52  Clarissa Menezes Jordão assumption that there has been an ontoepistemological break in applied linguistics, a break that places language into a different domain from that set by the Herderian triad. The argument I develop dives into the realm of post-​linguistics or more recent developments of applied linguistics, loosely referred to here as the translingual episteme in its decolonial dimension. To understand the possible relations between applied linguistics and decoloniality we need first to understand how modernity and coloniality are joint initiatives, always intrinsically together. Mignolo (2007: 155) states this relation by explaining that: ‘modernity’ is a European narrative that hides its darker side, ‘coloniality’. Coloniality, in other words, is constitutive of modernity —​there is no modernity without coloniality. [… .] de-​colonial thinking and doing emerged, from the sixteenth century on, as responses to the oppressive and imperial bent of modern European ideals projected to, and enacted in, the non-​European world. This means that coloniality does not refer to a historical process, but to relations of power that have been established during such process and remain to date. As Menezes de Souza (2013, oral presentation) put it, “coloniality […] defines which knowledges are valued as knowledge and it establishes who is recognized as a full citizen and who is not”. Modernity is therefore understood as a master narrative, rooted in Europe but projecting local desires as global ideals, such as those of purity, discipline, and individualism, for example. These powerful narratives have informed, since at least the Enlightenment years, our social, economic, political, and cultural structures, establishing founding concepts like critical reason, nationality, and progress. Another important act of modernity was the institution of hierarchical relations among different knowledges, ways of knowing, and those who know. This has been constructed in various dimensions, including race, class, gender, culture, and language. Modernity’s binary thinking, expressed in oppositions such as civilization/​barbarism, development/​under development, rationality/​ irrationality, the west/​the rest, has violently promoted one side of the binaries as superior and therefore advanced it as something to be desired and envied. Modern linguistics has not been excluded from coloniality, and it promoted its own violence, conceiving languages as neatly separated entities developing on their own, with only occasional and traceable influences from other entities of the same kind, thus reinforcing the infamous Herderian triad. It has established meaning as arising from the idea of norm or grammar, which would be created in and by language structure, by the linguistic system, a system owned by its “native” speakers (Jordão 2023). One of the most damaging consequences of this way of conceptualizing language, for foreign language teachers, is the centrality it confers to so-​called native uses of language, and the positioning of “native” speakers as the primary (if not exclusive) owners of a language. Languages are thus attached to place of birth, and language proficiency to birth certificates. Theories on language teaching and learning based on modernist ontoepistemologies assume languages are circumscribed by national

The Global South has been speaking: ELF and higher education  53 borders, and authority to create, impose, and break rules is restricted to one’s place of birth as in the now infamous Kachru’s circles2 (Kachru 1985). If you do not teach the language you were born into, then you are doomed to interlanguage for life, destined to never attain full command of the subject you teach, since this command is reserved exclusively to the “native” speakers, something you cannot possibly ever be (Jenkins 2006). That is, of course, disastrous, since “native users” are pictured as the superheroes who were naturally born where you, “non-native speaker”, should eagerly desire to have been born. In other words, native speakers do effortlessly what “nonnatives” are supposed to struggle really hard to never attain—​that is, “native” proficiency. Breaking away from this paradigm that projects modern ideals of purity, property, exclusivity, and homogeneity over languages and their users, Harris’s integrational linguistics and Canagarajah’s translingualism, for example, reconceptualize language in much more productive terms, more inclusive and more accepting. For them, in what I loosely refer to as the translingual episteme, languages exist in situations of contact, mutually influencing one another—​influence and change are seen as a rule, not as an exception. Meaning then arises from concrete situations of language use, from situated negotiations that take place when people “read the wor(l)d”, as described by Freire and Macedo (1987). In this view, language exists in multimodality; that is, it is one semiotic system among others and it exists in relation, conversing with and connected to other systems, not independently of them. As argued by Canagarajah (2013: 6), texts (including talk) are “meshed and mediated by diverse codes”. This is a view that attributes language ownership to whoever uses the language, displacing the centrality of native speakers as norm creators and guardians. I hope it goes without saying that this concept of language opens it up to more democratic participation and agency by language users in general, regardless of their place of birth, therefore also changing the idea of ownership in language. Decolonizing identities: the case of proficiency as intelligibility One of the main obstacles into building ownership of English among “non-native” users is related to how proficiency is construed. Traditionally, it takes as its main (if not only) reference what has been described by linguistics as “native uses” or, in other words, “standard language”, whatever is meant by that. Although no one knows for sure how made-​up concepts such as “native” and “standard” can still (if ever) be applied to English nowadays, distributed as this language is all over the world, they inform language attitudes and thus construct our notions of proficiency in a language. Proficiency is then, in traditional theories of language acquisition, language use that is better when closest to the uses “natives” make of the language, assuming that such users would be the best examples of standard language use. We rarely see questioned, outside the domain of English as a Lingua Franca and the like (World Englishes, English as an International Language, Global English, Sociolinguistics, etc3), the homogenizing view of “native speakers” as constituting one and the same group, or the normalizing silencing of language variation

54  Clarissa Menezes Jordão that comes with the idea of a “standard” language use. Even linguists do not usually question the power relations such views establish among language users and how the hierarchization of these users can be a restrictive force for creativity and empowerment in language use, let alone other users who are not into language studies. Defining proficiency in terms of intelligibility might be useful in order to move away from such prejudiced and limiting ideas about language and language learners. From this perspective, language practices are localized activities, constructed in each specific interaction. As such, it is the ability to read the word and the world (Freire and Macedo 1987), to understand the context one is producing language in, and to take decisions as to how creative or conforming one wants or needs to be, that makes a “good” language user. We can never forget that there is always a subject, a someone (or manyones) to judge, to evaluate language use from one’s own perspectives. What I believe is of help here is not the possibility that there is no judgement, or that all language uses are accepted equally by everyone, but instead the necessity to be aware that the judgements we pass and those passed on us are based on specific frames of reference that can be more or less inclusive, more or less accepting of language difference. The notion of intelligibility, therefore, in order to be decolonizing, cannot be conceived in relation to the uses a “native” speaker supposedly does of the language; it cannot be understood in relation to what has been defined as “communicative competence”–​since it is usually too close to the native-​speakerism ideology (Holliday 2014; Widdowson 2015); it cannot be described as some sort of ideal use that guarantees communication within purportedly homogenous speech communities. The concept of intelligibility cannot be taken at face value, as if it was a neutral, a-​political construct that simply puts aside the power relations involved in perceiving language as a social practice. If so, we run the risk of conceptualizing intelligibility as another construct that places “native” uses as quality reference, from the perspective that it is those uses, the “native-​like” oriented, that might still be taken as reference to higher levels of intelligibility. In Rajagopalan’s words (2010: 468), “with a concept such as intelligibility nurtured in a context where the so-​called native varieties no longer rule the roost, the figure of the “native” speaker creeps back in, only this time through the back door and that too most stealthily.” He reminds us that intelligible remains an “evaluatory adjective” (id., ibid.) that qualifies a certain way of using language in detriment of others, hierachizing language use and bringing forward the image of an “evaluator”, that is, someone with the authority to name something as intelligible or not. The problem with the notion of intelligibility is even greater when such authority is eschewed under the label “lingua franca”, traditionally understood as a perspective that accepts every language use equally, no matter which power relations are brought to play in the interactions in ELF. This has been pointed out by scholars in the area in Brazil (Siqueira 2018; Matias da Silva 2019), where such view of “lingua franca” seems to have gained room especially after ELF was mentioned as a preferred perspective for teaching-​learning English in our National Curriculum called Base Nacional Comum Curricular (Brasil 2018).

The Global South has been speaking: ELF and higher education  55 This is to say that the concept of intelligibility cannot be essentialized, as I have also mentioned before referring to native and language, under the risk of repeating the same prejudiced discrimination of other constructs in linguistics. In order for intelligibility to help decolonize “non-​native” uses and users of English, we need to bring power relations to the fore and highlight the fact that intelligibility needs to be conceptualized from within specific contexts of practice, from within the concrete language spaces where interactions occur amidst power relations, informed by everything people bring to the space, as much as by the space itself. This has been stressed in orientations of ELF such as those siding with Jenkins, Cogo and Dewey (2011) in conceptualizing ELF as a function of English rather than a variety (Diniz de Figueiredo 2018; Siqueira 2018). In other words, the idea I am proposing here is that theories of language acquisition and learning are submitted to a digestive process that I have elsewhere (Jordão 2011) called epistemophagy, in analogy with the Brazilian modernist manifest (Andrade 1995): by digesting knowledge we absorb what can be used for nourishment and excrete the rest. Epistemophagy is thus an anarchic attitude that rejects the straightjacket of relations based on fidelity and follows a rhizomatic view of the world that values instead associations by affinity, which are fluid, processual, transforming. A rhizome, as a metaphor for erratic relations, values the unpredictability of situatedness and of connections established from contingent, emergent needs. It was used by Deleuze and Guattari (2011) as an alternative to the metaphor of life as a tree, with deep roots and a single and clear direction of growth. In the metaphor of the tree, state the philosophers, the relations among the parts follow a linear perspective, faithfully relating elements based on predictable, given and constitutive similarities; in a rhizome, on the other hand, the situation determines the relations that will be established, according to the emergence of the dimensions at play and to the contingency of each situation. In a rhizomatic world view, therefore, relations are temporary and do not need to pay allegiance to issues other than those particular to each practice, to each moment, to each communicative act. In the analogy with the digestive process, I am stressing the possibility of transformation of knowledge into what is relevant for those who know, benefiting from what does us good, eliminating what does not. In terms of the notion of proficiency as intelligibility, therefore, it will only do us good if we let go of the centrality of the “native speaker” and “native uses” (whatever we mean by that) in determining what is high or low, good or bad proficiency. Instead, we can look at language uses as specific practices in their own terms. Different practices can, for sure, share multiple elements or dimensions with other practices but one cannot predict what those will be. The analysis needs to be retroactive, that is, we cannot possibly predict how communication will happen before it actually happens. If we can agree on that, then a good language user is someone who is able to read different contexts and operationalize their language resources depending on how their relation to each context is established: someone who lives “life in the ongoing present, forming relations and connections across signs, objects, and bodies in often unexpected ways. Such activity is saturated with affect and emotion” (Leander and Boldt 2013: 22), Leander and Bolt add, and “it

56  Clarissa Menezes Jordão creates and is fed by an ongoing series of affective intensities that are different from the rational control of meanings and forms” (ibid.). Intelligibility, therefore, besides being a two-​way process that depends on all of those involved in the communicative situation (Rajadurai 2007), is also subject to how communicative events unfold, how they are perceived by their participants, how resourceful and localized such participants turn out to be. As far as decolonizing language learning is concerned, then, to learn a language can be seen as involving mimicry rather than imitation: instead of emulating “native speakers” and their language uses, learners are more productively expected to creatively explore possibilities of meaning originated in the language uses they encounter. According to Lu and Horner (2013: 30), “as post-​colonial theories have taught us, mimicry of dominant powers, arts, discourses, and colonizers by the subordinate creates new meanings and new relationships between colonized and colonizer, with the potential to undermine the status and distinction of the dominant” (my emphases). Mimicry, together with intelligibility as reconceptualized above, can help de-​link English ownership from the concepts of nationality and/​or place of birth, positioning both “native” and “non-​native” language users as language makers, de-​stigmatizing “non-​natives” as counterfeit subjects eternally doomed to using some sort of interlanguage, fixed in a limbo they can never escape from. The call here is for a change of educational paradigm from modern representation and explanation (linked to traditional language teaching expectations that have the native speaker construct as reference), to decolonial cultural translation (linked to a perspective focusing on intelligibility and situatedness in communication, rather than place of birth). “Representation” is here associated to modernity and coloniality, claiming for education and teaching-​learning as processes of knowledge transmission, whereas “translation” conceives of literacy practices as meaning-​ making processes in which teachers and students learn together, Freirean style. The idea of translation is far from the naïve illusion of equalitarian relationships that sometimes can be associated to English as a language of “choice” for intercultural communication. If we take into account that English has been disseminated around the world as part of an imperialistic agenda (Phillipson 1992; Pennycook 2017), we cannot forget to always consider issues of power in the various situations where English is taken as a lingua franca. Translation as an educational perspective is aware of social positioning and symbolic power structures involved in every interaction among human beings, but it is also aware that such hierachization, when essentialized or ignored, is violent and oppressive; however, when such power is perceived as productive, in the Foucauldian sense, people can change its workings and create new tensions every now and then, changing their immediate contexts by exercising their agency and learning to live in movement. Illustrating decolonial practice: a case of English in professorship I work at a public university in the south of Brazil. In our educational system, “public” means tuition-​free: students do not pay to attend classes and obtain their

The Global South has been speaking: ELF and higher education  57 degrees. The whole process is financed by either State or Federal governments. This is under attack right now, for we recently suffered a coup d’état that instituted a wildly neo-​liberal government.4 But so far they have not managed to change this aspect of Brazilian public education. It is within the scenario of public higher education that I am going to mention some language initiatives towards internationalization that have been developed locally at my university. The discussion around the need to internationalize our university has created official initiatives in terms of language teaching and learning especially since 2015, when the language center at the university was commissioned to offer English courses for professors of different post-​graduate programs (initiative 1). However, just a few professors could benefit from this, since it was conceived to raise awareness on a personal basis and therefore it needed to be conducted very carefully, with small groups of participants. As the university could not find the means (or the interest) to make it available to more groups, it was discontinued after its second edition. A larger scale strategy was the creation of an academic writing center, where professors and students can write their papers collaboratively, under the supervision of English language specialists (initiative 2). Soon after the center was created, the university Research and Postgraduate Studies Office invited the center director to offer a postgraduate course on academic writing in English open for all postgraduate students and professors who wished to join. Its first edition is under way right now, and hundreds of people have registered (initiative 3). We are still to wait for an analysis of this course. Besides those institutional initiatives, there have also been isolated researches focusing on English in Brazilian higher education developed by individual researchers in the areas of academic writing and EMI (initiative 4). In what follows, I will briefly describe these initiatives and comment on what I see as the local perspective on English in the internationalization of higher education espoused by each of them. Initiative 1 –​English for Internationalization

First things first, I will start with the first edition of the first institutional English course offered to professors acting at postgraduate programs.5 Different from the large scale EMI course that is going on right now, the English for Internationalization course, as we called it, was offered to a maximum of 20 professors in our higher ranked programs, selected on the basis of first come, first served. It was designed as a 40-​hour course whose meetings happened mostly intensively at the beginning and end of the 2015 first term, with two-​hour quarterly meetings during the term. We also counted on two teachers for the course: myself (a Brazilian teacher of English and postgraduate researcher and professor) and another colleague (a Polish teacher of English acting at undergraduate level). The idea of the course was not to teach English per se, for it assumed that those attending the course were already familiar with the language, as they often participated in international conferences in English and published in English as well. Their proficiency was therefore taken for granted, as we were not using native speakerism for scales.

58  Clarissa Menezes Jordão According to the course proposal, that course was not going to be a course of English as traditionally conceived. The idea is to create an environment where English is used (partial immersion) to discuss actions related to academic activities, such as paper presentations in conferences and seminars, mail exchange with potential foreign partners, planning and teaching classes in English for international and Brazilian students. (Course Proposal 2015) So its main aim was to critically reflect about the need and impact of using English in academic activities. Unfortunately, both groups started with 20 professors enrolled but ended with less than half–​many justified giving up because they expected a language course instead. To make a long story short, the course was an opportunity for participants who had never reflected about English, native speakerism, linguistic imperialism, (de)coloniality and (post)modernity, to share their sorrows and satisfactions with English. We realized how complex its presence is in our institutional practices, and how damaging a perceived lack of English can be to our identities as scientists, since publishing in languages other than English is considered irrelevant (or less relevant) for many publishing indexes and, just to give another example, refusing to teach in English can be deemed as a serious fault for scholars in the realm of internationalization. Most of us during the course complained about how diminished we felt when faced by English users who we judged as more proficient than us: we seemed to refer to the native speaker construct to measure our own and others’ ability with English. The idea of taking intelligibility as a reference rather than place of birth was welcomed with enthusiasm, but we were aware that such perspective, unfortunately, is not the one that regulates interaction in international environments of English language use. One of the participants in fact expressed her angst by mentioning that she felt: a strong movement toward English that can and must be questioned, the fact we have big conferences in many areas, right? Using only one language as reference, it worries me a lot, because then only the people who have access and command of this language can exchange knowledges, I mean, I will only know what people who speak English produce. (translated from Jordão et al. 2020: 36)6 I consider this to have been a truly decolonial practice, in that it problematized the coloniality of our attitudes to English, questioned the position of English in higher education and scientific endeavors in different parts of the world, and mostly challenged the use of standard, “native-​like” uses of English as scales for proficiency. By doing this, we managed to raise the participants’ self-​esteem regarding their knowledge and use of English internationally, challenging international publishing practices and examining the possibility that they may be driven by other interests than an intelligible use of English. That de-​essentialization of our identities as Brazilian scientists using English was liberating and self-​affirming, and

The Global South has been speaking: ELF and higher education  59 came alongside our awareness that such attitude would not be the rule in the academic world, requiring us to always read each context as new, and decide to adapt or challenge accordingly. Initiative 2 –​academic writing center

The idea for the Center is collaborative writing, where authors get together to help one another understand the practices involved in academic writing, questioning motivations but at the same time complying with the characteristics of the genre, whatever they are perceived to be. The principal aim is to foster acceptance of articles in international journals, and therefore to instrumentalize participants to write according to those journals’ norms. English language postgraduate and undergraduate students who work there are trained in academic writing, certified as reviewers, and work in collaboration with professors from English and other departments to help researchers write and revise their texts. Although the Center grew out of a perceived need for English, the work is now done in a number of languages, especially Brazilian Portuguese, English and Spanish. At the moment, the greater demand (especially for postgraduate/​undergraduate Brazilian students whose native language is Brazilian Portuguese) is, surprisingly enough, for assistance with academic writing in Brazilian Portuguese, most likely due to the culture of normativity that surrounds our first language and the common feeling that we, “native” speakers of Brazilian Portuguese, do not know the language enough to be able to publish in it; another explanation for this may be that, due to a belief that normative grammar is responsible for meaning in language, we need to make sure our texts are grammatically accurate so that other speakers of Portuguese (in other countries whose first/​official language is Portuguese) will understand them.7 That is an interesting turn in the initial vocation of the Center, showing how local demands can shape institutional policies, and that may be also an indication that our researchers seem to be more interested in establishing South-​South dialogues,8 rather than South-​North as was initially expected by policy makers. Adaptive at first sight, the Center can offer writers not only support to help getting their texts designed, developed and accepted for publication, but it can also give rise to moments of reflection about what academic writing entails in terms of text structure and publishing ideologies: depending on how authors, tutors and reviewers interact, a lot of critical work can happen alongside the adjustments of each author’s writing styles to publishing demands. It is important to mention that the services offered by the Center are free of charge for members of the UFPR academic community. Many of these services are also free to the external community, though translation and editing are not. Therefore, despite being an initiative to accommodate local uses of English to global notions of quality academic writing, the Center presents the potential of challenging those notions through providing a rich and diverse field for research on writing practices. By supporting researchers in their need to get published, the Center can simultaneously contribute to their awareness of the global politics of academic writing and publication, helping to raise academics self-​esteem in

60  Clarissa Menezes Jordão relation to their academic language use by showing them that they are not alone trying to fight prejudiced practices that discriminate against different language uses and local genre characteristics when writing in academic genres. Initiative 3 –​EMI transversal course

Another initiative of our Research and Postgraduate Studies Office was the creation, in 2017, of a transversal postgraduate course called Academic Writing in English. This course can be attended by professors and students from any of our postgraduate programs at the university, and it was described, in its proposal, as aiming at “consolidating internationalization initiatives”, “improving writing skills”, and facilitating “the acceptance of articles by our students and researchers in international journals”. According to the call for participation that officially introduced the course to the academic community, having papers accepted internationally has been “one of the main barriers to universalizing the knowledge produced by our researchers.” It is interesting to relate this statement to the fact that most researchers, Brazilian “native speakers” of Portuguese, have been coming to the Academic Writing Center in search of assistance for their productions in Portuguese, as mentioned in the previous section. Again this initiative, like that of the writing center, can be seen as two-​ folded: depending on how it is developed, it can serve (a) the purpose of colonialism, if it departs from a concept of language as a space of universal structures dictated by disembodied grammar rules and controlled by an abstract notion of norm; or it can serve (b) the purpose of decolonizing our local uses of English, if it takes for reference a concept of language as situated social practice where meanings are seen as performative and contingent, emerging from concrete situations and subject to socio-​cultural-​political interpretive procedures. As a decolonial practice, such course can stress the powerful forces involved in having a text accepted in an international journal, forces that go beyond the surface of normative language uses or the illusion of a neutral standard reference for language use. In other words, the initiative of offering a course to help improve Brazilian researchers writing skills in English is not in itself a colonial or decolonial practice, but how it is developed might privilege one or the other. Initiative 4 –​researching English in internationalization

The notion that institutional practices are made concrete by the people who put them in practice, and therefore depend a lot on the embodied materialization of their official descriptions, calls for more research on internationalization and local practices related to how English works in the process. At the present, there are two officially registered researches being developed around the issue of English in internationalization at my university. Both are being developed in close interaction with one another, as they are investigating the same

The Global South has been speaking: ELF and higher education  61 phenomena using similar theoretical viewpoints, especially in terms of languages being conceptualized as localized practices of meaning-​making, subject to ideological, cultural, political, social discourses and having the potential to both silence and liberate individuals but in practice contributing more to the realization of one than the other. The group in charge of the two research projects departed from an initial prospective study aiming at mapping local concepts of internationalization and its practices at the postgraduate level at university, concentrating on the perspectives of students and professors about internationalization. This study was based on the data generated from answers to an online questionnaire, analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. The research group is now preparing interview outlines that focus on specific issues found to be relevant in the first analysis of the participants profiles and perspectives, mainly in relation to the concepts of language orienting their views on English in internationalization. The results of the research were published in Jordão et al (2020) and Diniz de Figueiredo et al (2021). Final remarks My take on the local perspective on English in the internationalization of higher education is based both on my experience as an insider, local Brazilian professor of English, being subjected and subjecting others to this language and its situated uses, and on an analysis of the practices I see around me, as the ones referred to above. To me, such practices are constituted from dimensions that at times reinforce the colonialism of English, and at other times deconstruct and resist it, evidencing how entangled adaptation, resistance and transformation can be in our institutional practices. It is not always easy to clearly pinpoint the intentions, motivations, drives and investments behind institutional and individual practices that revolve around English, this language being immersed perhaps more than others in neo-​liberal discourses of globalization. Such discourses seem to be insidious and ubiquitous, contaminating all walks of contemporary life. However, closer looks to specific practices can devise resistance and opposition intentionally or unintentionally present in local contexts of oppression. This realization has sustained my practice as a teacher, researcher, professor, scientist, woman, third world citizen, human being, for it brings me confidence that there are alternatives to the epistemic violence of colonialism, that there is resistance to oppression and silencing, and there is hope for a decolonial project that, according to the Brazilian educators Oliveira and Candau (2010: 27), proposes an epistemic turn that can produce new knowledges and another symbolic understanding of the world, keeping in sight the coloniality of power, of knowing and of being. Interculturality, conceived in this perspective, represents the construction of a new epistemological space that includes subalternized

62  Clarissa Menezes Jordão knowledges and western knowledges, in a tense relationship, critical and more equalitarian. My hope writing this text is that I can share with other peoples this hope, contaminating them with the strength necessary to the endeavor of promoting, locally, such epistemic turn and creating spaces of resistance where we can devise and construct more equalitarian practices around English and internationalization; spaces where we can act transculturally, translating ourselves and making contact amidst power relations that colonize, but can also decolonize structures of power, knowledge and being. After all, this is what English as a Lingua Franca should be all about. Notes 1 This work was supported by the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) and the Waseda ELF Research Group. 2 As I have discussed in Waseda Working Papers in ELF (2019: 35), “In English the norm-​ designers are generally referred to as participants of two of the three concentric circles in a perspective created by Kachru in the 80’s to explain the dissemination of English around the world: they are the so-​called native-​speakers and/​or the people born and raised in the inner and outer circle countries, as described by Kachru (1985). It is worth noting that, in practice, very often those in the inner circle are considered as the sole owners of English, while the outer and expanding circles host language users who are considered as deprived from such ownership. The third circle mentioned by Kachru as “the expanding circle” comprises countries where the language norms, created and safeguarded by the other two circles are reproduced. To those English speakers living in countries like Brazil and Japan, for example, there would be only one route to follow: to apply the rules formed by speakers in the inner circle. To obey. Like good vessels.” 3 I am aware of the different perspectives involved in each of these subareas of interest inside what I am here generalizing as ELF. However, for a matter of scope, in this text I will not go into those differences. Please refer to Jordão, 2014. 4 This text was written right after Dilma Rousseff was unlawfully impeached and Lula da Silva wrongly imprisoned so he could not run for president at the time. At the present, 2023, we are back to democracy after Lula was released and re-​elected by popular vote. 5 A more thorough analysis of this course can be found in Jordão, 2016. 6 In the original: “…há uma, um movimento forte de […] da língua inglesa, pode e deve ser questionado, né, o fato de a gente ter grandes congressos de várias áreas, né, adotando uma única língua como seu referencial me preocupa bastante, né, porque daí só as pessoas que tiveram acesso e que dominam essa língua poder trocar, inclusive, conhecimentos, ou seja, eu só vou conhecer aquilo que as pessoas que falam inglês produzem”. 7 There is a controversy about using the term “Brazilian Portuguese” to refer to the Portuguese used in Brazil, a term that would stress the differences in relation to Portuguese as used in Portugal. Some policy makers and linguists prefer to focus on similarities and stress the ties with the language of the metropolis, Portugal. Any similarities with what happens in other colonized countries in Latin America and all over the world will not be mere coincidence.

The Global South has been speaking: ELF and higher education  63 8 It is important to stress that South is used here as a location, not as a place. The distinction is that, rather than a geographical territory, South and North are positionalities that refer to the unequal distribution of resources (and ontoepistemologies) during colonialism whose impact lasts up to the present coloniality that constitutes us. In this perspective Portugal, geographically located in Europe, can be seen as a Southern country in so far as it is assumed to occupy a lower position in terms of political and economic forces in that continent, despite being also seen as a Northern, metropolitan country in relation to Brazil, the land Portugal invaded during colonialism. The example of Portugal and Brazil here works to clarify the idea that North and South, in decolonial theories, depend on which hierarchy is being referred to when positions are assigned to different countries, cultures, knowledges and knowers.

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5 English as a lingua franca in ASEAN and implications for applied linguistics research Azirah Hashim

Introduction ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, consists of ten countries in Southeast Asia which are diverse in terms of languages, religions, and ethnic groups and are all at different stages of development. As English is the official language of ASEAN, a common bond among the people in the region is English, the official and working language of ASEAN. Initially considered a language of pragmatism that enables communication across so many different nationalities and ethnicities, it is now seen as a language linked to the identities of the region. Furthermore, the ASEAN Community was formed in 2015 (Roadmap for an ASEAN Community 2009–​2015), and with that came intensification of regional community building through people-​to-​people connectivity initiatives and projects. This chapter examines the roles and uses of English in ASEAN as well as provides an analysis of interactions among its speakers. The findings lead to a discussion on whether the English spoken by people from different countries possesses certain common features which not only aid mutual understanding but also create emotional bonds between them. As there is a push, for example, through ASEAN meetings and higher education mobility, towards using a form of English that is intelligible, the chapter also looks at the implications for language education in Southeast Asia in terms of language policy, the changing status of English, and the English curriculum for ASEAN. Teaching and learning English would focus on mutual comprehensibility and cultural identity rather than on a traditional norm-​ bound approach. This traditional approach used to be found in former Anglophone colonies –​Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, and Brunei –​and may still be found today in Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Indonesia, and Thailand. The chapter begins with an introduction to ASEAN and the higher education landscape in the region. A discussion of English as a lingua franca in ASEAN including an analysis of ELF interactions then follows. Finally, current developments impacting on ELF and implications for language education, in particular on English in Southeast Asia, are discussed. Of the ten ASEAN countries, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, and Myanmar were British colonies and, with the exception of Myanmar which has followed a DOI: 10.4324/9781003391463-7

English as a lingua franca in ASEAN  67 different trajectory, have English as a dominant language. The Philippines which was colonised by the Spanish until 1898 and subsequently by the Americans also has English as a language commonly used by its people. The remaining ASEAN countries had different experiences –​Indonesia was a Dutch colony and Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia were French Indochina colonies. French Indochina colonies also came under Russian communist power, which brought in the Russian language into the countries. Chinese is a popular language due to the Confucius Institutes and the many aid programmes available. Today, however, English appears to be the most sought-​after language that is learnt as a second or first foreign language. It is used in several domains especially in business and higher education and has become the main lingua franca among ASEAN speakers. After independence, the Southeast Asian countries introduced national language policies that were meant to contribute towards nation building with varying choices. Malaysia made Malay the national language and English an official language for ten years, after which it was relegated to the second most important language in the country. Subsequently, the medium of instruction in the country changed from English to Malay over the years (Asmah 2012). Singapore, on the other hand, maintained four official languages and English was made the first language and medium of instruction in schools and higher education (Azirah and Leitner 2021). Policies in the ASEAN countries have been dynamic but what is clear is that in all countries, English has now become the most important second or foreign language (Kirkpatrick 2010). In countries that had been colonised by the British or Americans, English is used in many domains by bilinguals and multilinguals; varieties of English have developed and become established varieties recognised by the features that they possess. In the rest of Southeast Asia, English is not usually used among the people but with foreigners. However, changes are taking place and greater investment in English is noticeable. All ASEAN countries now place some degree of emphasis on English and, one could say, at the expense of other languages, and national language policies have led to English becoming heavily present in all the countries. There are wide-​ranging differences in the use and level of English in the countries in ASEAN. The role of English in the public domain is larger in countries like Malaysia and Singapore than in Cambodia and Laos. There is a large English media and advertising presence, for example, in the former compared to the latter, although recent studies may point to an increasing presence of English in the media in the latter (Soulignavong and Azirah, forthcoming). Former Anglophone countries which are considered members of Kachru’s ‘outer circle’ have developed local varieties, while others are generally classified as members of the ‘expanding circle’ where English is a foreign language (Kachru 1985). As English has become, by consensus, the lingua franca of the whole of ASEAN (Kirkpatrick 2010; 2016), there is argument to support the use of a form of English that is intelligible across all member states (Kirkpatrick 2011; Azirah and Leitner 2014). This will impact on educational policies and shift the balance from native speaker norms towards English as a lingua franca.

68  Azirah Hashim English language challenges in ASEAN In 2009, English was officially sanctioned with the signing of the ASEAN Charter and Article 34 states that ‘the working language of ASEAN shall be English’. The fact that English had by then become the global language in all relevant international aid institutions such as the United Nations and the World Bank, and the language of academia undoubtedly strengthened its position in the region and made its acceptance more a matter of fact (Azirah and Leitner 2014). What English should be sanctioned in English education, however, has not been given much attention, although it has been mentioned by various researchers and there are more and more calls for a curriculum that suits the needs of people in the region (Kirkpatrick 2014; Azirah and Leitner 2014; Zein 2019). In a geopolitical region that is integrating with countries aspiring to play a global role, English has increasingly been used for multiple functions and for intra-​ regional as well as inter-​regional communication. Without addressing specifically that function, Bolton (2008: 3) asserts that ‘across Asia, the numbers of people having at least a functional command of the language have grown exponentially over the last four decades, and current changes in the sociolinguistic realities of the region are often so rapid that it is difficult for academic commentators to keep pace’. While the competition between English and other languages can be seen in all countries, English seems to have an edge over other languages apart from the national languages and is seen and promoted as a vehicle of empowerment and participation. Seidlhofer, Breiteneder, and Pitzl (2006) discussed the top-​down and bottom-​up ways that the English language made its way into Europe. This can also be seen to be happening in ASEAN. English has entered ASEAN through the use of English in official ASEAN meetings (Kirkpatrick 2012), popular music, sports, and the media (Moody 2012). It is also used in various other domains. As will be discussed in the section on higher education in ASEAN, English plays an important role in the education systems in the region and is now the most important second or foreign language in all ASEAN countries. It is a compulsory subject in the primary curriculum in all the ten countries, with more time allocated to it than before (Azirah and Leitner 2021). In Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Vietnam –​the CLMV countries –​English is given greater priority than in the past, with the medium of instruction in some higher education institutions and schools changing to English. Schools for teaching English have also been established in these countries to cater to the increased demand for it. The adoption of English as a medium of instruction in some schools and in many higher education institutions or as the most important second or foreign language taught seems unavoidable as it is often perceived that knowledge and skills are often only accessible and acquired through English (Asmah 2012). The choice of a local language such as Malay in Malaysia or Indonesia in broad educational contexts is, therefore, considered by some as depriving people of knowledge and skills needed for the country to progress (Azirah 2009; Asmah 2012). It is becoming common practice for urban middle-​class parents to send their children to international schools which use English as medium of instruction or

English as a lingua franca in ASEAN  69 to countries, especially the United Kingdom and Australia, for the final years of secondary schooling instead of having them continue their school education in the national school system (Azirah 2009; Azirah and Leitner 2014; 2016). To provide further background to English in ASEAN, some information on ASEAN higher education is given to provide a context for the data of ELF that follows. The ASEAN countries are generally divided into the following groups: lower income, low-​middle income, middle income, and high income. They are at different stages of development in higher education but many initiatives have been put in place to harmonise the higher education systems (Azirah and Azman 2019). In the lower income category consisting of Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar, there are high enrolment demand, threat to education quality, less access to equity, and a lack of human resources and financial support. In the low-​middle income category, Vietnam, there are high demand for qualified faculty and staff, more opportunities for private higher education institutions, and more emphasis on teaching for skill improvement. In the middle-​income group which consists of Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, and Thailand, there are high enrolment demand, emphasis on education quality, less public expenditure by shifting cost to students, emphasis more on research-​ oriented policy, and controlled or limited overseas branch campuses. Finally, in the high-​income category, Brunei and Singapore, there are increased public expenditure, more international academic cooperation, more emphasis on cutting-​edge research and development and innovation, emphasis on excellence, international profile and partnerships, and hosting overseas branch campuses (Gajaseni 2015). With the establishment of the ASEAN Community in 2015 and internationalisation of higher education, the higher education landscape in ASEAN is a major domain for increasing importance in the study of ELF. Mobility, both regional and global, has increased collaboration and facilitated inter-​institutional exchanges across national boundaries. They have also influenced government policies which aim to attract international students into the country especially in countries like Malaysia and Singapore, which have promoted themselves as higher education hubs. With increased scholarships for higher education institutions in ASEAN countries, there is greater incentive for domestic students to study in the region rather than to go to destinations which have been popular such as the United Kingdom, the United States, and Australia. Universities in the region which participate in global rankings, with some in the top 200, have become much more competitive than before and, hence, more attractive to international students. The quest for a common higher education space in ASEAN with mechanisms that have been put into place has encouraged cross-​border mobility among students and academics. Initiatives include those by the ASEAN University Network (AUN) which has more than thirty universities participating in student exchanges and the ASEAN International Mobility for Students (AIMS) programme, both of which have had many students spend time in ASEAN countries and experience education in the region (see also Iino, this volume, who also refers to this programme). A European initiative, SHARE –​European Union’s Support to Higher Education in the ASEAN Region –​started in 2015 and has focused on internationalisation

70  Azirah Hashim of higher education including facilitating intra-​ regional mobility, developing quality assurance systems, enhancing higher education standards, and mobility and credit transfers. It has also formed a Community of Practice with members who are involved in higher education from all the ten ASEAN countries with the aim of sharing knowledge and experiences as well as building capacity. The regional initiatives are somewhat influenced by the Bologna Process in Europe in the harmonisation of higher education in facilitating student and staff mobility, common mechanisms and structures, and the transfer of credits (Azirah and Azman 2019). The drive to create more uniform systems and processes in higher education across ASEAN that further the mobility of staff and students makes the role of English even more important. Among academics, research and publications promote the use of English as the language for the exchange of ideas at international conferences and in publications. English is the main medium of instruction in many universities in countries like Malaysia, Singapore, and Philippines, where, in general, institutionalised second-​language varieties are used for educational and administrative purposes (Kirkpatrick 2016, 2018). Mutual Recognition Arrangements (MRAs) are another development towards ASEAN integration for trade in services which increases mobility across borders (https://​asean.org/​asean-​secto​ral-​mut​ual-​reco​gnit​ion-​arra​ngem​ent-​mras/​). Trade gets facilitated through mutual recognition of authorization, licensing, or certification of professional service suppliers. The main aim of the MRA is to facilitate the flow of foreign professionals in the fields of accountancy, nursing, medicine, dentistry, tourism, and others, taking into account relevant domestic regulations and market demand conditions. As codified in article 34 of the ASEAN Charter which states that the ‘working language of ASEAN shall be English’, English is considered the language used in ASEAN Free Trade Agreements and the ASEAN Economic Community, leading to the importance placed on being able to communicate in English or rather ELF among people looking for employment in these domains. Numerous inter-​ASEAN networks in various fields play an important role in regional integration. In 2015, when Malaysia was chair of ASEAN, ASEAN meetings on various focus areas took place regularly with all the ten member states in this country. This happens annually in the countries that become Chair of ASEAN. Ministries play an active role too in region building, as can be seen, for example, in the support for the Cambodia-​Laos-​Myanmar-​Vietnam (CLMV) programme which involved universities engaging in higher education aid programmes (Chang and Morshidi 2018: 84–​ 86). These collaborations often develop into partnerships in research, mobility, capacity building, and others. English becomes the language of communication and it is possible that more established varieties of English such as Malaysian English and Singapore English get transported into these contexts and are adopted and adapted to the new contexts in which they are used. As English in the region is highly diverse, speakers where English has been a foreign language and no established variety exists may turn to the more stable and developed localised forms of Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines (Azirah,

English as a lingua franca in ASEAN  71 Kaur and Tan 2016). However, recent research on other Southeast Asian Englishes has revealed features peculiar to the individual varieties such as Cambodian, Thai, and Lao Englishes (Moore 2010; Bennui and Azirah 2014; Soulignavong and Azirah, forthcoming). In addition, due to some similarities of the Austro-​Asiatic and Austronesian languages and shared typological features or through adoption via contact (Asmah 2016), even countries that have no inherited English base have features that resemble those of established varieties. For example, non-​standard use of plural forms for uncountable nouns, use of irregular plural-​s (e.g. deers and phenomenons), and a tendency to use the plural form for uncountable nouns like equipments, informations, luggages, and staffs. The system of question tags in (Standard) BrE is also considered very difficult and replaced in one or several ways in Southeast Asian varieties (Low and Azirah 2012). English as a lingua franca in ASEAN English as a lingua franca (ELF) has been defined by several scholars (Firth 1996; Jenkins 2009, 2015; Seidlhofer 2004; Mauranen 2012). ELF can be considered as having both common ground and local variation –​there are shared linguistic common ground among the different varieties of English and, at the same time, local variation and accommodation between the speakers (Jenkins 2009: 201). The more proficient speakers may adjust their speech in order that they are more intelligible and appropriate in a given situation. There could also be code-​switching with speakers from similar language backgrounds, paraphrasing, repetition, and avoidance of local idiomatic language (Azirah and Leitner 2014; Kirkpatrick 2010, 2014; Azirah, Kaur and Tan 2016). Language users are perceived as drawing on their multi-​faceted linguistic repertoire and selecting the most effective resources for their particular purposes. It is argued that ELF is not, therefore, to be regarded as a fixed, all-​dominating language but as a flexible communicative means used among people from different linguacultural backgrounds and integrated into a larger framework of multilingualism (e.g. Jenkins 2015). Scholars have also introduced the term ‘Communities of Practice’ in discussing ELF (see, for example, Ehrenreich 2018) since such networks and communities emerge to meet practical communicative requirements. Other researchers have highlighted the transient and dynamic nature of these groupings, for example, Pitzl (2018, 2019), who puts forward the term ‘Transient International Groups’, to capture the social dimension of ELF and ‘to offer an alternative perspective that puts a greater emphasis on individual interactions and thus can be applied also to fleeting and on-​off situations’ (Pitzl 2019: 6). Another researcher, Schneider (2007: 32), states that ‘individuals are members of several social communities at the same time and thus construct several, partially overlapping, identities for themselves, each of which may manifest itself in linguistically slightly different ways’. According to Ishikawa (2016: 5), phases 4 (Endonormative stabilisation) and 5 (Differentiation) of Schneider’s five phases model ‘are the manifestations of different but interrelated social identities. One is a national identity through a variety of world Englishes,

72  Azirah Hashim and the other is a set of group-​specific identities through ethnic, regional and communal dialects of the same variety’. In the last decade or so, there has been rising interest in ELF in ASEAN following the trend of research in Europe (Kirkpatrick 2010, 2011, 2014). Scholars have examined features of ELF and causes of misunderstanding, communication strategies used to facilitate understanding, and regional identity fostered through English (e.g. Kaur 2011, 2012; Azirah, Kaur and Tan 2016). Another topic of debate is what English should be taught in ASEAN given that the majority of learners will only ever interact with people from the Asian region. English is seen to be especially important with regard to job and study mobility and this raises questions about whether a native-​like competence is needed or if English as a lingua franca, which represents a new paradigm for the way English can be seen and taught, would be more successful in the regional context. Kirkpatrick (2014) states that language learning objectives, teacher training, and the curriculum have to be reconsidered. English could be presented as an ‘Asian’ lingua franca that is spoken by multilinguals who would usually only use English to talk to other Asian speakers. In such cases, native speaker targets would not be what they would need or aspire to have. This would impact on language learning, teacher training, and curriculum for English. English for such multilinguals should then be measured against the norms of other successful Asian multilinguals and not against native speakers. A curriculum that emphasises native speaker norms would have to be adjusted to suit these learners. At the same time, testing will have to be adapted to meet these needs. In an international academic context, Inner Circle norms remain dominant as can be seen in publications in international journals and books, presentations at international conferences, and entry into higher education institutions that require certain scores in international English tests, etc. (van Splunder 2012), although this might also be gradually (and very slowly) changing (Kirkpatrick 2011, 2016; Zein 2019). Analysis of ELF in ASEAN In this section, examples of interactions of ASEAN speakers are given and some characteristics of ASEAN English described. The data comes from the Asian Corpus of English (ACE) (http://​cor​pus.eduhk.hk/​ace/​index.html) and consists of naturally occurring spoken interactions in ELF in Asia. Speech events consist of interviews, press conferences, service encounters, seminar discussions, working group discussions, workshop discussions, meetings, panels, question-​and-​answer sessions, conversations, etc. The examples given here are mainly from the higher education setting (Azirah, Kaur and Tan 2016). ACE is tagged manually using a set of conventions developed by the VOICE (Vienna-​Oxford International Corpus of English) team (e.g. S1 =​Speaker 1; toMORrow =​stressed syllable; (.) =​a short pause; @ =​laughter; etc.). In Example 1, three postgraduate students from Thailand, Indonesia, and Malaysia at a university in Malaysia were engaging in an informal conversation.

English as a lingua franca in ASEAN  73 They are referred to as S1 (Thai), S2 (Indonesian), and S3 (Malaysian). The subject of their conversation ranged from food to appearance and shopping. Example 1: General characteristics observed among ASEAN postgraduate students

S1 is Thai, S2 is Indonesian, and S3 is Malaysian; all three are postgraduate students at a university in Malaysia. 1. S1: what 2. S2: come on let’s eat 3. →S1: makan makan {eat eat} 4. →S3: so many gossip 5. S1: about what 6. S3: yes i want 7. S2: yeah 8. →S3: [S1] why you look so different today 9. S1: why 10. S2: same ( ) 11. S1: argh same 12. S2: not same without glasses 13. S3: oh without glasses 14. S2: ah yeah yeah 15. S3: you wear glasses you should wear glasses with me you should wear glasses 16. S1: why 17. →S3: hey you going somewhere sunday 18. →S1: sunday oh yes because [first name1] ask me to go to k lcentral 19. S3: k l central to buy what 20. S2: central market 21. →S1: yeah central market she want to buy (.) souvenir fo:r and then [first name2] want to follow too @@ h Analysis reveals the use of a loan word from Malay –​Line 3: ‘makan makan’ (‘eat eat’) uttered by the Thai speaker who has picked up this commonly used word –​the topic of food is commonly found in encounters between people in Malaysia, often with the question ‘Have you eaten’? being common. There are also plural marking of an uncountable noun –​Line 4: ‘So many gossip’, copula absence or deletion –​ Line 8: ‘why you look so different today’, the use of a declarative for a question and deletion of preposition –​Line 17: ‘hey you going somewhere Sunday’, absence of tense marking –​Line 18: S1: sunday oh yes because [first name1] ask me to go to k l central, and the non-​marking of the third person singular –​Line 21: ‘she want to buy’. The irregular use of grammatical features, judging these from NES standards, however, do not affect the smooth flow of the conversation or affect understanding (Azirah, Kaur and Tan 2016).

74  Azirah Hashim The use of a declarative for a question is also observed in the interaction among ASEAN academics. In Example 2, the speakers are academics working in a university in Malaysia. Three of them are from Thailand and one from Myanmar. In this excerpt, they are having a conversation about a conference; at the same time, they are also talking about coffee and food. Example 2: General characteristics observed in academics’ talking

S1, S2 and S3 are Thai, and S4 is Burmese. 22. S2: because first [first name2] told me that if you want to attend also 23. S3: mhm 24. →S2: you don’t pre–​e:r you don’t present any paper right 25. S3: mhm 26. →S2: like him just attend just pay for registrationlah 27. S1: are you going there? 28. →S2: I think I must lah 29. S1: er because there is a conference there and my yeah and my supervisor er how to say ask me to send an abstract and they ac–​accept 30. →S4: but it’s a ( ) qualitative lah 31. S3: it’s o–​eh why don’t you have er some coffee you can drink some coffee 32. S4: coffee 33. S1: no thank you @@@ 34. →S3: it’s okay lah er I this day I don’t drink coffee 35. →S1: … yes yes (.) doctor you want some more? 36. S2: mm? hm 37. →S1: huh? try la doctor As in the first example, there are uses of a declarative for a question –​Line 24: ‘you don’t pre–​e:r you don’t present any paper right’ and Line 35: ‘… yes yes (.) doctor you want some more?’. In addition, there is a use of ‘this day’ for ‘today’ –​Line 34: ‘it’s okay lah er I this day I don’t drink coffee’, which is one of the characteristics observed in English in ASEAN (Azirah, Kaur and Tan, 2016). Furthermore, the particle ‘lah/​la’ (‘lah’ and ‘la’ are the same particle, with the former being more emphatic than the latter) is used by the Thai and Burmese speakers even though it is said to be of Malay or Chinese origin (see also the example on particles below) –​ Line 37: ‘huh? try la doctor’, and no Malaysian academics are present in this discussion (see also lines 26, 28, 30, 34, and 37 above, where lah/​la is also used). Moreover, these particles are also used in the following interaction (see Example 3), where no Malaysian academics are involved. In the next example, the speakers are from Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam and residing temporarily in Malaysia and they are talking about some computer work. Example 3: The use of particles, ‘ah’ and ‘lah’

S1 is Burmese, S2 is Thai, and S3 is Vietnamese. 38. S2: why is it disabled

English as a lingua franca in ASEAN  75 3 9. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 4 6. 47. 48. 49.

→S1: tsk so how ah →S2: okay lah remove it lah S1: how to remove it S3: but each a s c has its own target →S2: oh yeah it’s same with Vietnam lah S2: you’re still learning about excel →S3: no because some some this one I have to make from the scratch so see all these er tsk all the: er foreigner lah S2: mhm S3: so I have to make sure it’s actually reflective of this one →S2: so you create from er from this book lah →S3: ah

Analysis reveals simplification of questions, e.g. Line 39 by S1: ‘so how ah’ using particle ‘ah’ to indicate it is a question. This particle ‘ah’, like the particle ‘lah’, which is used by S2 and S3 in lines 40, 43, 45, and 48, is a commonly used feature of Malaysian and Singapore English and has been described by researchers of these varieties of English (Low and Azirah 2012). They are also seen to be used regularly in the data in the English of speakers from other ASEAN countries as seen in Example 3. The particles show emotive value when tagged onto a sentence. Several researchers have highlighted la to be a very common particle in colloquial Malaysian English with several functions (e.g. Kwan-​Terry 1978; Bell and Ser 1983; Wong 1983; Azirah 2020). Another example illustrates the use of strategies such as repetition and rephrasing. In Example 4, the speakers are from Philippines and Vietnam. They were talking about working on a public holiday. Example 4: The use of repetition and rephrasing

S1 is Vietnamese and S2 is Filipino. 50. S1: alright it’s already you can collecting the data right 51. S2: yeah 52. →S1: alright so today is public holiday why you are not you are not taking day off 53. →S2: i: because yesterday i i did not come to work 54. S1: oh really 55. S2: s-​ 56. S1: what happened 57. →S2: er i changed my off supposedly today i changed it to yesterday 58. S1: but normally you are off on a weekend what 59. →S2: yeah but erm since we have a public holiday right we h have er day off 60. S1: mhm=​ 61. →S2: =​for that day for today 62. S1: oh oh 63. →S2: so instead of using today

76  Azirah Hashim 6 4. S1: mhm 65. →S2: it’s yesterday 66. S1: so but you sti–​w–​w–​will be working here will be: off on: weekend right S1 appears not to understand what S2 explains. However, the conversation proceeds smoothly with S2 repeating in Line 57 and rephrasing herself about why she was working on a public holiday in Lines 59, 61, 63, and 65. From these few examples, it could be generalised that disruptions do not occur among the speakers from different ASEAN countries who communicate in ‘English’ as regional lingua franca. There were times when a participant did not understand what was said by another person; however, the flow of the communication did not stop. Repetition and rephrasing were used to overcome barriers in communication as in the second part of Example 4. Common features can be observed among all speakers such as reduction and simplification and signs of localisation which may point towards features that are used in ELF of ASEAN speakers’ communication. Implications for applied linguistics research In discussing applied linguistics, in particular language education in Southeast Asia in relation to ELF, the following are important to highlight as they lead to language issues that need further study. Firstly, in ASEAN higher education, there is a growing emphasis on encouraging domestic students to study in the region rather than going to traditionally popular destinations such as the United Kingdom, the United States, and Australia. A common higher education space is being created to encourage cross-​border mobility and academic integration across ASEAN as discussed above and also across East Asia. This would mean that interaction would mainly be among students from ASEAN and East Asia –​Japan, Korea, and China –​and English is used as a medium of communication among people from different linguacultural backgrounds in the region. Such a change would provide exposure to ELF among Asian speakers and encourage greater awareness of other cultures in Asia, thus improving both ELF communication ability and intercultural awareness. Second, with several regional initiatives and projects and collaboration that develop into partnerships in research, mobility, capacity building, and others, English becomes the language of communication, and components of a person’s linguistic repertoire are used to suit different contexts. Research into whether speakers turn to the more stable and developed localised forms and use them as easily available role models in the region or how fluidity and variability are negotiated in ELF situations needs to be carried out. As can be seen, English language needs in ASEAN are set inside multilingual contexts where English functions as the default or sanctioned language among the students and academics. The examples above show that some features that come from certain established varieties of English are used by ASEAN speakers. Studies carried out on the use of Arabic in Southeast Asia also give examples of common

English as a lingua franca in ASEAN  77 Arabic words that are found in varieties of English in countries like Malaysia, Singapore, and Brunei (Azirah and Leitner 2016; Azirah, Leitner and Mohammad 2021). For speakers to be able to communicate effectively among ASEAN speakers, policy makers have to take into account the developments in higher education in the region and the use of ELF in developing English language curriculums for ASEAN. Curricula, teacher education, and assessment will have to be reconsidered. English can be motivated by communicative needs, for instance, in international publishing, official political meetings, and formal business correspondence. In such cases, communicative effectiveness would be strongly correlated to linguistic correctness and prestige (Azirah and Leitner 2014; Chan 2018). In other cases, for communication in informal settings, the need for linguistic correctness would be less, and effective intercultural communication would be essential. ELF raises interesting questions about attitudes towards the nature of English and the teaching of English. Thus far, it has not brought about changes in the actual practices of English teaching in the ASEAN region, although issues on the principles and practices of second and foreign language education have been put forward by several scholars (e.g. Kirkpatrick 2014; Azirah and Leitner 2014; Zein 2019). It has been highlighted that the goal of English teaching is to enable learners to communicate in lingua franca situations and not to acquire native-​ speaking proficiency (Jenkins 2006, 2007; Kirkpatrick 2016, 2018; Seidlhofer 2004). This perspective in language teaching also encourages acceptance of multiple cultural identities and how language is interpreted in different cultural contexts. Kirkpatrick (2012) has argued for topics that are relevant for the region to be included in language classrooms and for regional cultures to be incorporated into the curriculum. This also sees regional works of literature which incorporate varieties of English being included and the discussion of diverse cultures from the region. Kirkpatrick (2018: 12) identified five principles of lingua franca approach for ASEAN: that ‘the native speaker is not the linguistic target’, ‘the native speaker’s culture is not the cultural target’, local multilinguals provide appropriate models, the ‘lingua franca environment provides excellent learning environments’, and ‘assessment must be relevant to the ASEAN context’. English could be presented as an ‘Asian’ lingua franca that is spoken by multilinguals who would usually mostly use English to talk to other ASEAN speakers. In such cases, native speaker targets would not be what they would need or aspire to have. This would impact on language learning, teacher training, and curriculum for English. English for such multilinguals should then be measured against the norms of other successful Asian multilinguals and not against native speakers. A curriculum that emphasises native speaker norms would have to be adjusted to suit these learners and curriculum designers have to determine features that should be given emphasis and features that should be given less focus. Suitably trained language teachers are hard to define but being able to speak the language of the students and familiarity with the local culture and cultures of the region is an advantage in an ELF situation. These teachers would also be good models for students to follow and provide a realistic target for them. In

78  Azirah Hashim ELF contexts, there are a number of accents and pronunciations, loan words from different languages etc.; hence, the need to sound native-​like is not important but the ability to communicate with other ELF users is. Mutual intelligibility would be crucial and in the case of English language teaching, exchanges of teachers in ASEAN which will facilitate exposure to other forms of English should be encouraged. Mobility programmes for teachers in ASEAN should be offered between schools or higher education institutions in the region. In terms of teacher education, new perspectives must involve developing open-​mindedness and abilities among the teachers to critically challenge deeply rooted perspectives that have underpinned their pedagogy for many years. This would include recognising the importance of varieties of English and intercultural communication. Intelligibility within the ASEAN community is a key factor in successful language teaching. A rethinking of the use of the first language and more than one language in the classroom should not be excluded. Pedagogy that is more fluid would need to be encouraged where multiple linguistic resources of students are valued, hence moving away from the strict adherence to monolingual pedagogy (Zein 2019). With regard to assessment that is relevant to the ASEAN context, testing will have to be adapted to meet the needs of learners. Any form of assessment should be closely aligned to what is taught as proposed above, and the context would be an ELF one rather than native speaker competence. This is an area that should be looked at by those responsible for English language assessment in the ASEAN countries. In the context of ASEAN, there is an overwhelming need for an overall ASEAN approach to these issues, particularly with regard to the content of the English curriculum, teachers of English as well as student assessment. Linguistic researchers are often the predominant sources of published materials on the subject of English as a lingua franca. However, their findings often are confined to other researchers and do not reach policy-​makers and practitioners in the language classroom. Therefore, it is important that bridges are built across the various stakeholders to ensure that policy-​driven research is carried out and that there are avenues for the discussion and implementation of what is practical and relevant in the classroom. This calls for more research into ELF-​related applied linguistics topics in the ASEAN context and closer cooperation between researchers, practitioners, and policy-​makers beyond ASEAN. References ACE. 2014. The Asian corpus of English. Director: Andy Kirkpatrick; Researchers: Wang Lixun, John Patkin, Sophiann Subhan. http://​cor​pus.ied.edu.hk/​ace/​. Asmah, H. O. 2012. Pragmatics of maintaining English in Malaysia’s education system. In E. L. Low and H. Azirah (eds), English in Southeast Asia: Features, Policy and Language in Use. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 155–​174. Asmah, H. O. 2016. Positioning languages in the Malaysian education system. In H. O. Asmah (ed.), Languages in the Malaysian Education System: Monolingual Strands, Multilingual Settings. Oxford: Routledge, pp. 1–​30.

English as a lingua franca in ASEAN  79 Azirah Hashim. 2009. Not plain sailing: Malaysia’s language choice in policy and education. AILA Review 22, 36–​51. Azirah Hashim. 2020. Malaysian English. In K. Bolton, W. Botha and A. Kirkpatrick (eds), A Handbook of Asian Englishes. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, pp. 373–​397. Azirah Hashim and G. Leitner 2014. English as a lingua franca in higher education in Malaysia. The Asian Journal of Applied Linguistics 1(1), 16–​27. Azirah Hashim and G. Leitner 2016. Arabic in contact with English and Malay in English in Malaysia. In G. Leitner, Azirah Hashim and H.G. Wolf (eds), Communicating with Asia: The Future of English as a Global Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 85–​101. Azirah Hashim and A. N. Azman 2019. Malaysia and the role of education in community building. In Azirah Hashim and A. Milner (eds), Malaysian Perspectives on ASEAN Regionalism. Kuala Lumpur: University of Malaya Press, pp. 107–​120. Azirah Hashim and G. Leitner 2021. English in Southeast Asia and ASEAN: Transformation of Language Habitats. Oxford: Routledge. Azirah Hashim., J. Kaur and S.K. Tan 2016. Identity regionalism and English as an ASEAN lingua franca. Journal of English as a Lingua Franca 5(2), 229–​247. Azirah Hashim., G. Leitner and A. A. Mohammed 2021. The impact of Arabic on English in Asian Polities: A Comparative Study. Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Freiburg (Germany) Occasional Paper Series. 40. Bell, R. and L. P. Q. Ser. 1983. ‘Today la?’ ‘Tomorrow lah!’; The LA particle in Singapore English. RELC Journal 14(2), 1–​18. Bennui, P. and Azirah Hashim 2014. English in Thailand: Development of English in a non-​ postcolonial context. Asian Englishes 16(3), 209–​228. Besemeres, M. and A. Wierzbicka 2003. The meaning of the particle lah in Singapore English. Pragmatics and Cognition 11(1), 3–​38. Bolton, K. 2008. English in Asia, Asian Englishes and the issue of proficiency. English Today 24(2), 3–​12. Chan, Y. H. J. 2018. Contexts, problems and solutions in international communication: Insights for teaching English as a lingua franca. Journal of Asia TEFL 15(2), 257–​275. Chang, D. and S. Morshidi 2018. Internationalisation of the Malaysian higher education system through the prism of south-​south cooperation. International Journal of African Higher Education 4(2), 79–​90. Ehrenreich, S. 2018. Communities of practice and English as a lingua franca. In J. Jenkins, W. Baker and M. Dewey (eds), The Routledge Handbook of English as a Lingua Franca. London: Routledge, pp. 37–​50. Firth, A. 1996. The discursive accomplishment of normality: On ‘lingua franca’ English and conversation analysis. Journal of Pragmatics, 26, 237–​259. Gajaseni, N. 2015. Trends and challenges in ASEAN higher education towards ASEAN integration. AEI Occasional Papers 28, 4–​11. Ishikawa, T. 2016. World Englishes and English as a lingua franca: Conceptualising the legitimacy of Asian people’s English. Asian Englishes 18(2), 129–​140. Jenkins, J. 2007. English as a lingua franca: attitude and identity. Oxford: Oxford University press. Jenkins, J. 2009. World Englishes (2nd ed.). London: Routledge. Jenkins, J. 2015. Global Englishes (3rd ed.). London: Routledge. Jenkins, J, W. Baker and M. Dewey (eds), 2017. The Routledge Handbook of English as a Lingua Franca. London: Routledge.

80  Azirah Hashim Kachru, B.B. 1985. Standards, Codification and sociolinguistic realism: The English language in the outer circle. In R, Quirk and H. G. Widdowson (eds), English in the World: Teaching and Learning the Language and Literatures. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 11–​30. Kaur, J. 2011. Intercultural communication in English as a lingua franca: Some sources of misunderstanding. Intercultural Pragmatics 8(1), 93–​116. Kaur, J. 2012. Saying it again: Enhancing clarity in English as a lingua franca (ELF) talk through self-​repetition. Text & Talk 32(5), 593–​613. Kirkpatrick, A. 2010. English as a Lingua Franca in ASEAN: A Multilingual Model. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. Kirkpatrick, A. 2011. English as an Asian lingua franca and the multilingual model of ELT. Language Teaching 44(2), 212–​224. Kirkpatrick, A. 2012. English in ASEAN: implications for regional multilingualism. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 33(4), 331–​344. Kirkpatrick, A. 2014. The language(s) of HE: EMI and/​or ELF and/​or multilingualism? Asian Journal of Applied Linguistics 1(1), 4–​15. Kirkpatrick, A. 2016. English as a lingua franca and educational impact in Asia. In G. Leitner, Azirah Hashim and H. G. Wolf (eds), Communicating with Asia: The Future of English as a Global Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 282–​295. Kirkpatrick, A. 2018. Redesigning the linguistic ecology of East and Southeast Asia: English and/​or local languages? Journal of English Studies, 8–​28. Kwan-​Terry, A. 1978. The meaning and the source of the ‘la’ and the ‘what’ particles in Singapore English. RELC Journal 9(2), 22–​36. Leitner, G, Azirah Hashim and H. G. Wolf (eds), 2016. Communicating with Asia: The Future of English as a Global Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Low, E.L. and Azirah Hashim (eds), 2012. English in Southeast Asia: Features, Policy and Language in Use. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Mauranen, A. 2012. Exploring ELF. Academic English Shaped by Non-​Native Speakers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Moody, A. 2012. English in Southeast Asian pop culture. In E. L. Low and Azirah Hashim (eds), English in Southeast Asia: Features, Policy and Language in Use. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 307–​324. Moore, S. H. and B. Suksiri 2010. English in Cambodia: Changes and challenges. World Englishes 29(1), 114–​126. Pitzl, M. 2018. Transient international groups (TIGs): Exploring the group and development dimension of ELF. Journal of English as a Lingua Franca 7(1), 25–​58. Pitzl, M. 2019. Investigating communities of practice (CoPs) and transient international groups (TIGs) in BELF contexts. Iperstoria 13, 5–​14. Roadmap for an ASEAN Community 2009–​2015. 2009. ASEAN Secretariat, Jakarta. Schneider, E. 2007. Postcolonial English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Seidlhofer, B. 2004. Research perspectives on teaching English as lingua franca. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 24, 209–​239. Seidlhofer, B. 2009. Common ground and different realities: World Englishes and English as a lingua franca. World Englishes 28(2), 236–​245. Seidlhofer, B., A. Breiteneder and M. Pitzl. 2006. English as a lingua franca in Europe: challenges for applied linguistics. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 26, 3–​34. Soulignavong, L. and Azirah Hashim. Forthcoming. English in Laos. In K. Bolton (ed.), Encyclopedia of World Englishes. Oxford: Wiley Blackwell.

English as a lingua franca in ASEAN  81 van Splunder, F. 2012. English as a medium of instruction in a non-​English speaking context. Proceedings of the 2012 “Van Schools tot Scriptie” Colloquium. Leiden: University Library, Leiden University, pp. 7–​19. Wong, I. F. H. 1983. Simplification features in the structure of colloquial Malaysian English. In R. B. Noss (ed.), Varieties of English in Southeast Asia. Singapore: Singapore University Press, pp. 125–​149. Zein, S. 2019. Teacher Education for English as a Lingua Franca: Perspectives from Indonesia. Oxford: Routledge.

6 ELT in South Korea from the perspectives of ELF and WE1 Joo-​Kyung Park and Kiwan Sung

Introduction With globalization in the 1990s, English has been named in many different ways both in scholarly works and in social practices, including English as an international language (EIL) (Modiano 1999) or as a global language (EGL) (Crystal 1997), English as a lingua franca (ELF) (Jenkins 2007, 2009), and World Englishes (WE) (Kachru 1985, 1992). However, among such terms, the emergence of WE is the most noteworthy as it has brought new understanding of diverse roles of English as well as its linguistic features and communicative functions as focused in traditional linguistics, sociolinguistics, and applied linguistics. The new conceptualizations of English which reflect the existence of its variety as in WE and its roles as a contact language among different first language speakers who use English as a common language for communication as in ELF (Jenkins 2009) have greatly contributed to debunking the long-​held view of the superiority of standard English and native-​ speakerism (Pennycook 2020). As a result, many English practitioners accept or acknowledge that nonstandard or local English varieties are not inferior but equal to those used in English-​speaking countries. However, it is also true that in many EFL contexts including South Korea, there is still a strong desire to teach and learn standard English in school and society, which attests that such an equalizing concept of ELF and WE remains only in the academia and some in curriculum rhetoric but can be hardly seen in the classroom and social practices. According to Lee (2018), an examination of research trends in applied linguistics in Korea, there are only a few studies on ELF, EIL/​EGL, and/​or WE during the period from 2008 to 2017. Furthermore, most of these studies focused on students’ and teachers’ perceptions of or/​and attitudes towards English varieties, pronunciation in particular, and the speakers (e.g., Ahn 2014; Park 2009a, 2012; Park and Jang 2018; Sung 2018). Given the lack of inclusion of ELF and WE in both research and curricular and instructional practices this paper investigates the current state of English language teaching (ELT) in Korea from the perspectives of ELF and WE by focusing on the 2015 Revised English Curriculum (NEC), which is being revised into the 2022 version now, Korean teachers’ and learners’ perceptions of English and its varieties, and more importantly, the current practices of DOI: 10.4324/9781003391463-8

ELT in South Korea from the perspectives of ELF and WE  83 hiring and training both Korean and foreign English teachers. In doing so, key issues and concerns related to these three areas are discussed and some suggestions are made to resolve major problems in order to align curricular directions, instructional practices, and teacher education into more future-​ oriented English teaching and learning in South Korea as well as many other similar ELT contexts. ELF and WE issues in Korea ELF and WE in National English Curriculums (NECs)

Throughout the history of ELT in Korea, there have been numerous developments in National English Curriculums (NECs), in particular, mostly in a top-​down manner by the Ministry of Education of Korea since the Liberation of Korea in 1945. There had been seven phases of curricular revisions between the mid-​ 1950s and 1990s, which were followed by the three curriculums further revised in 2007, 2009, and 2015 based on the 7th National Curriculum (Korea Institute for Curriculum & Evaluation; KICE 2022) and National Curriculum Information Center (NCIC).2 With globalization in the 1990s, English has been considered one of the key subjects in enhancing the nation’s international competitiveness. For example, the 2007 Revised NEC viewed English ability as a key in coping with the rapid changes in the globalized world and reflected the idea of ELF. In the 2022 Revised NEC, such a view is still maintained as enhancement of learners’ English communication competency is stated as the ultimate goal. That is, English is considered the most widely used means of communication to acquire diverse information, appreciate cultural diversity, creatively express their own thoughts, and interact collaboratively with participants in the English-​speaking community (Ministry of Education; MOE 2022: 3) On a positive side, the NEC serves as the milestone for all elementary and secondary educational programs and activities, prescribing educational goals, instructional contents and teaching approaches and methods, and evaluation criteria. Despite such revisions, however, no clear curricular direction has been provided on how English should be viewed in terms of its status and roles other than superficial descriptions of its importance in the globalized world. That is, little attention has been paid to reflect ELF perspectives in instructional materials and classroom teaching, which perpetuates the view of English as a foreign language (EFL) or one of the key subjects for the College Scholastic Aptitude Test (Ko 2017). More seriously, there had not been any mention of how teachers and learners should deal with diverse Englishes in the world, which contradicts its curricular objectives of respecting other people and their culture. In other words, the 2022 Revised NEC merely includes the description of the wide use of English in the world in a tacit manner (MOE 2022). Such a passing reference completely distorts the fact that English is used as a lingua franca for international communication between people who have different linguacultural backgrounds. Relatedly, no ‘one standard English’ exists in reality and diverse varieties of English are used in various

84  Joo-Kyung Park and Kiwan Sung contexts as legitimate, dynamic, and fluid means of communication for specific purposes globally and locally. Having not acknowledged the existence of multiple varieties of English and ELF, the NECs of Korea have failed in raising critical awareness of understanding and using ELF and WE for both English teachers and learners who continue to hold the view of American English (AmE hereafter) as the most ideal and desirable variety (Lee et al. 2013; Sung 2018, 2019). The continuing preoccupation of AmE is most conspicuous in the guideline of developing nationally endorsed or reviewed textbooks. English textbooks are written by college professors and school teachers with the support of local publishers and then they are reviewed and authorized by the KICE on behalf of the MOE in Korea. More specifically, the 2015 English textbook writing guidelines by KICE stipulate that English in textbooks should be ‘natural’ and ‘authentic’ standard varieties currently used in English-​speaking countries (MOE and KICE 2015) as Table 6.1 shows. The phrases such as ‘standard varieties in English-​ speaking countries’ and ‘the speakers of English in the countries where English is used as a daily means of communication’ seem to allow plurilingual presentations of English but only within Kachruvian inner circle countries (Kachru 1985). Therefore, the NEC does not encourage both textbook writers and teachers and learners to be exposed to Englishes from the outer circle (e.g., Indian English, Singaporean English, Hong Kong English), let alone ELF used in the expanding circle as well as among people across different ‘circles’. As a matter of fact, due to the historical and economic ties with the U.S. since Korea’s Liberation, AmE is considered the most-​coveted form of English and has been included as ‘the instructional target’ in all the textbooks for all levels. AmE has never failed to be a single model of English taught and tested in Korea since the First National Curriculum period (1955–​1962) (Moon 2005, cited in Park and Kim 2014).

Table 6.1 2015 English textbook development guidelines and evaluation criteria Course material development guidelines

Course material evaluation criteria

1. English expressions should be the ones in standard varieties currently used in English-​speaking countries and that are natural and authentic.* 2. The contents should be the ones that are helpful for understanding diverse cultures in the world.* 3. The contents are to be used for introducing Korean culture.**

1. Are there any errors or mistakes in terms of English vocabulary, expressions, and language forms? 2. Are the vocabulary and expressions appropriate and natural to the situations and properly presented according to the level of the school year? 3. Are there any expressions that are unnatural or awkward from the perspective of the speakers of English in the countries where English is used as a daily means of communication?

* For elementary, middle, and high school textbook. ** For middle and high school textbooks only (MOE & KICE 2015).

ELT in South Korea from the perspectives of ELF and WE  85 Despite the curricula intention of including diverse Englishes in the 2015 revised NEC and the 2022 version, critical problems exist in successful implementation of new policies and approaches regarding ELF and WE. First, most Korean stakeholders in ELT have very superficial awareness of WE and ELF. For example, though Korean teachers and learners of English acknowledge all Englishes are equal, they contradict themselves by opting out to teach and learn AmE or even think that being exposed to WE early will negatively impact learning ‘proper’ English (Lee et al. 2013; Sung 2018, 2019). Such short-​sighted views are mainly due to their lack of real-​life experience of international and multicultural interactions and transactions (Park and Jang 2018). Therefore, it is necessary to provide more ELF experience for Korean EFL learners to engage in negotiated interaction with people from different linguacultural backgrounds in the superdiverse and multilingual world (Lee 2016, 2017). Second, Korean students have a limited amount of exposure to ELF and WE during their school years. They have about 773 hours of English classroom instruction in total in elementary and secondary schools, which makes it almost impossible to experience diverse English due to heavy reliance on textbooks and exams (Jeon, Lee and Kim 2011). The 2015 Revised NEC actually acknowledges that Korea is an EFL context where English is not used as the means of daily life communication and the opportunities of using English outside of classrooms are very limited. Accordingly, in order to overcome such limitations, the curricular guidelines emphasize maximizing the use of English in class by teaching English through English (TEE), student-​centered approaches based on communicative language teaching (CLT), and multimedia and information communication technology (ICT). However, such guidelines have not brought substantial changes in actual teaching practices in school due to long-​lasting criticisms against the ineffectiveness of English education in public schools, proliferation of private English tutoring to prepare learners for high-​stakes exams, and many extracurricular English programs in which native English-​speaking teachers (NESTs) are preferred. Last, Korea is well known for ‘education fever’, which used to serve as the necessary good for the development and success of individuals and the nation and has now somewhat been distorted to ‘English fever’ (Park 2009)3 as English (most probably AmE) becomes ‘social capital’ (Bourdieu and Boltanski 1977) in entering top universities, studying abroad, and securing highly paid jobs. As a matter of fact, ‘The English Divide’ (Salomone 2022) between the haves and the have-​nots has been a serious social problem in Korea due to the high cost of private tutoring domestically and sending wives and children to English-​ speaking countries for study-​abroad, which costs a fortune, let alone splitting families as described in the terms ‘geese, eagle, or penguin fathers’4 (Kang 2012). Regarding such a frenzy over English, the MOE and KICE have not implemented or suggested any countermeasures to alleviate such distorted social phenomena and seemed to repeat an ideal rhetoric of valuing diverse English as equal regardless of realities in the classroom and the whole society. It is well documented and also true that the spread of English is due to colonialism in the 19th century to the first half of the 20th century and neocolonial

86  Joo-Kyung Park and Kiwan Sung influences in the 2000s (Phillipson 2009). The seemingly everlasting and predominant preference for AmE is also due to the economic and military power the U.S. has possessed since World War II (Park and Jang 2018). Teaching only one type of English, that is, AmE, in this superdiverse world is a serious problem as such one-​sided teaching not only betrays the curricular goals and objectives of understanding others to become global citizens but also limits both teachers and learners to experience WE and ELF communication, which is more frequently and dominantly used in the outer and expanding circles. Accordingly, the hidden ideology of AmE as the only acceptable variety should be debunked as soon as possible so that young learners of English should not develop negative attitudes towards non-​American English varieties, including their own, Korea English (KE).5 In the same vein, new guidelines for English materials and evaluation in school should be developed for Korean English teachers and learners to be exposed to more ELF contexts and WE early enough so that they are more competent in understanding and communicating with the peoples around the world. The inclusion of ELF and WE in curriculum, instruction, and materials development guidelines will complement the current gap in promoting diverse international cultures in contrast to the previous versions which focused only on ‘yeongmi munhwa’ or American and British cultures. In other words, given that one of the goals of learning English in Korea is to introduce Korean culture to others, understand other cultures, and communicate with diverse speakers of English in the world, exposing Korean learners of English to different varieties of English other than AmE helps them become more versatile in interacting with other users of WE and/​or ELF, which attests to the fact that English is owned by its users, not by its origin or regions as assumed for long in traditional linguistics and language teaching practices. Korean English teachers’ perceptions of ELF and WE

Teachers’ own understanding of and attitudes toward target language and its speakers greatly influence their students’ views; it is, therefore, very important to examine what attitudes Korean English teachers (KETs) have toward ELF, WE, and the speakers of different varieties. With the increased awareness of changing roles of English, the call for the inclusion of ELF and ELF-​related research began only after the late 2000s in Korea. Chung (2010), for example, after carefully examining Jenkins’ Lingua Franca Core model (2000), called for a more systematic teaching of English pronunciation, considering the local Korean context. Relatedly, Chung (2013) argued that ELF model (Jenkins 2000) should be provided for teaching English pronunciation only in a receptive manner for less proficient levels of learners because the model does not fully consider stress and intonation of NESs, which are regarded as important for beginners, and that scholars also do not agree on its inclusion in teaching. However, he also suggests that it is necessary to expose learners to ELF, especially proficient English learners who need to use it more productively.

ELT in South Korea from the perspectives of ELF and WE  87 Kang and Lee (2012) looked into 112 KETs’ views on lexical and grammatical features of ELF using a survey and reported that the teachers had reservations in accepting such features in English class. Shim (2015b) examined the extent of inclusion of ELF features in the dialogues and reading passages in 21 middle school English textbooks in Korea and reported that there was serious lack of the dialogues between non-​Korean ESL or EFL speakers. Furthermore, AmE accent was predominant in audio materials regardless of the speakers’ or narrators’ national and cultural identities. She asserted that despite the inclusion of diverse topics and interesting issues in the contents, not enough instructional guidelines are provided for teachers to help raise learners’ awareness of intercultural communication in view of ELF. In sum, there is a serious dearth of research on ELF involving KETs. The same is true of research on Korean English learners’ (KELs) attitudes or perceptions of ELF and/​or common grammatical features of ELF (e.g., Choi 2011; Lim and Hwang 2019; Shin 2021; Lee 2020) Park and Jang (2018) reported that studies on KETs and KELs’ perceptions and attitudes toward English varieties during the past decade or so showed one similar result: AmE supremacy with a varying degree of understanding of EIL or WE. In her questionnaire survey of elementary school teachers, No (2006) reported that the majority of the 122 participants (68%) valued more ‘English competence’ as a crucial qualification requirement for English teachers regardless of their nationalities or ethnic backgrounds. However, they preferred those speakers from the Inner Circle countries, Americans in particular. Other studies are in line with the studies above as the KETs and KELs predominantly favored AmE over other varieties (Choe 2007; Choi 2007; Dean 2010; Lee 2012; Park 2009a, 2012; Song 2017; Sung 2018, 2019; Ryu 2010), which results from historical ties with the U.S. and exclusive exposure to AmE since South Korea’s Liberation in 1945 (Choe 2007; Chung 2010; Park 2009a). Tokumoto and Shibata (2011) claimed that Japanese and Korean learners of English have negative attitudes toward their own accents. The KETs were strongly entrenched in ‘native-​speakerism’, which negatively influenced their perceptions and understanding of English varieties, speakers of English varieties, and themselves as English teachers and users and, eventually, led to a low professional self-​esteem (Kim 2011, see also Jenkins 2007). They devalue their own English competence and lack confidence in themselves as users of English. Park (2009b) confirmed that such unreal views on English speakers from English-​speaking countries and AmE actually disqualify and demoralize KETs as a good role model for English speakers. However, the term ‘native English speakers (NES)’ is a misnomer and no consensus exists at all regarding who they are and how effective or superior they are as English teachers compared to their counterparts (e.g., Canagarajah 1999; Kubota and Lin 2006; Kumaravadivelu 2016) Some studies, however, report on some positive and gradual changes. Park (2012), for instance, revealed some positive attitudes observed among the secondary school KETs toward international varieties of English as an instructional target in addition to AmE. The most recent studies (Ahn 2014; Ahn and Lee 2013; Park and Kim 2017; Shim 2015a; Sung 2018, 2019) show even further changes

88  Joo-Kyung Park and Kiwan Sung in KETs and KELs’ perceptions of WE including their own variety of English, KE, although the majority of them still prefer NES models. Preservice English teachers in Lee (2013) viewed English as an international language and its ownership belongs to its users. Shim (2015a) also found out that Korean secondary English teachers (KSETs) generally showed receptive attitudes toward different accents in WE. Although preferring the NES model, they agreed on the necessity of teaching WE in class. In order to examine any changes that occurred in the local Korean residents’ attitudes toward nonnative English-​ speaking teachers (NNESTs), Park and Kim (2017) interviewed Filipino English teachers who participated in a Korean government-​funded TESOL program in Gwangju, Korea, in 2009 and 2010 and have been teaching English in the city since then. The researchers reported that these Filipino teachers felt more positively perceived by the local residents than before as there were more opportunities to interact with each other. However, some Filipino teachers were learning AmE at an English pronunciation clinic offered by the local Filipino English Teachers Association as part of their professional development in order to meet their Korean students’ and parents’ expectations of learning AmE. Sung (2018) reported that despite their willingness to include WE in their teaching, Korean secondary preservice English teachers worried about their lack of knowledge of and experience in WE, unclear curricular directions, difficulties in evaluating learners, and increase in learning contents. In Sung (2019), Korean elementary preservice English teachers suggested that young learners should be exposed to proper English at first and WE can be introduced at secondary levels. Park and Jang (2018) also found out that while Korean elementary and secondary preservice English teachers acknowledge the importance and value of English varieties including KE, they still preferred Inner Circle varieties, AmE more precisely, and considered NESTs as ideal models. Though these preservice teachers thought their English pronunciation was good and intelligible enough, they were not satisfied because theirs was not close to that of NESTs. They were also more positive toward EIL and WE and said that they could understand them better. Park and Jang (2018) reported that having taken EIL classes turned out to be the most influential factor on the informants’ attitudes towards English varieties and ELF communication, while having overseas experience in the Inner and Outer Circles influenced their confidence in understanding diverse English pronunciation the most. In sum, though there are a few studies on EIL and WE conducted over the last two decades in Korea, most of these studies remain at conceptual levels or have focused on teacher and learner perceptions of varieties of English but not necessarily ELF. Accordingly, it is imperative to conduct more empirical research on ELF and WE and educate both in-​service and preservice English teachers on how to include them in their teaching practices. English teacher education programs

Both pre-​and in-​service teacher education programs for English teachers in Korea are offered under the direction of the MOE and KICE in Korea. Preservice teachers

ELT in South Korea from the perspectives of ELF and WE  89 have to acquire the second-​degree official English teacher license at teachers’ colleges or colleges which offer teacher-​licensure programs evaluated regularly by Korea Educational Development Institute (KEDI) in order to maintain their admission quota.6 As for in-​service teachers, a variety of professional development programs and workshops are offered by the MOE and local educational offices. However, in order to acquire the first-​degree official English teacher license, the teachers who have passed the National Teacher Employment Exams to teach at public or nonpublic schools and then have worked for three years or more are mandated to attend in-​service teacher development programs offered by provincial or local educational offices for about four weeks and more than 100 hours. Through such programs, these teachers are expected to equip themselves with proper understanding of new educational policies, new and innovative teaching approaches, diverse teaching strategies and technological tools, and hands-​on skills to utilize in class. In addition, these teachers are offered with some programs related to teacher leadership, classroom management, reflective teaching, etc. (e.g., Gyeonggi-​do Institute for Language Education).7 Studies on teacher education for Korean teachers of English revealed that preservice teacher education programs lack TEE-​related8 courses, classroom-​based, student-​centered courses, and teaching practicum (Min and Park 2013). In-​service teacher education programs do not meet the trainees’ expectations of improving their English communicative skills and classroom teaching abilities (Oh 2012; Park 2008), either. In addition, some major issues and concerns exist in English teacher education as follows: the Korean government policy and financial support for teacher education are inconsistent; there is a lack of retraining opportunities for in-​service teachers; there is a lack of qualified teacher educators (Park 2006); and there is a lack of teachers’ willingness to participate in continuous teacher education and professional development programs (Park and Jang 2018). Most of all, many Korean EFL teachers perceive that they do not have enough English proficiency and confidence in using it (Sung-​Ae Kim 2002; Sung-​Yeon Kim 2002, cited in Park 2019b), which are mainly due to drawbacks of teacher education programs mentioned above and the influence of native-​speakerism (Kim 2011; Park 2008, 2019b). English language skill courses in both preservice and in-​service programs in Korea are mostly taught by NESTs who are not necessarily ELT specialists. NESTs came into Korea mainly through the two Korean Government programs, English Program in Korea (EPIK) and Teach and Learn in Korea (TaLK).9 EPIK was established in 1995 with the recruitment of 54 native English-​ speaking assistant teachers (NESATs) from English-​speaking countries. The EPIK teachers are officially called NESATs because they are employed to coteach with Korean teachers and cannot teach alone in class. According to Lee (2022), there were steady increases in the number of NESATs since then, which reached 1017 in 2005. However, it was during the Lee Myung Bak Administration (2008~2013) that more than 4330 were hired in 2008, which was almost doubled to 8546 in 2010. More than 7770 NESATs on average were hired during this administration in order to support the administration’s policies to provide better English public education by narrowing gaps in English education (ibid.). According to Public Data

90  Joo-Kyung Park and Kiwan Sung Portal (2022), National Institute for International Education (NIIED), which is the official recruiting agency, has hired a total of 8935 NESATs since 2014 and the maximum number was 1324 in 2018, while the lowest was only 839 teachers in 2020 probably due to COVID-​19. Its missions are as follows: • To foster primary and secondary students’ English communication ability in the age of information and globalization • To provide English conversation training to public English teachers • To develop English textbooks and teaching materials • To improve and expand English teaching methodologies • To encourage cultural awareness between Koreans and EPIK teachers • To enhance Korea’s image abroad (https://​epik.go.kr). Table 6.2 shows the qualification requirements of EPIK teachers and their job descriptions. Furthermore, thanks to the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) between India and the Republic of Korea, which came into force on January 1, 2010, the first (and the last) Indian English teacher was hired by a small private school in North Jeolla Province in September 2010 (Kang 2010). Although some cautiously raised concerns that it may be difficult for students to understand an Indian English accent, the school students, parents, and other fellow teachers responded

Table 6.2 Eligibility and duties of EPIK teachers Eligibility

Duties

-​ Be a citizen of a country where English is the primary language: EPIK teachers must be citizens of one of the following countries: Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, United Kingdom, United States, or South Africa.* Under the CEPA agreement, Indian citizens are eligible for positions if they meet all other requirements and hold a teacher’s license in English. -​ Hold a minimum of a Bachelor’s degree from an accredited university -​ Be mentally and physically healthy -​ Have a good command of the English language -​ Have the ability and willingness to adapt to Korean culture and life

-​ To assist Korean teachers with their English classes and/​or jointly conduct English classes with Korean teachers and/​or extracurricular activities or English camps. -​ To conduct English conversation classes for Korean students and teachers. -​ To prepare teaching materials for English language education. -​ To assist in developing teaching materials for English language education. -​ To assist with activities related to English language education and other extracurricular activities. -​ To demonstrate a good command of the English language, both written and spoken. -​ To perform other duties as specified by your MOE/​POE.

Source: EPIK (2019).

ELT in South Korea from the perspectives of ELF and WE  91 positively to the Indian teacher. The salary for Indian teachers, however, was set much lower than that of those from the seven countries (i.e., U.S., Canada, U.K., Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa) that are named as providing native English speakers. After 2010, no more Indian English teachers were hired. This again seems to be part of the evidence for the deep-​rooted native speakerism in ELT in Korea. The only requirement regarding EPIK teachers’ academic credentials is to hold a minimum of a bachelor’s degree from an accredited university, regardless of their field of studies. Applicants with a two -​year associate degree or who have completed a minimum of two years in university can apply to the TaLK program. Those who have a teaching license, B.Ed., M.Ed., or majored in Teaching, TESOL, Second Language Studies, or any forms of Education (Physical Education, Math Education, etc.) are not required to have a TEFL/​TESOL/​CELTA certificate. This shows the lack of understanding of ELT as a professional field among government officials as well as their false faith that any native speaker of English can teach English. Park and Kim (2014) summarized the major issues and concerns raised in regard to NESTs and EPIK in the literature (Park 2008; Park et al. 2010) as follows: (1) the job description for NESTs, which is to serve as teachers, teacher trainers, and assistant teacher is not well matched with their qualification requirements which focus on ‘being a native speaker’ not on ‘being a professional teacher’; (2) the notion of ‘native speaker’ that policy makers have is confined to the ‘inner circle (Kachru 1985) only’, and it has a possible danger of ‘hidden agenda’, disregarding and disrespecting other English speakers; (3) there is a lack of pre-​and in-​service training for NESTs in general, and in particular, lack of training for both Korean teachers of English (KTEs) and NESTs for effective collaboration; (4) both KTEs and NESTs lack intercultural understanding, communication, and hands-​on skills to effectively conduct ‘team-​teaching’; (5) NESTs are marginalized by being assigned to teach classes unrelated to the curriculum (Nam 2011) or extracurricular classes with no test, which results in students’ misbehavior, disrespect, and demotivation; (6) KTEs are intimidated and face-​ lost by being paired up with NESTs whose English language and cultural competence, based on NES norms, are superior, and there is no proper training for KTEs to work with them, let alone any incentives for taking on this risky job; and (7) Korean administrators at schools lack professional management skills due to deficiencies in communicative ability in English, intercultural understanding, and understanding of ELT as a professional discipline. TaLK program was implemented in 2008 as part of the incoming Lee Myung Bak Administration’s key policies as English was viewed as an important language for national competitiveness in the globalized world but was also one of the main causes of widening the gap between the rich and the poor (Lee 2022). In other words, English has been criticized as one of key subjects like math and science, for which parents have to spend a high proportion of their income on private tutoring after school hours. Therefore, the government initiated ‘Measures to Improve the Quality of English Education and Resolve the Gap’ (MOE 2008), under which two key policies were enacted. First, the TaLK program to secure collegiate and Korean

92  Joo-Kyung Park and Kiwan Sung descents from English-​speaking countries and dispatch them to all the schools including the ones in rural areas. Second, the government-​initiated development of the National English Ability Test (NEAT) in 2008 in order to test four skills in English. In fact, the NEAT was to replace the College Scholastic Aptitude Test, in which only listening and reading skills are included. However, this plan was scrapped in 2012 partly due to the concern over excessive private education (Lee 2022) and also due to the end of the government’s term. The number of TaLK scholarship recipients peaked at more than 1190 in 2010 but had dwindled to 447 in 2020 and 227 in 2021. The TaLK recipients were placed in four different cities and all eight provinces in 2010, whereas they were placed in only one city and four provinces in 2020. The majority of these recipients were from the U.S., Canada, and South Africa over the years, while there were only a few from the other English-​speaking countries, 45 from the U.K., Australia, New Zealand, and Ireland out of 447 recipients in 2020 (Public Data Portal 2022), and none either from ‘Outer or Expanding Circle’ countries. It can be argued that both EPIK and TaLK have contributed positively in providing much-​needed access to NESTs for Korean learners of English and also for KETs whose target language proficiency was lower and who lacked cultural knowledge of and experience in target culture. However, these NESTs were predominantly from four English-​speaking countries including the U.S., the U.K., South Africa, and Canada (n =​8414, 94.167%) among 8935 NESATs recruited by NIIED since 2014 (Public Data Portal 2022). Such skewedness attests that there was the lack of the government’s direction and vision on what kinds of English should be taught and used in the future. Moreover, there seems to be lack of appropriate training for the NESATs recruited. There are 15-​hour online preorientation before or right after school placement, 30-​to 45-​hour-​long main and additional orientations after the arrival, and 15-​ hour online in-​ service training (https://​ epik.go.kr). A qualitative study by Lee and Yin (2021) reports the lack of proper training to conduct coteaching, which causes both misunderstanding and conflicts with KETs. Ahn and Shim (2017) observed that the NESTs were having difficulties in school due to insufficient teacher training, different culture of teaching, unclear directions on coteaching, and limited opportunities to communicate and to seek support inside and outside school. Kang and Lee (2016) more seriously and poignantly view that effective coteaching was not possible because both KETs and NESTs were entrenched in their superiority. The former thought that they had higher qualifications for teaching and better understanding of the learners’ needs, while the latter said they use more student-​centered, creative teaching methods to develop learners’ critical thinking skills. Discussion and conclusion In order to investigate the current state of ELT in Korea from the perspectives of ELF and WE, this paper examined the representation of ELF and WE in the NEC of Korea, KETs’ and KELs’ perceptions of ELF and WE, and English teacher education programs including EPIK and TaLK scholarship programs, the Korean

ELT in South Korea from the perspectives of ELF and WE  93 government program of recruiting NESTs or NESATs, and the various stakeholders’ views on them. First, it was found out that the 2022 Revised NEC tacitly states the role of English in view of ELF, while the 2015 version does the same about WE. However, both NECs seem to fail in providing a clear direction regarding how to include ELF and WE in the curriculum, instructional approaches and methods, and evaluation, which will continue to reinforce the preoccupation of AmE in ELT in Korea. Such an ambivalent direction indicates the lack of understanding of the realities that diverse Englishes and ELF are used among people from different linguacultural backgrounds. Second, studies on Korean teachers’ perceptions of ELF and WE also show the ever-​present preference for AmE over other English varieties, even though they acknowledge ELF or WE. Such phenomena obviously stem from a long legacy of the U.S. influence over Korea, the public’s zeal for learning AmE perceived as the language of power country, and negative attitudes toward nonwhite speakers of English (Kang and Lee 2012; No 2006; Park 2009a, 2009b; Park and Jang 2018; Park and Kim 2017; Shim 2015a, 2015b; Tokumoto and Shibata 2011). However, there seem to be some positive changes: there is a call for legitimizing Korea English (Park, K 2009) and some studies report that preservice English teachers thought that learners should be taught in a way that they can be exposed to different varieties of English and value them (Park and Jang 2018; Sung 2018, 2019). Third, it is quite concerning that the MOE still mandates recruitment of NESTs from English-​speaking countries or Korean origins from the Inner Circle countries. Though an effort was made to include those from India, one of the Outer Circle countries, no substantial improvement in recruitment policies has been made. Furthermore, there have been constant problems in providing adequate training for these NESTs, let alone in developing effective instructional programs to offer good team teaching by the NESTs and KETs (Ahn and Shim 2017; Kang and Lee 2016; Lee and Yin 2021). Despite some positive changes in curricular directions and teachers’ and learners’ perceptions of the users of ELF and WE, not much improvement has been made regarding hiring practices of foreign English teachers as evidenced by the EPIK and TaLK programs. Hiring Indian English teachers was done only once in 2010 and they were not fairly treated, either (Lee 2022). Some serious and yet unspoken racial hierarchy exists between the KETs and NESTs. While KETs envy NESTs’ English abilities and their cultural knowledge, they view that NESTs do not understand well the Korean learners’ needs as well as teaching skills (Lee 2021). In this regard, both KETS and NESTs are entrenched in native-​speakerism and essentialize each other’s abilities, which seriously affect collegial relationships among themselves (Kang and Lee 2016). Therefore, such discriminatory hiring practices should be eradicated and more inclusive policies should be implemented in order to recruit highly qualified English teachers, based on their ELT credentials not based on their origins or ethnic backgrounds. Inclusion of the speakers of ELF and WE from diverse countries as English teachers can serve as a gateway for Korean stakeholders to a true understanding of substantial roles of ELF and WE in different sociocultural contexts in various

94  Joo-Kyung Park and Kiwan Sung regions. In other words, Korean learners of English can develop more positive attitudes toward KE as well as other varieties of English and ELF through exposure to diverse Englishes and ELF communication and realize the importance of communicative effectiveness using such varieties instead of blindly admiring or learning native-​like accents at word level (Ahn 2014, cited in Park and Jang 2018). It was also suggested that the conditions for adopting the EGL10 perspective include adjusting the definition of one’s own language, endorsing one’s own identity as a global citizen, asserting the ownership of a language as its user, and taking interest in establishing relationships and communicating with members of global community (Ko 2017). ELT in Korea has made some significant progress and development in terms of setting goals of teaching English in conjunction with culture, developing instructional methodologies with a variety of teaching and learning strategies and activities, and producing course contents and materials. However, what lacks the most is the change in the Korean stakeholders’ perceptions of ELF and attitudes toward English varieties and speakers. The 2022 Revised NEC states the roles and the functions of English from ELF or WE perspective but not present are concrete curricular and instructional directions of how to include ELF or WE in content, teaching and learning activities, and evaluation guidelines. It seems that English education in Korea is still deeply rooted in the EFL perspective and native-​ speakerism. Accordingly, more realistic changes in the terrain of English education in Korea are imperative as follows: First, more courses should be offered on ELF and WE in both pre-​and in-​service elementary and secondary teacher education programs so that Korean teacher trainees can be aware of the importance and understanding of diverse Englishes and ELF. In these courses, they should be also equipped with abilities to develop relevant and effective instruction skills and materials so that they can help KELs to be more versatile with diverse Englishes and cultures in the world. Second, more research on ELF and WE is needed at all school levels and more special interest groups (SIGs) on ELF and WE need to be organized in ELT associations in Korea, who can then work jointly with international researchers and research groups of ELF and WE. In addition, Korean ELT associations can invite scholars or experts in such fields to their domestic and international conferences. Last but not least, it is rather urgent to conduct more research on ELF and WE and to include them in ELT in Korea and many other similar educational contexts. Key policymakers, curriculum and materials developers, central and local educational officials, and researchers on ELF and WE should have constructive dialogues and engage in responsible acts to implement relevant policies and practices for KETs to espouse positive views in teaching ELF or WE. In doing so, KELs can be freed from distorted views of English and its speakers and become responsible citizens of the world who have positive views on other languages and cultures, with the gap being filled between the curriculum rhetoric, classroom reality, and social practice and the goal of teaching and learning English in Korea being achieved.

ELT in South Korea from the perspectives of ELF and WE  95 Notes 1 The earlier version of this chapter was published in Park (2019a). In this chapter, the concept and research work on World Englishes (WE) are added given that the concept of ELF is ‘an ideological and linguistic extension of WE’ (Jenkins 2017: 12) and has ‘shared ideological underpinnings’ (ibid) with WE. Accordingly, we agreed that research on ELF and WE is complementary rather than competing as she eloquently explained. 2 The key functions of KICE are to research, develop, and implement national curriculums for elementary and secondary education in Korea, the teaching and learning policies, methods, and materials, national and international student assessment, textbook policies and authorization for quality control on the development and distribution of textbooks, College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT), and national level tests (KICE 2019). Check further information at Korea Institute for Curriculum & Evaluation (KICE; www.kice.re.kr/​ main.do?s=​engl​ish 2022) and National Curriculum Information Center (NCIC; http://​ ncic.re.kr/​engl​ish.kri.org.invent​oryL​ist). 3 See Jin-​Kyu Park (2009) for a detailed description of ‘English fever.’ 4 The ‘goose father’ nickname refers to the seasonal visits made by the fathers to their faraway families, the way geese migrate every year. ‘Eagle fathers’ are men wealthy enough to visit at will, while ‘penguin fathers’ have no idea when the next reunion will take place (Kang 2012). 5 Kyungja Park proposed to use the term ‘Korea English’ (KE) rather than either Korean English or Konglish. ‘KE refers to the spoken English used by most educated Korean speakers when communicating internationally as well as intranationally. It has common cores of normative English with Korean traits and nuances in pronunciation, lexicon, syntax, and discourse, distinct from other types of English. This variety of English is called “glocalized English” (GlcE)’ (Park, K 2009:94, cited in Park and Kim 2014). 6 Korea Educational Development Institute (KEDI; www.kedi.re.kr/​khome/​main/​webh​ ome/​Home.do 7 See www.gifle.go.kr/​index.go?isIn​dex=​Y [in Korean]. 8 TEE, a policy of an obligatory use of classroom English, was adopted in 2001 (Park 2019b). 9 EPIK teachers teach English at regular school hours, while TaLK teachers teach English in after-​school classes at elementary schools. A completed bachelor’s degree and at least 2-​year undergraduate studies are required for EPIK and TaLK applicants, respectively. For further information, see www.epik.go.kr and www.gon​e2ko​rea.com/​ talk-​teach-​and-​learn-​in-​korea/​ 10 It seems that EGL or English as a global language was used as an English translation of the Korean term ‘gukjeeoroseoui yeongeo,’ which is used interchangeably with EIL, ELF, and/​or WE in Korea.

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7 Applied linguistics in Japan from BELF perspectives Hajime Terauchi, Sayako Maswana, and Hisashi Naito

Development of applied linguistics research in the Japan Association of Applied Linguistics (JAAL) In 2018, the editors of AILA Review, Perrin and Kramsch, stated the mission of applied linguistics, emphasizing the importance of transdisciplinary research as follows: Crossing boundaries between disciplines, research fields, and epistemologies has long been considered a promising way to get to grips with real-​world problems. First formulated in the early 1960s in pedagogy and natural sciences, principles of transdisciplinarity have always been at the core of applied linguistics. […] (the collection of transdisciplinary research) provides inspiration for those interested in collaborating with practitioners when doing research. (AILA Review Volume 31, description) According to Perrin and Whitehouse (2020: 4), transdisciplinary action research aims at theoretically grounded and systematic collaboration between researchers and practitioners. Perrin and Whitehouse (2019: 10) showed that combining applied linguistics with transdisciplinarity can result in advantages on the following two levels: (a) from a product perspective, collaborating with practitioners benefits both practical and theoretical outcomes, and (b) from a process perspective, applied linguists’ knowledge of mediating between languages enables and intensifies collaboration with practitioners throughout research projects. Perrin and Whitehouse’s point is applicable to research on business communication in Japan. In fact, applied linguists in a Japanese association of applied linguists called the Japan Association of College English Teachers (JACET) have made numerous research attempts collaborating with business practitioners, and the current research is one of such efforts. Here, let us briefly introduce JACET and its activities from the perspectives of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) and English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) research to better understand the context of applied linguistics research in Japan. JACET was founded as an independent organization in 1962 at the time of educational reform in Japan in order to improve the state of English language education (see JACET DOI: 10.4324/9781003391463-9

Applied linguistics in Japan from BELF perspectives  101 2022; Terauchi 2015). Those involved were strongly convinced of the need to solve university-​level English-​teaching problems that are, after all, related to teaching at all levels in the educational system. When JACET’s membership grew from the initial 120 members in 1962 to 1150 in 1982 (2153 members in 2022), it initiated steps to becoming an AILA Affiliate. After a two-​year period of preparation, the then president of JACET, Dr. Ikuo Koike, requested the acceptance of JACET as an AILA Affiliate member at the 1984 AILA International Board Meeting in Brussels, and JACET formally became an Affiliate of the Japan Association of Applied Linguistics (JAAL) in JACET. Since then, JACET has played an important role as an AILA Affiliate. As AILA has a rule of “One Country, One Organization,” the JAAL in JACET has promoted applied linguistics in Japan for about 40 years. For example, JACET held the JAAL in JACET Annual Convention until 1996, annually publishing the JAAL Bulletin. However, since 2001, the main activities of the JAAL in JACET have become limited to SIG research, with the JAAL in JACET Special Committee being integrated with the International Affairs Committee of JACET. In preparation for the 12th World Congress of Applied Linguistics (AILA ‘99 Tokyo) in 1999, JACET encouraged its members to establish special interest groups (SIGs), and as a result, in 1999 there were 42 SIGs compared to 25 in 1994. Since then, these SIGs have continued to play an important role in research covering almost all areas of applied linguistics, among which ESP and ELF SIGs are directly related to the theme of the current chapter. The ESP SIGs, among other active SIGs, are noteworthy for their presence in four (once five) chapters of JACET. The JACET ESP Kanto was founded first in 1996. Around this time, ESP gained scholarly attention as a result of the growing demand for ESP programs at universities in response to the Deregulation of University Act in 1991, which made the university system more flexible, enabling universities to respond quickly to the needs of society. In 2008, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) in Japan published “Building Undergraduate Education,” which called for the development of students’ language abilities to study specialized areas in undergraduate education, resulting in further promotion of ESP programs (Sugiyama 2021). As English has become more of a global lingua franca and ELF research increases, the ELF SIG was established in 2016 and has significantly contributed to the understanding of ELF in Japan through its journal and international workshops. In recent years, research in English for business purposes, one of the major areas in ESP, has started to conduct research integrating the ELF perspective known as Business English as a Lingua Franca (BELF). With ESP SIG members, including the current authors, and other researchers in JACET, two large-​scale transdisciplinary research projects on Japanese people’s business communication have been conducted in collaboration with the Institute for International Business Communication (IIBC). IIBC has channels to bring together applied linguists and business practitioners, which is difficult for outside researchers to obtain due to corporate compliance barriers. The research outcomes were expected to be practical, which included the development of BELF language training materials. In the first research, Koike and Terauchi (2010) conducted a

102  Hajime Terauchi, Sayako Maswana, and Hisashi Naito questionnaire survey in 2006 about the following three points: (1) the demand for English in the age of globalization, (2) the importance of English in the internationalization of companies, and (3) the English proficiency required of Japanese people in these contexts. The survey targeted people who were engaged in or had work experience using English and those who used English frequently such as those who had traveled overseas for business, totaling 7354 respondents. The results showed that those who use English in their work believe that high English proficiency and negotiation skills are necessary and that there was a huge gap between actual and ideal English proficiency. In the second research, Terauchi et al. (2015) conducted questionnaire and interview surveys in 2013 to identify difficulties in business communication in English. The survey focused on business meetings, targeting 909 managers engaged in international operations. It revealed there are some difficulties in understanding a fast-​paced variety of English pronunciations and dealing with different business practices, laws, and meeting styles. For English proficiency, many of these businesspeople were at the level of CEFR1 B1, whereas the respondents considered that a level of CEFR B2.2 (the upper level of B2) is necessary to facilitate and control business meetings. The above two large-​scale surveys uncovered the situation of English use by Japanese businesspeople and have contributed to understanding the difficulties these businesspeople face in international business communication, using English as a business lingua franca, i.e., BELF, and presented some suggestions regarding how they cope with these challenges. However, after the second survey in 2013, the English required in business settings and global society at large seemed to have changed, both qualitatively and quantitatively, in that Japanese businesspeople have easier interactions with international interlocutors due to a further globalized market and technological advancement. In response to these changes, the Japanese business world has been experimenting with English as a corporate language within companies (Nihon Keizai Shimbun 2022, June 23), and the MEXT has also been revising its Course of Study teaching guidelines. Furthermore, the drastic social changes caused by the COVID-​19 pandemic have significantly changed the way we communicate and conduct business and necessitated new research. Accordingly, in the next section, we will report on a preliminary study for a new BELF project conducted from June to August 2022 in order to understand the situation in Japanese business communication in preparation for the third large-​ scale survey2 between JACET and IIBC, which was conducted from September to December in 2022. Changes in business communication since the COVID-​19 pandemic: preliminary study New BELF project

The spread of COVID-​19 that began in 2020 led to urban lockdowns in many countries around the world, and remote work became common in the so-​called white-​ collar jobs. With an internet environment, work could now be done without people

Applied linguistics in Japan from BELF perspectives  103 having to travel to offices or meeting places. As work was converted to online venues and workplaces moved into virtual spaces, borders disappeared, although with time differences and political issues remaining. People from many different countries could now easily hold online meetings. However, people seem to feel little sense of presence in work conducted through a screen, with all materials having been digitized. There was no longer a place for in-​person interaction through casual chatting in the workplace. From the perspective of applied linguistics, this social change can be seen in the following four aspects: (a) the importance of ELF communication is expected to increase due to the ease of holding meetings with people from many countries and regions; (b) the change in the means of communication caused by technological innovation is likely to result in various changes in the forms of communication; (c) the development of speech recognition and machine translation can reduce the psychological burden of using ELF for people who are less confident in their English listening and speaking skills, as they can check their use of ELF by sight; and (d) the current stage of remote communication presents new challenges, including but not limited to the difficulty of interpreting nuanced speech due to the lack of nonverbal information such as facial expressions and gestures, and the difficulty in having multiple people speak freely at the same time on the screen. However, as of 2022, no domestic research has yet examined these changes occurring in Japan. ELF is context specific, context dependent, and fluid, so it is important to understand how English is used in particular communications among people of different linguacultural backgrounds (e.g., Kankaanranta 2020; Seidlhofer 2001, 2011). The same applies to BELF, under the umbrella field of ELF research, whose users are businesspeople engaged in international business with shared interaction goals. As Kankaanranta (2020) rightly pointed out, we cannot identify all the possible interactions involved in international business; it is therefore important for BELF teachers and scholars to understand how business works and its communication practices take place. There has been an increasing number of studies on BELF communications since the notion of BELF was developed by Louhiala-​Salminen et al. (2005). Kankaanranta and Planken’s (2010) study of multinational companies in Europe demonstrated that strategic skills are crucial in BELF interactions. Our abovementioned studies provided us with an overall understanding of how Japanese businesspeople use English in international business and, in particular, the English skills expected in business meetings. Based on our research and the resulting insights into strategic skills, we also created a self-​learning platform with materials designed to help students learn how English is used in international meetings (see Yamada et al. 2020). Kankaanranta (2020) described how BELF teaching practices employ a dynamic approach in her courses at a leading business school in Finland by challenging students to assess particular situations and use BELF resources appropriately in interactions. By studying the current trends in business communications, we can update our knowledge and understanding of international business interactions and modify teaching to reflect ongoing changes mainly brought about by the pandemic. In what

104  Hajime Terauchi, Sayako Maswana, and Hisashi Naito follows, we first explain the methodology of the current survey and then present the survey results with a focus on the technology used in business communication, followed by a discussion of the implications of our findings for future research. Survey methodology, participants, and analyses

We created a questionnaire based on Koike and Terauchi (2010) and Terauchi et al. (2015) and added a set of questions about the use of digital communication support tools, such as translation software and online conferencing systems as well as a set of questions comparing the degree of difficulty between face-​to-​face and online communication (see Appendix 1 Nos.10–​19). In this survey, which was conducted from June to July 2022, 25 businesspersons involved in global operations were asked to respond to a questionnaire about their business communications and to write freely about their current work situations. In addition, four of them were interviewed and asked to describe their current business communications in detail from July to August 2022. The interviews were semistructured and included questions about actual communication and environment and the process of employees becoming global business experts (see Appendix 2). The interviews were conducted online or onsite for about one hour, transcribed, and analyzed. We then classified the data including comments in the open-​ended survey questions as well as interview responses according to the emerged themes. The responses presented here, mostly from the open-​ended questions of the questionnaire, were translated into English by the authors. It should be noted that as this was a preliminary survey for a large-​ scale study, the number of respondents was limited, and therefore they cannot be considered representative of average Japanese businesspeople. Participant characteristics

Of the 25 survey respondents, 44% used English almost daily, whereas 32% used English around three days a week. A majority of the respondents reported frequent use of English, which is partly because the respondents included those who work for an American company in Japan. The current preliminary survey showed a notable difference in the frequency of English language use compared to the results of Terauchi et al.’s (2015) survey, where only 2.8% of respondents reported daily English use and 8.5% around three days a week. The respondents also had a relatively higher level of English compared to average Japanese businesspeople. However, we cannot directly compare these numbers as the previous study had 909 respondents, including people with diverse working backgrounds, whereas this preliminary study only had 25 respondents. The languages of the respondents’ interlocutors were divided into four categories: native English speakers, native Japanese speakers, English as a Second Language (ESL) speakers, and English as a Foreign Language (EFL) speakers. We used these categories in the questionnaire because all respondents were familiar with them, whereas the concept of ELF was not yet widely shared among businesspeople. The category “native Japanese” was included in the questionnaire

Applied linguistics in Japan from BELF perspectives  105 because Japanese businesspeople tend to speak English even when conversing with a Japanese speaker when there are people from diverse linguistic backgrounds who may not speak or understand Japanese. Additionally, in some companies, English serves as the common corporate language, even among Japanese speakers (Yomiuri Shimbun Online 2022, August 16). On average, respondents reported that 45.2% of the people with whom they used English were native English speakers of the Inner Circle, 13.2% were ESL speakers, 31.5% were EFL speakers, and 10.1% were native Japanese speakers. Considering the limited number of respondents in this preliminary survey and the fact that many of them work for American-​based multinational companies, it is understandable that nearly half of their interactants are NESs. However, considering also that the total of interactants from the ESL and EFL backgrounds, including Japanese English speakers, amounts to 54.8%, the results may imply that the respondents are in a certain ELF environment in the current survey. Results of the qualitative survey

In this preliminary survey, we specifically asked respondents to freely describe examples of the use of tools created by technological innovations utilized during the pandemic years, and they commonly listed the following three: (a) online meetings, (b) machine translation, and (c) chat, each of which will be discussed in a more detailed manner below. Online meetings

The respondents were asked to describe freely the differences between face-​to-​ face meetings and online meetings, and the results showed some advantages of online meetings but also pointed to some difficulties. Of the 25 respondents to the questionnaire survey, 24 were doing online meetings with an average increase from the prepandemic years in frequency of over 70%, and further five of them also mentioned online meetings in the open-​ended question. One of the major and obvious advantages mentioned by them was the convenience of being able to enter an online meeting room at the same time from all over the world as well as the speeding up of global business operations by convening participants online, as seen in the following comments: Convenience of online meetings • Projects involving participants from various countries were carried out speedily. (R17)3 （各国から参加するプロジェクトがスピーディーに遂行できた。） • Multilateral meetings can now be held easily. (R9) （多国間の会議を簡単に行うことができるようになった。） However, some caveats of online communication are also pointed out, for example, technical problems with internet connection. In some countries and areas,

106  Hajime Terauchi, Sayako Maswana, and Hisashi Naito the internet connection is not stable, causing audio interruptions and other difficulties in listening as noted by one respondent: Due to the connection problem and sound skipping, there are times when I cannot hear well enough, and I have to ask people to repeat. (R20) （通信環境や音飛びの関係で、十分に聞き取れないと感じる時があ り、聞き返すことがある。） Even without any technical problems, difficulties in communication without having satisfactory access to (because of reduced) nonlinguistic information at online meetings are pointed out as follows: Nonverbal information in online meetings • When I share the screen during a meeting, I cannot see the other party’s reaction. (R20) （画面共有しながら進めると、相手の反応が見られない。） • It is easier to grasp the level of enthusiasm, interest, and participation of the participants in in-​person meetings. (R15) （参加者の熱量や関心度、参加度は対面会議の方がよく把握でき る。） • The online meeting is not as good as an in-​person meeting for understanding messages due to various factors such as facial expressions. (R25) （表情など様々な要因があり発言の理解は対面会議にオンライン 会議は及ばない。） It was also pointed out that this lack of nonverbal information makes it difficult to check the other party’s understanding and share the atmosphere of actual location as seen below: It is difficult to know when to speak up, and it is also difficult to read from the atmosphere whether the other party understands what is being said. (R7) （発言のタイミングが難しいのと、相手が理解しているかが雰囲気か ら読み取りにくい。） Commenting on the psychological stress that these difficulties could cause, one respondent said: The importance of what I say is not clarified at times, which makes me feel uneasy. (R13) （発言の重要性が明確にならない瞬間があるので、不安になる時があ る。） The substantial effect of reduced nonverbal information can be explained by the significant role nonverbal communication strategies play in BELF face-​to-​face interactions (Birlik and Kaur 2020). Because of the aforementioned difficulties,

Applied linguistics in Japan from BELF perspectives  107 understanding the detailed content of communication in online meetings becomes more challenging than in face-​to-​face meetings and sometimes misunderstanding occurs, as one respondent noted: When we try to confirm our points, we often find that they differ. (R22) （意見のすり合わせをすると違っていることがよくある。） In addition to the reduced availability of nonverbal information, the difficulty of communication in online meetings appears to be influenced by factors such as the context and the types of participants involved, as noted in the following: Other factors involved in online meetings • The ease of listening differs greatly, depending on the stability of the connection and the other party’s English accent. (R25) （電波が安定しない状況、相手の訛りの状況によって聞き取りやすさ が全然違う。） • The level of tension differs, depending on the number of people in the meeting, whether they are internal or external meetings, and whether they are customers or partners even if they are external. (R5) （会議の相手（人数、社内か社外か、社外でも顧客かパートナー）で 緊張具合いが異なる。） The difficulties in online meetings, however, are compensated to some extent with technological advancement such as the live transcription function as evidenced in the following comments: Technological help in online meetings • The live transcription function is useful in case I missed something. (R1) （ライブ文字起こし機能は聞き逃した場合に便利。） • Explanations that are difficult to give verbally are now supplemented with documents and visual information. (R8) （口頭で難しい説明が、書類や視覚情報で補完されるようになった。） While supporting functions of video conference applications as well as other tools may compensate for the lack of information that used to be available in in-​ person meetings, these tools could also help compensate for the lack of speaking and listening skills required for meetings. Thus, these supporting functions and tools can be utilized to enhance understanding in communication in general. However, although these tools can help provide information missed in online meetings, an emerging issue is how to understand the personalities of other online participants and build a relationship of trust as demonstrated in the following comments: Trust-​building in online communication • I feel not having face-​ to-​ face meetings has resulted in a weakening of relationships with the counterparties. (R25)

108  Hajime Terauchi, Sayako Maswana, and Hisashi Naito （対面ができない状況が続いたことで、相手先との関係性が希薄にな っているように感じる。） • The face-​ to-​ face meetings were based on trust and personality, and teleconferences and emails were seen as a supplement to these relationships. It is unclear how to build this relationship of trust and personability with the other party in the future. (R8) （対面会議では信頼関係や人間性に基づいて進め、電話会議や電子メ ールは補足と捉えていた。この信頼関係構築や相手の人となりを今後 はどのようにするか不明。） As an attempt to solve the abovementioned issue of trust-​building and deepening personal relations in online business communication, some companies are reported to have informal chat time among the participants at the beginning of meetings (Toyo Keizai Online 2021, September 28). Even supporting tools seem insufficient to completely fill in the gap between in-​ person and online meetings. The questionnaire survey revealed a 20–​30% increase in the frequency of telephone, email, and chat communications since the pandemic. The interviewees also confirmed a similar tendency, noting a particular increase in the use of chat applications. We therefore tentatively assume that businesspeople have been using these means of communication coupled with online meetings to understand information and confirm the content of the meetings. The interview survey revealed that online meetings have been the norm for international companies, often held in a global environment with participants from Asia, the US, and Europe. However, with the increased frequency of multinational online meetings because of the pandemic, we found that the work was carried out through repeated exchanges and confirmations to cope with various factors such as difficulties in understanding facial expressions and subtle nuances and making smooth turn-​ taking in conversation as discussed above. Although the modes of communication differ in this study, repetition and paraphrasing to ensure mutual understanding are some of the communication strategies used in ELF communication (Vettorel 2019), and strategies such as clarifying information and confirming understanding of information are also vital in BELF communications (Kankaanranta and Planken 2010). Before the outbreak of COVID-​19, businesspeople would often check meeting participants’ understanding and level of participation in person, but we assume that now some businesspeople employ this communication strategy in additional phone conversations and chat messages. Machine translation

Of the 25 survey respondents, 21 used machine translation in some form, and 10 of them also commented on machine translation in the open-​ended question. Overall, the respondents mentioned that using the translation application “saves them time”, they used it primarily for written texts to understand the gist of large volumes of English documents and emails, and it helped them explain unique Japanese phrases and intricate details that were difficult to explain in English by themselves. Rather

Applied linguistics in Japan from BELF perspectives  109 than entirely relying on machine translation, they used it to shorten their work time as necessary. The purposes and benefits of using machine translation differed, depending on which language they used for translation. In what follows we discuss the respondents’ comments on the use of machine translation under two categories, that is, (1) translation from English to Japanese and (2) translation from Japanese to English: Translation from English to Japanese • It is very convenient and saves time when I want to grasp a rough idea of the content in an instant. (R4) （瞬時におおまかな内容を把握したい時等とても便利で時間短縮にな る。） • I can now read the English articles I need for my work quickly. (R21) （業務に必要な英語論文が早く読めるようになった。） • The time required to compose emails is reduced by the effective use of translation software. (R5) （翻訳ソフトを効果的に使う事でメールの作成時間が短縮できてい る。） Thus, the above comments on the translation from English to Japanese all point out the aspect of saving time and quicker understanding of the documents by utilizing the translation function. On the other hand, as to the translation from Japanese to English, the aspect of saving time is only indirectly indicated but that of enabling them to write more effectively is more acknowledged as seen in the following comments: Translation from Japanese to English • I no longer have to work from scratch on writing English documents and meeting minutes. (R22) （英文書類や議事録作成で一から作業する必要がなくなった。） • I can now describe intricate details and explanations in English. (R1) （込み入った話、説明が英語でできるようになった。） • Even if I am not good at writing, I can machine translate and adjust nuances later. (R16) （書くのが苦手でも、翻訳をかけ、ニュアンスを後で調整することが できる。） In the interview survey conducted referring to the results of the questionnaire survey, it was also found that machine translation played a significant role in reducing business costs and speeding up communication. Machine translation should also help people without English proficiency to be able to participate in English communication, which was not mentioned in the survey, because the respondents had a relatively higher level of English compared to average Japanese businesspeople. In contrast, it was also pointed out that machine translation still needs to be reworked by humans when it comes to contracts, external communications, and

110  Hajime Terauchi, Sayako Maswana, and Hisashi Naito information disclosure because it is necessary to consider detailed differences in nuance, including the cultural background of the other party. When machine translation is used in business, there is a distinction between its use in internal and external situations and between understanding the main message and accurately communicating it. The interviewees noted that, when communicating with external parties, they sometimes use machine translation. In those cases, they use it very carefully, reviewing the translated text for its accuracy in meaning and correcting any mistakes to ensure clear communication. It seems machine translation helps reduce the workload without affecting much of the BELF communication itself as evidenced by the absence of comments related to the effects of machine translation on actual communication. Machine translation quickly provides grammatically correct English or Japanese, but BELF places more importance on knowledge of business communications and genre rules (Kankaanranta and Louhiala-​Salminen 2010). While these tools can greatly improve efficiency, they cannot entirely replace human communication in a business setting. Chat

Of the 25 survey respondents, 17 used chat applications, and four of them mentioned chat in the open-​ended question. Chat seems to reduce psychological burdens for those who are not good at oral communication because they can casually check the content of written texts as seen in the following comments: Psychological advantages of chat • Since I tend to hurry because I am not good at listening and speaking, the fact that I can think calmly in text conversations helps reduce hardship and stress. (R1) （Listening&Speakingが苦手で焦ってしまうので、テキストでの会話は 落ち着いて考えられる点が苦労やストレス軽減に繋がっている。） • I can have casual conversations and simple English exchanges and communicate with my overseas colleagues and domestic executives without worrying. (R9) （カジュアルな会話、簡単な英語のやりとりが可能となり、海外の同 僚や、国内の役職者に気遣いなくコミュニケーションが取れる。） The above respondents both point out the role of chat in reducing stress and worry in communicating with overseas interactants in ELF. Chat is also a very convenient tool in terms of preventing discrepancies in understanding and making it easier to communicate thanks to its easy access, as shown in the respondents’ answers below: Convenience of chat communication • The ability to check the contents of in-​person conversations again via chat has reduced the occurrence of conflicts in understanding. (R13)

Applied linguistics in Japan from BELF perspectives  111 （対面で会話した内容をチャットで再度確認でき、認識の齟齬等の発 生を抑えられた。） • It has become useful to contact a person who does not read emails at a time convenient for me to convey business messages in a concise manner and obtain a response. (R15) （自分の都合の良い時間でe-​mailを読まない相手にコンタクトを取って 簡潔に要件を伝え、回答を得ることについて便利になった。） The usefulness of chat applications was also a topic of discussion in the interview survey. Chat seemed to allow for more pinpointed discussions and speedier exchanges than email because it allows for topic-​specific discussions and the easy inclusion of all relevant people. Three interviewees said they started using chat communication heavily after the outbreak of the pandemic, but the fact that eight survey respondents answered they did not use chat tools indicates there is variation in the degree of use and reliance on chat applications. Because BELF communication is known to be “hybrid” in form, mixing different styles (Kankaanranta and Planken 2010), the use of informal chat messages illuminates the hybrid nature of BELF communication. Roshid et al. (2022) indicated that email messages are informal, flexible, and similar to ELF spoken discourse rather than ELF written discourse. Taking this into consideration, we can expect that chat messages are even more informal and like spoken discourse. Because cutting in on online meetings is difficult, some people use chat messages to check the information. A feature of ELF communication reported is “let it pass” (Firth 1996), that is, leaving parts that are not understandable during a conversation as they are, hoping that as the conversation proceeds the meaning becomes clear. The nature of online meetings makes people even more reluctant to interrupt the flow of exchanges because it is difficult for more than two people to speak at the same time. Some people, however, may be able to repair conversations via chat messages, albeit not asking questions during the meetings. Discussion We reviewed the current situation in BELF communication in Japan with a focus on online meetings, machine translation, and chat that proliferated because of remote work that has spread rapidly in the wake of the COVID-​19 pandemic. An environment in which workplaces are shifting to virtual spaces makes it easier to gather people from all over the world. In such an increasingly diverse environment, it is essential to communicate in English used as a lingua franca that can be understood by others to persuade and negotiate with them. Learning how to communicate in ELF has therefore become indispensable. The results of our study suggest that the pandemic has made BELF communication more multimodal. Online meetings coupled with supplementary textual and visual materials, machine translation, and chat messages all aim at getting the job done. Multimodality refers to an individual’s use of different modes of communication for the purpose of conveying meaning

112  Hajime Terauchi, Sayako Maswana, and Hisashi Naito (Kessler 2022: 551). In her study of BELF multimodal communication, Räisänen (2020) found that a combination of spoken language, gestures, tools, whiteboard, and documents contributes to constructing shared meaning. For businesspeople working in the current environment, knowing how to use communication tools which are undergoing remarkable technological innovation has a significant impact on their work. It is not clear, however, whether this increased multimodality has improved BELF communication or merely compensated for what has been lost in in-​person communication during the pandemic. Machine translation tools have greatly improved the convenience of written communication and made it possible for participants in business interactions to grasp the main idea quickly, but at present they have not advanced to the point of being able to convey nuances and integrate genre rules that are more important in BELF communication. Finally, the results suggest some areas that should be explored in future inquiries through conversational analysis of multimodal BELF communications using new technology and tools such as chat applications. It would be important to examine the communication strategies that the participants employed to overcome the challenges the respondents mentioned. For technology, it was also notable that what one respondent considered an advantage was perceived as a disadvantage by others, such as comments on sharing the materials in online meetings. It is uncertain if the difference in perceived usefulness is based on different purposes, users, or other factors, but it is certain that a difference existed in people’s interpretation of the same tools. What can be said is that when compared to face-​to-​face communication, there is still room for improvement in online communication in terms of understanding and ability to convey subtle nuances. In particular, respondents’ comments imply that the current situation is such that it is difficult to build trust through online meetings. Therefore, we should determine some ways to improve this situation, because online communication is here to stay, even after the current pandemic-​driven world. We cannot also overlook the impact of generative artificial intelligence such as ChatGPT on business communications, whose development has been particularly remarkable after this preliminary survey was completed. Conducting a large-​scale study informed by this preliminary survey is expected to provide further insights into current business communications among Japanese businesspeople. Furthermore, this type of BELF research should be promoted as a key area in applied linguistics, which is “the theoretical and empirical investigation of real-​world problems in which language is a central issue” (Brumfit 1995: 27). Future research suggestions In this section, we discuss some of the points we consider important for future BELF research in Japan. First, effectively educating BELF users would require understanding genres and the nature of the “E,” that is, English as a Lingua Franca, that develops uniquely within the discourse community. Genre studies have developed since Swales (1990), particularly in areas such as research publications. The business field also has many genres, including legal documentation, internal meetings, external meetings, and negotiations. Without considering these genres,

Applied linguistics in Japan from BELF perspectives  113 effective communication cannot take place. Moreover, as Terauchi et al. (2015) pointed out, the genre of business meetings specifically requires intercultural communication skills to understand the other party’s corporate culture and cultural background. As globalization demands management skills in the context of diversity, the development of intercultural sensitivity must also be applied to BELF usage. Second, collaboration with related fields inside and outside of applied linguistics, such as the technology used for remote work, is essential. Communications based on the characteristics of online interaction that have spread rapidly since the COVID-​19 pandemic show aspects that are different from face-​ to-​face interaction. Companies and researchers that develop conferencing systems still lack research and development of technology that take advantage of knowledge in applied linguistics. For example, verbal and written summarization technology, informed by applied linguists, that is adapted to particular business genres and BELF interactions has the potential to better serve the diverse needs in BELF communications. Finally, we believe that establishing more joint projects, not only in Japan but also throughout Asia and beyond, can enhance the quality and quantity of global human resources. By strengthening BELF research, researchers can collaborate with MEXT and other organizations to develop language policies in Japan that are tailored to the demands of globalization, including guidelines for English education at all levels, but particularly at university level, which is directly related to BELF environments. As a first step, some findings from our joint quantitative and qualitative research with IIBC will provide us with practical implications for BELF communication in the post-​COVID-​19 era. Further investigation should be made to identify and solve global issues pertinent to online communication in English that are closely related to the reality of current business communication. Appendix 1 Questionnaire items; * =​required response items: F1 Gender F2 Age* F3 Business field of your department* F4 Position* F5 Type of the company* F6 Capital affiliation of the company* F7 Official language of the company (official documents)* F8 Industry* F9 Number of employees, ratio of overseas sales, and ratio of foreign nationals F10 Name of the company Q1 Years of English use in business* Q2 Average frequency of English use* Q3 Linguistic background of the people you use English with* Q4 Amount of English use by affiliation of the people you use English with* Q5 Means of business communication before the pandemic through the present*

114  Hajime Terauchi, Sayako Maswana, and Hisashi Naito Q6 Change in frequency of English use due to the pandemic* Q7 English proficiency in international negotiations (four skills)* Q8 English proficiency in international negotiations (CEFR)* Q9 TOEIC® L&R score* Q10 Use of technology and tools in business communication in English* Q11 Usefulness of technology and tools in reducing difficulties and hardships* Q12 Cases in which difficulties and hardships decreased because of the use of technology and tools Q13 Role in business meetings in English* Q14 Difficulties in meetings in English by purpose (comparing face-​to-​face and online)* Q15 Difficulties in meetings in English by situation (comparing face-​to-​face and online)* Q16 Difficulty in speaking and listening, meeting skills, and relationship in English meetings (comparing face-​to-​face and online)* Q17 Difficulties due to mental/​psychological factors in meetings in English (comparing face-​to-​face and online)* Q18 Difficulties in managing and organizing English meetings (comparing face-​ to-​face and online)* Q19 Any other differences between face-​to-​face and online meetings in English Q20 Competencies other than English language skills required in international business* Q21 Capacity building and support needed to develop internationally competent businesspeople Appendix 2 Interview question items: Q1 Daily work: What are the nature of your work, the types of people you interact with in English, and the situations where you use English? How do you feel while communicating in English and what is your use of technology, such as translation software? Q2 Growth in English skills: What factors have enabled you to effectively use English in your work, including any experiences or events that prompted you to improve your English skills? What difficulties did you face during this process, and what advice would you offer to young workers? Q3 Changes due to the COVID-​19 pandemic: What communication changes have you observed since the COVID-​19 pandemic, particularly with the increase in remote work? Have you experienced any changes in workload? Q4 Areas of improvement: What learning resources and materials, training opportunities, or other resources do you and your colleagues need to effectively perform your work in English? What common needs do you encounter while working in English?

Applied linguistics in Japan from BELF perspectives  115 Notes 1 CEFR (Council of Europe, 2001) has also been criticized by ELF researchers for its use in proficiency assessment as it is based on native-​speaker norms (e.g., McNamara 2012; Seidlhofer 2011). However, because the CEFR has been widely adopted in curriculum development and assessment of foreign languages in Japan (e.g., MEXT 2023), we employed CEFR in this study as we did in our previous study (Terauchi et al. 2015). 2 The large-​scale survey was conducted as planned, and currently the data are being analyzed. 3 R denotes Respondent in the survey, and the number after it indicates the number of each respondent.

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8 Three models of ELF instruction From a pedagogical perspective1 Qiufang Wen

Introduction ELF2 has emerged as a new research area since the early 21st century. The qualified criteria for ELF to become an independent research branch, in my opinion, include at least four: (1) having identifiable pioneering researchers such as Jenkins (2000), Seidlhofer (2001) and Mauranen (2003); (2) PhD programs on ELF; (3) annual ELF international conferences since 2008; and (4) Journal of English as a Lingua Franca first launched in 2012 by de Gruyter Mouton (Wen 2014). In the past 20 years, in terms of research focus on ELF, three can be easily identified. The first one is on identifying typical features of ELF on the assumption that ELF is a sort of entity in the sense ELF is a linguistic system for communication (e.g., House 2003; Jenkins 2002). In search of certain possible characteristics of ELF, some European and Asian scholars have made tremendous efforts in building three big corpora (i.e., VOICE, ELFA and ACE) in the hope that a particular system of ELF could be found and described based on the corpora (Wen 2014). The second focus is on the dynamic nature of ELF on the new assumption that ELF is no longer a fixed entity but a function gained in a multilingual context. In other words, ELF is not an independent and identifiable system because there is no stable community of ELF speakers with a shared culture (Alptekin 2010; Park and Wee 2011). The ELF speakers with different mother tongues communicate with each other for a specific purpose. Once the purpose is fulfilled, the speakers would scatter away. The recent focus is on ELF in multilingual settings in higher education (Alhasnawi 2021; Pietikäinen 2021; Yamada 2021). It has been found that the phenomenon of translanguaging is ubiquitous in the use of ELF. One issue, I think, which is not fully addressed in the research on ELF is how to apply ELF research findings to actual classroom instruction. That is to say, the majority of the ELF researchers strive to do research from the sociolinguistic perspective but only a few scholars, such as Baker (2015) and Widdowson (2016), are interested in the pedagogical application. This chapter, however, will primarily deal with ELF from a pedagogical perspective. It will first give a bird’s-​eye view of English in the Chinese system of education and changes in Chinese peoples’ attitudes toward the native English norm. Then an explanation of three relevant models or frameworks of ELF instruction DOI: 10.4324/9781003391463-10

118  Qiufang Wen will be presented, i.e., a model of intercultural communicative competence (ICC), a framework of ELF teaching content and objectives (TCO), and Scenario-​Based Pedagogy (SBP) in the production-​ oriented approach (POA). Along with the explanations, a few suggestions will be put forward for ELF instruction. English education in China and people’s attitudes toward the native norm Today, English is one of the major foreign languages as a compulsory subject from Primary 3 to the first two years of four-​year bachelor programs in China. According to the statistics released by the Ministry of Education (MOE) in China in 2020, the number of Chinese English learners receiving education at different levels (www. moe.gov.cn/​) is estimated at about 186 million.3 Chinese people from all walks of life in general regard English as crucial both for the economic development of the nation and for personal career growth. In order to understand the impact of ELF on English language education, I will critically review the development of English education in China in the last 45 years (i.e., 1978–​2023), along with introducing changes in people’s attitudes toward the native English norm. These 45 years can be roughly divided into three stages. Stage 1 from 1978 to 1998 is named Recovering Development in the sense that normal English education had been damaged by the disastrous Cultural Revolution since 1966 which should have brought order to chaos and then further developed. Stage 2 from 1999 to 2011 is known as Rapid Development when many people showed too much enthusiasm about English learning when China was moving towards globalization. Stage 3 from 2012 to 2023 is regarded as Rational Development which means that English instruction goes to its normal track as a subject in formal schooling (Wen and Zhang 2021). In the following section, I will describe each stage along with people’s perception of English native speakers’ norm. The first stage: recovering stage –​bringing chaotic English instruction into normal order

The first period was marked by a significant event, the Third Plenary Session of the 11th Central Committee of Chinese Communist Party in December 1978, which announced the reform and opening-​up policy. The implementation of the policy attracted a huge amount of foreign investment which led to an increase of Sino-​foreign companies established in China. As a result, people with high English proficiency had golden opportunities to get high-​salary jobs and better career development. Some of them could be sent by the government to pursue degree programs or study as visiting scholars in English-​speaking countries. Some could get a scholarship from American, British, Australian, Canadian, or New Zealand universities. At this stage, the native English norm was explicitly promoted as the objective for Chinese learners to realize. Students were encouraged to listen to the tape recordings produced by native English speakers with standard British or American pronunciation repeatedly and to endeavor to achieve the native-​like accent by imitation. Furthermore, grammatical and lexical mistakes were regarded

Three models of ELF instruction: from a pedagogical perspective  119 as the indications of poor performance. Both the learners and the teachers would admire those for almost perfect imitation judging from the NES standard. Although the overwhelming majority failed in doing so, no dissension arose. The second stage: rapid development –​dramatic expansion of English learning and teaching

The second period is from 1999 to 2011, during which English education developed miraculously. It was started by the agreement signed by China and the United States regarding China entering the World Trade Organization (WTO) after 13 years of intense negotiation. In 2001, China finally became a formal member of the WTO, which provided an ideal opportunity for China to participate in globalization. Further push for fast progress in English education was Beijing’s successful bid for the Olympic Games in 2008. Due to the tremendous impact of these significant events, the economic and cultural exchanges between China and the outside world had increased dramatically. A large number of proficient English users were greatly needed. As a result, English learning and teaching underwent exponential growth. In 2001, the MOE issued a document which required all the primary schools to offer an English course from Primary 3 instead of Primary 5 in the past because the high officials believed that the earlier English learning, the better learning outcome (Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China 2001). In 1998, the policy issued by the Chinese Ministry of Personnel which was implemented in 1999 stated that all professionals and technicians with very few exceptions4 to get senior titles must pass a required foreign language test (Ministry of Personnel of the People’s Republic of China 1998). And in many universities, the students who wanted to obtain a bachelor’s degree certificate must succeed in College English Test 4,5 although this was not the policy made by the MOE. English was thus not only a vital tool for China’s modernization but also social capital for individuals to get a degree certificate and to get more competitive in career development. During this period, English learning in China increasingly became a national mania that rendered English a commodity and English teaching an industry (Wang 2004). As a Chinese common saying goes, everything starts to fall after it has reached the zenith. Serious complaints about compulsory English testing requirements frequently appeared in various media. When these complaints became stronger and stronger, policies concerning compulsory English testing requirements had to be adjusted. Regarding the attitude toward English native speakers’ norm at this stage, it has to be discussed with reference to two groups. One group is Chinese English users who have extensive practice in international exchange. They seemed not to bother the so-​called native speakers’ norm. They noticed so long as the communicative purpose could be fulfilled, whether their English use was grammatically accurate or pragmatically appropriate or whether their English accent was native-​like or not did not matter at all. The second group is English teachers. Although they didn’t explicitly encourage their students to speak English like native speakers, at the bottom of their hearts, they still felt very pleased when they saw some students

120  Qiufang Wen working hard to imitate the native speaker’s pronunciation and intonation. They would most likely give a higher score on students’ English performance if their accent approximates the accent of the BBC or VOA or their spoken and written English without any explicit grammatical mistakes. In a word, at this stage, Chinese English users especially business people, professionals, or researchers in diversified fields paid more attention to the effectiveness of communication rather than accuracy and appropriacy in terms of the native-​speaker norms. On the other hand, many Chinese English teachers showed ambivalent attitudes. Although they were fully aware that it was difficult for Chinese English learners to behave like native speakers, they didn’t think they should discourage some talented students to realize such an ideal objective. The third stage: rational development –​keeping down the national mania for English learning

The third stage from 2012 to 2023 is the time for keeping down the national mania for English learning by the government for the purpose of bringing English education to be rational. Or we say that English learning is conducted in a more sensible manner. Some measures have been taken for reducing people’s excessive enthusiasm for English learning. For example, on 21 March 2016, the CPC central committee issued a new policy. It states that the unified foreign language test is not compulsory for all the professionals and technicians to be promoted to senior positions. The decision concerning this issue can be flexibly made by different institutions themselves (CPC central committee 2016). Since 2017 the direct link between passing a unified national English test and obtaining a bachelor’s degree certificate has been cancelled by almost all the institutions. The national college English tests are still held twice a year but it is no longer compulsory. Many students still want to take it because the high scores on the test may help them find better jobs after their graduation. Although irrational English learning has cooled down, the status of English education in formal schooling remains the same. English is still required to be learned as a compulsory subject at different levels of education. And a national matriculation English test has to be taken by all the applicants who want to study at university. Some voices against learning English can be heard from time to time, particularly in March every year when the National People’s Congress (NPC) and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) are held. A very small number of delegates of NPC or CPPCC have submitted the proposals against compulsory English learning in which similar ideas are repeatedly presented. They strongly suggest that English should be taught as an optional subject. Although the proposal can attract some media attention and become a hot issue for the whole society, the heated discussion can only last about one month before it fades out. The official policy of English instruction seems not to be affected by these people’s objections. The government is still investing heavily in improving the quality of English language instruction, in-​service English teaching training, and hiring large numbers of expatriate English teachers to work as both full-​time and part-​time

Three models of ELF instruction: from a pedagogical perspective  121 teachers in universities and some key middle schools. English is still being learned conscientiously by students who receive formal education as well as by employees at various companies. Unlike the first and second stages, English is considered to be a window not only for Chinese people on the whole world but also a tool to introduce China to the outside world. The reason why the view about the role of English has changed is clearly shown in a speech at UNESCO Headquarters by Xi Jinping, President of China, made on 27 March 2014. He emphasized, “Civilizations have become richer and more colorful with exchanges and mutual learning. Such exchanges and mutual learning form an important drive for human progress and global peace and development” (Xi 2014). Consequently, for the purpose of making China known to the outside world, quite a number of Chinese political and academic works have been translated into English, funded by the Chinese government. In the translation, it is found that quite a number of indigenous terms are difficult to render into proper English because there are no equivalents in the two languages. As a result, some English renditions which might be regarded as China English frequently appear in the translated work. Furthermore, in order to enable Chinese students to introduce China into the world, some translated works concerning Chinese views about national and international governance are selected as texts in English textbooks. Against this background, the native English is naturally not regarded as norms for performance anymore. In my opinion, this is not the influence of the theoretical concept of ELF that has induced the changes in people’s views. Instead, this is sociopolitical impact on the use of English that has weakened the power of English norms. Summary

In the past 45 years from 1978 to 2023, English education in China has undergone dramatic changes. In the first stage (i.e., 1978–​1998), the government made conscientious efforts first to transform the chaos caused by the disastrous cultural revolution into a normal order and then began with a new chart in different levels of education including English. English learning and teaching were carried out to follow the native model without any reservation. In the second stage (i.e., 1999–​ 2011), due to the rapid national economic development, both individuals and government attached paramount importance to English learning and teaching, which gradually reached its zenith. People’s overzealous behaviors leading to a national mania have, however, sown the seeds of complaints and criticisms. In regard to the model of native English, the views were divided. For professionals and business people, their attention was primarily paid to the use of English for realizing their communicative purposes without thinking of whether their English is native-​like or not. For Chinese English teachers, they showed inconsistency in what they said and what they did. They no longer urged the students to strive to behave like a native speaker but they still showed favor toward those performances which are more like native speakers’ in their assessment. In the third stage (i.e., 2012–​2023), the government has taken some measures to control the mania and brought English

122  Qiufang Wen learning and teaching to its normal order. That is to say, English is treated as a compulsory subject like other subjects such as Chinese and mathematics. A new function of English has been gained, i.e., introducing China to the outside world. Therefore, English textbooks include some materials about traditional and contemporary Chinese cultures translated from Chinese into English. Due to the lack of some equivalents between the two languages, English renditions are found to be difficult to be native-​like. This reality has taught people a lesson that intercultural communication cannot and does not need to follow the native model. In a word, the native English norm has gradually slipped away from the altar. Three models or frameworks of ELF instruction Although ELF has increasingly gained popularity in applied linguistics in other countries, it has not become a very attractive research area to Chinese scholars. Having used ELF as a keyword to search China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) by the end of Feb 2023, I only found 86 items, which comprised six MA theses and 80 papers, but there was no doctoral dissertation. This result can well illustrate that the number of ELF researchers in China is quite small with little research output. I am one of the few Chinese scholars who have shown keen interest in ELF. I, as a Chinese English teacher as well as a researcher of instructed second language acquisition for about 40 years, have particular interests in bridging the gap between theory and practice. Therefore, I aim to translate the research findings and the relevant claims of ELF into what the English teacher can easily understand. I have developed three models of ELF instruction chronically. I hope that the models can be beneficial to English learners who needn’t strive to target an unrealistic goal of being native-​like. At the same time, the models can also help teachers feel more confident in their students’ performance in communication in English, even if they fail to meet the native norm. In the following section, I will explain the three models one by one. A model of intercultural communicative competence

The first model is about ICC that is not a direct result of research on ELF, which, however, fits the claims made by ELF researchers. When I developed this model, I did not readily have access to any literature concerning the concept of ELF and research on ELF in the 1990s and at the beginning of the 21st century.6 Instead, I addressed the issue of English as a lingua franca7 due to a practical need derived from my work. In 1994, I was invited to be the leader of a research team to design a national English spoken test for English majors-​Band 4.8 After a series of experiments which lasted five years, the nationwide test formally started in 1999. During the experiments, a challenge I faced was how to assess the English performance of Chinese students. I thought hard and gradually realized that Chinese students could not behave like native speakers unless they were living in English-​ speaking countries at an early age. The purpose of learning English for them is to

Three models of ELF instruction: from a pedagogical perspective  123 communicate in English with both native and nonnative speakers in the workplace. Therefore, the Chinese students’ English performance should not always take the native English as a model. By coincidence, I used the concept of English as a lingua franca (ELF) in the book Testing and Teaching Spoken English published in 1999 (Wen 1999) and proposed a model of intercultural communicative competence. Unfortunately, the model has not had strong influence outside China, most likely because the book was written in Chinese. In 2004, drawing from the concept presented in the 1999 book, I further elaborated the idea of ELF in the book chapter in English, “Globalization and Intercultural Competence” (Wen 2004). In this chapter, I first critically reviewed several communicative models (e.g., Bachman 1990; Canale and Swain 1980; Hymes 1972), indicating these models display two common features. The first is that these models equate first language competence with second or foreign language competence. The second is that they are all produced by researchers or scholars from the English target language communities who all share the same assumption that communicative competence must be built up on the basis of native English speakers’ norm. In my opinion, these models suffer from at least two drawbacks. The first is that people engaged in communication with different mother tongues and diverse cultural backgrounds may not observe the norms of native English speakers (NESs) at all. The second is that even if they could learn the English native-​speaker norms well, they are still not skillful at coping with nonnative speakers of unknown cultures. In order to overcome the above drawbacks, “I proposed a new model from the perspective of learning English as an international language (EIL) to cater for the needs for globalization” (Wen 2004: 174). Figure 8.1 presents a model which indicates the overall learning objective of EIL is to cultivate learners’ intercultural communicative competence (ICC). ICC refers to capabilities of carrying out successful

Figure 8.1 A model of ICC. Source: Adapted from Wen (2004: 175).

124  Qiufang Wen communication that involves people from different cultural backgrounds but using a shared language as a lingua franca. ICC comprises two components: (1) communicative competence (CC) and (2) intercultural competence (IC). CC includes three elements: (1) linguistic competence; (2) pragmatic competence; and (3) strategic competence (see also Bachman 1990; Canale and Swain 1980; Hymes 1972). IC also consists of three elements: (1) sensitivity to cultural differences (SCD); (2) tolerance of cultural differences (TCD); and (3) flexibility in dealing with cultural differences (FCD). IC must interact with CC in the globalized context to achieve a success in communication. This model will be further explained in the next section. Before I move to the next section, one thing I must make clear here, i.e., the terms “intercultural communicative competence” and “intercultural competence” in my model are not the same as Michael Byram’s (1997, 2021). In his view, intercultural competence “takes place in the ‘same’ language and intercultural communicative competence where a ‘foreign’ language is involved” (Byram 2021: 5). Byram further explains the differences between these two with examples. He first describes when intercultural competence is needed and when it is not. In his account, IC is needed when a French doctor talks to a French school teacher about the illness of her child because the teacher has not received medical education before, and therefore they lack a common understanding. IC has no role to play if their talk is about the topics of daily life when they share common knowledge. Intercultural communicative competence is required in two situations. The first is that when a French doctor talks to a German teacher about the illness of her child, at least one of them speaks a foreign language. That is to say, either the German teacher speaks French or the French doctor speaks German. The second situation is that both the French doctor and the German teacher use English as a lingua franca. Unlike Byram’s opinion in which IC and ICC are not necessarily related to each other, ICC in my model is a superordinate term which is involved in the situation where English is used as a lingua franca among people who do not share the same mother tongue while IC is part of ICC. Furthermore, IC in my model is defined totally differently from Byram’s IC as seen in Figure 8.1. A framework of ELF teaching content and objectives

In 2012, when the Journal of English as a Lingua Franca was launched, I wrote a paper entitled “English as a lingua franca: A pedagogical perspective” to further elaborate on the above model (Wen 2012). The framework consists of two dimensions (see Figure 8.2). The first dimension indicates the view about what language is; the second dimension states the view about teaching. As for the first dimension, English language can be perceived from three perspectives, i.e., linguistic, cultural, and pragmatic. From these three perspectives, corresponding decisions on what to be taught and what to be achieved should be made. The distinction between what should be taught and what has been learned is very essential for us to understand the model. Widdowson (2016) in fact made a similar demarcation by saying English taught is not the same as English learned. Therefore, the criteria for assessing learners’ performance are not the same as those for evaluating the input the teacher provides.

Three models of ELF instruction: from a pedagogical perspective  125

Figure 8.2 A framework of ELF teaching content and objectives. Source: Wen (2012: 373).

Linguistically, native English varieties and nonnative English varieties together with localized features (i.e., primarily referring to local lexical items) of the learner’s English should be covered in the students’ whole cycle of learning. However, they need to be arranged cautiously in terms of learners’ English proficiency levels and cognitive capabilities. Native English varieties should be taught from the very beginning, nonnative varieties could be offered from the intermediate level for the receptive purpose and the localized features could be provided from the beginning. The linguistic objective is to achieve effective communicative skills rather than native-​like performance. Phonologically, learners are expected to produce intelligible English and manage to comprehend English with both native and nonnative accents; lexically, they are required to grasp high-​frequency words for speaking and writing and understand both high-​and low-​frequency words in listening and reading; syntactically, they are supposed to be able to produce comprehensible sentence structures and understand the structures produced by both native and nonnative speakers. Additionally, they are also demanded to introduce their local cultures to native and nonnative speakers in English. In regard to the assessment of their performance, up to now we do not have a fixed list of specific indicators to measure its intelligibility since this can only be evaluated in relation to a concrete context. Culturally, learners are expected to be exposed to the cultures of native English speakers, nonnative speakers, and English learners’ own cultures in English. These three types of cultures can be offered to be learned without any preferred order. But the complexity of language used in expressing a particular type of culture should be aligned with the learner’s language proficiency level. For younger learners, the cognitive difficulty of content should be taken into consideration. The cultural

126  Qiufang Wen objective is to acquire IC which includes three specific objectives, i.e., SCD, TCD, and FCD (Wen 1999, 2004). These three specific objectives are interrelated to each other but have different roles to play in communication. Logically speaking, SCD is the basis. Without SCD, there would be no possibility of having TCD and FCD. Similarly, without TCD, there would be no FCD. In fact, SCD, TCD, and FCD must function together so that IC can be fully developed. These three components echo the compositional model of IC proposed by Deardorff (2009) that consists of three dimensions: cognitive, affective, and behavioral. SCD is similar to cognitive elements such as cultural knowledge; TCD to affective features such as respect, open-​mindedness, and empathy; and FCD to behavioral dimensions such as strategies in listening, interpreting, and negotiation in intercultural communication. It must be emphasized that IC cannot be equated with the cultural knowledge alone, although cultural knowledge is the basis of developing TCD and FCD. Evidently, in the learner’s lifetime, s/​he cannot grasp all the different kinds of cultural knowledge in the world. The cultural knowledge taught can only be used as a means to promote the learner’s awareness of cultural differences. Initially, learners should be provided with typical examples of different cultural knowledge as input to enable them to discern the differences of diversified cultures. Otherwise, learners have nothing as a basis to develop their SCD, let alone foster their TCD and FCD. In general, considering the limited time of formal schooling, typical but selected cultural knowledge is feasible as stimuli to promote the learner’s SCD and TCD. Some carefully chosen cases of intercultural communication are functionally sensible for analysis in ELF instruction and simulated scenarios are designed to enable students to gain some experiences of FCD. Pragmatically, three types of rules should be taught to English learners: universal communicative rules (UCR), target language communicative rules (TLCR), and nonnative communicative rules (NNCR). UCR refers to general rules of communication such as the cooperative principle advanced by Grice (1975). TLCR are widely and naturally practiced in target language communities but are not instinctively used by second and foreign language learners unless they are explicitly taught. For example, in English-​speaking countries when a person is complimented for one’s beautiful dress by other people, the natural response is “Thank you!” but in China, the spontaneous response is “No, No. It is just so so.”9 (Chen 1993). NNCR are observed by nonnative speakers which are almost innumerous. The learners are not able to grasp them in advance. What they can do is to sharpen their awareness of the NNCR emerging in communication. Like cultural knowledge serving as a means to achieve the goal of IC, pragmatic rules are also taught selectively to develop the learner’s abilities to generate appropriate communicative rules and strategies in dynamic communication. A model of scenario-​based pedagogy in the production-​oriented approach

Based on the overall goal of ELF instruction, our research team intends to engage Chinese English teachers in applying our conceptual understanding of ELF to English classroom instruction. What is our understanding of ELF? In our view, ELF

Three models of ELF instruction: from a pedagogical perspective  127 is not a fixed entity as the initial understanding of earlier ELF researchers (House 2003; Jenkins 2002). Instead, we support the dynamic view of ELF proposed by scholars such as Alptekin (2010) and Park and Wee (2011). Furthermore, our team believe that the competence of ELF cannot be completely gained by learners in classroom instruction since classroom instruction is not able to prepare for all the possible communicative contexts of learners. In fact, their future use of ELF is not predictable by the teacher, even impossible by the students themselves. What they can achieve is the potential capacity through intercultural communication in specific scenarios. Such capacity is similar to Widdowson’s capability (2016). To serve this purpose, I have proposed a scenario-​based pedagogy (SBP) in the Production-​ Oriented Approach (POA) for teaching English to university students. This has already been extensively practiced in many universities in China. The results are very encouraging, which suggests the SBP is feasible and operationalizable for realizing the concept of ELF (Wen 2020). In the following section, I will first briefly explain what the POA is and how SBP is linked with the POA. This initial explanation of the POA only serves as background information for a sound understanding of SBP. The following brief explanation of the POA is a detailed account of SBP. A brief description of the POA

The POA has been developed and become increasingly mature through several iterations of theorizing and practice in the past 15 years. The aim is to solve the deep-​rooted problem of separation of input from output in English instruction in China. The typical symptom of this problem is that too much attention is paid to receptive skills, particularly reading skills, in English instruction so that learners have most likely learned “dumb English”10 in the sense that they lack the ability of communication (Wen 2020). Unlike other teaching approaches, the POA starts with output and ends with output while processing input is in service to producing output (Wen 2013). The POA consists of three components: principles, hypotheses, and teaching procedures (Wen 2015). Due to the limited space, I will focus on the teaching procedures as illustrated in Figure 8.3, which comprise Motivating, Enabling,

Figure 8.3 A simplified model of teaching procedures of the POA.

128  Qiufang Wen and Assessing in one thematic module of instruction.11 Motivation is the initial phase of instruction, where the teacher provides students with a scenario together with an explanation of the requirements for a productive activity or project to be accomplished in the scenario. In order to stimulate the learners’ desire of learning, they are asked to have an initial trial of the productive activity. For example, a new unit that students are going to learn is “Philosophers and their thoughts.” After learning the unit, students are required to write an essay, “Make a comparison of Confucius and Socrates.” The initial trial means they strive to complete the project before learning the unit. Their performance on the initial trial may help the learners notice the deficiencies in their existing system so that they may make efforts to make up for the deficiencies in the learning to come. At the same time, the students’ difficulties may enable the teacher to pinpoint the focus of the coming teaching. At the phase of Enabling, the teacher first gives the learners relevant input materials that must be aligned with the productive activity while designing a series of activities as scaffolds to process the input materials. The design of the enabling activities should take two factors into consideration. The first factor is overall learning objectives which are usually translated into a big productive project and the second is the learners’ difficulties shown in their initial trial. Through a series of enabling activities based on the input materials, the learners are expected to analyze and synthesize the ideas, building language, and prepare for the discourse structure. In a word, the enabling activities should make the learners ready to finish the productive activity. Assessing12 is the last phase of the cycle of instruction. Normally, the learners have finished the productive activities or projects submitted to the teacher before the deadline. Once the teacher has received all the students’ products, s/​he needs to make a good design of assessment. In class, the assessment is conducted jointly by the teacher and the learners together to check whether their performance meets the requirements specified in the phase of Motivating. If some requirements are not fulfilled satisfactorily, the remedial work will be provided accordingly. As shown in Figure 8.3, Scenario is placed at the center of both the phases of Motivating and Assessing. It means that the information about Scenario is closely linked with learning objectives in a whole cycle of instruction from the beginning to the end. In the following part, I will give a detailed explanation of SBP. Basic elements of a scenario

In this section, I will give a detailed account of the SBP. Before I explicate what SBP is, I need to explain what scenario means. Then I expound on the major elements of the SBP. According to the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (Summers 2004: 1464), Scenario refers to “a situation that could possibly happen.” In language teaching, the more frequently used word is situation. The question that might arise is why I chose scenario instead of situation. The reason is that situation is defined as “a combination of all the things that are happening and all the conditions that exist at a particular time in a particular place” (Summers 2004: 1544). By comparing scenario with situation, the subtle difference can be epitomized that the latter

Three models of ELF instruction: from a pedagogical perspective  129 concerns an ongoing event but the former is a possible going-​to-​be event. Since Chinese students are learning English as a lingua franca, they do not have opportunities to use English for a genuine purpose in their daily life. Even if there is now potential for communicating with people from different countries in ELF in virtual spaces, very few would do it frequently. However, if teachers intentionally design scenarios in instruction, they could provide students with opportunities to complete an activity with potential communicative values. Thus, scenario is chosen in order to differentiate from situation. In addition to the difference between the meaning of scenario and that of situation, another reason for the deliberate choice of scenario is to avoid the possible confusion caused by Situational Language Teaching (SLT) popular in the UK in the 1960s (Richards and Rodgers 2001). SLT emphasizes oral English should be taught before written English and oral English should be presented in a situation which, however, lacks the dynamism of communication. Scenario consists of four basic elements: Why (Purpose), What (Topic), Who (participants), and Where (setting) as shown in Figure 8.4 (Wen and Sun 2020:7). The first element, Why (Purpose), refers to the aim of communication which could be generally classified into two types: (1) informative/​explanatory and (2) persuasive/​argumentative. The first type is to inform an input-​receiver by an output producer. By nature, the first type is fact-​based discourse, while the second type is argument-​based discourse. However, these two types of purposes are not clearly cut in real communication. When the output producer describes and explains something to the input-​receiver, the underlying purpose, perhaps, is to hope the listeners will accept it. When the output producer tries to persuade someone, s/​he must present the argument with the facts as supporting evidence. In other words, these two types are often intertwined in communication. The pure informative or persuasive purpose hardly occurs in real communication. The verbs used in the first type often include: introduce, instruct, classify, describe, define, demonstrate, depict, explain, explicate, expound, list, notify, illustrate, record, review, report, synthesize, summarize, present, etc. The verbs frequently used in the second type involve: argue, persuade, advocate, advise,

Figure 8.4 Basic elements of a scenario.

130  Qiufang Wen advertise, convince, defend, encourage, exhort, justify, influence, impact, persuade, promote, propose, urge, support, etc. These two groups of verbs are similar to expositives and verdictives, respectively, proposed by Austin (1962) but not identical. The second element is What (Topic), referring to what is to be communicated. In fact, the topics for people’s communication in our life are almost infinite; thus, it is not possible to present an exhaustive list. Since my research primarily focuses on university English learners, the topics often involve social, political, economic, and historic areas as well as their personal growth such as ethical and moral issues, time management and career planning, friendship, and lifelong learning. What topic is chosen to be used in English instruction? First of all, the topics to be selected should match their cognitive level. In other words, the topics concerning survival English such as buying air tickets and booking a hotel room are not suitable for students who have already learned English for nine years in primary and secondary schools. Secondly, the topics should in one way or another increase students’ world knowledge in the sense the topics selected can lead the students to some new ideas. In other words, the selected topics must provide students with something new. Finally, the selection of the topics should take students’ interests into consideration. The third element is Who (identity), referring to the identities of a producer and a receiver. The important thing here is the relation between the producer and the receiver. As a producer, s/​he should be clear about her/​his own identity. At the same time, the producer should also know the receiver’s identity. In addition to the distinction between native and nonnative speakers, two other factors also need to be considered. The first is the social distance that includes power relation and differences in age, community, and nationality, etc. They may have varied roles in communication. I must say that this is very crucial in China and also in some other Asian countries such as Japan, South Korea, and Thailand. However, this might be negligible in some Western countries. When social distance is to be regarded as an important factor for communication, the pragmatic pattern of communication is different between two parties at equal footing and two parties, with one at a senior position and the other at a junior position. The second factor concerns psychological distance, i.e., to what extent the two parties involved in communication are familiar with each other. The two parties might be friends, acquaintances, or strangers. Normally speaking, more formal English is preferred to be used when two parties are strangers, while more informal one to be used among friends. However, the social distance and psychological distance might cross each other. For example, when two parties who have large social distance are old friends, the factor of psychological distance may take precedence over the factor of social distance. The fourth element is Where (setting), referring to the place where communication takes place. In fact, communication can happen ubiquitously. It can occur within a university, such as classrooms, teachers’ office, academic halls, a library, a canteen, a dorm, a playground, and the virtual world. It can take place outside a university, such as students’ home, parks, restaurants, theaters, cinemas, shopping malls, workplaces, and conference venues. It can even be carried out outside China

Three models of ELF instruction: from a pedagogical perspective  131 such as in English-​speaking countries and non-​English-​speaking countries. It is easy to list more places where communication takes place. Generally, they can be classified into two types, namely formal and informal ones, which may have distinctive features in the choice of words, sentence structures, and discourse patterns. The above four elements are interconnected with each other and each of them has its own role to play. However, these four elements are not always of equal importance. Very often, some of them may play a decisive role and others may be marginalized. For example, if an employee wants to ask for a three-​day leave to look after her mother in the hospital, setting hardly has any role to play. Whether the employee talks with the employer in the office or outside the office does not affect the employee’s language use. Let’s look at another example. Suppose one scholar is going to do a presentation on the topic of recent development of English instruction in China at an international academic conference. The purpose is to inform conference participants of recent progress in English teaching. The topic is current changes in English teaching in China. The speaker’s identity is a scholar from China and the listeners’ identities are usually diversified. The listeners might come from different countries. Furthermore, some of them might be experts in the field, some, novice researchers, and others, even postgraduate students. The presentation made is not changed due to changes in participants since the specific types of listeners are not predictable. In this case, the role of audience is not vital. Illustrations of the SBP in the POA

Intercultural communication is characterized by immediacy and unpredictability (Wen 1999). The learners cannot be taught all that is going to be used in the future. Therefore, the objective of ELF instruction can only be to equip learners with ICC. This is a kind of capability or potential capacity that can enable the learners to deal with new communicative activities. How can we effectively develop the learners’ ICC? My assumption is that for ELF learners, their ICC needs to be developed through SBP in the POA. The more scenario-​based productive activities practiced, the better ELF ICC can be fostered. In other words, the teacher uses diversified scenario-​based productive activities as typical cases for training the learners in the hope that they can transfer what has been learned to new scenarios. Let’s look at a hypothetical example. The module for teaching is attending an exhibition. The students involved are second-​year students who major in computer science. The scenario and learning objectives are listed as follows: Scenario: Suppose you are working in one international company located in Shanghai. The company is to develop various kinds of face recognition software and has about 1000 employees from different countries. Zhang Hua and 15 staff members are working in one team for analyzing market needs. Last week Zhang Hua went to Belgium to visit an exhibition of face recognition software. During the exhibition, he had opportunities to talk to people in English from the companies in Japan, Netherlands, Denmark and South Korea, whose mother tongue is not English. When he came back from Belgium, he should

132  Qiufang Wen give a presentation to his team, sharing what he has learned from the exhibition. Suppose you were Zhang Hua. What do you report about these facts that you got through the conversations with the visitors from other countries? How would you prepare for your presentation? Learning objectives: After learning the module, you will be able to: 1. Write a report of what you have got from the visitors from the other countries 2. Give a presentation on the visit to the exhibition of face recognition software in Belgium. Due to limited space, I will focus on the first learning objective. The teacher first organizes a discussion in which the students are asked to analyze the basic elements of the scenario. The purpose of communication is to report the information and the topic is about the progress of face recognition software in other countries. The interlocutors are from different countries who share the same interests in face recognition software but with different mother tongues. Furthermore, none of their mother tongues is English. Therefore, all the English used would have their own features which might cause some difficulties in understanding. In this case, communication strategies can be used to clear away linguistic and cultural barriers. The age difference and psychological difference need to be considered when talking to people from Japan and South Korea. The settings may be various such as the rest area, the hotel restaurant, and the exhibition area. After all, such communication is casual and informal. After the analysis of the scenario, the teacher would ask the students to have an initial trial in listening to audio clips of the conversations between the Chinese and the Japanese, the Chinese and the Dane, etc., and then give a brief report. The students may find it difficult to comprehend nonnative English speakers. However, the teacher would ensure them that this new module would help them to overcome these difficulties. At the phase of Enabling, the teacher needs to provide the students with relevant input materials. These materials could be audio clips in which speakers with different mother tongues communicate with each other in ELF. By doing so, students may get familiar with the English used by Japanese, South Korean, Dane, and Dutch. The teacher may design enabling activities with reference to ideas (what to be reported), language (how to express these ideas in English), and discourse structure (how to organize a written report). After a series of enabling activities as scaffolds, the students would be ready to accomplish the productive activity. Once they have finished their written reports outside class and submitted them to the teacher, the teacher should design how to assess their work jointly in class.13 Summary

In the above section, I have introduced three models of ELF instruction from the pedagogical perspective. The first model of ICC clarifies the learning objective of nonnative speakers is ICC, but not the traditional concept of communicative

Three models of ELF instruction: from a pedagogical perspective  133 competence, which is native-​speaker norm-​based. The second model is a further development of the first one which elaborates on ELF teaching content and objectives. Linguistically, learners should be taught native varieties, nonnative varieties, and the learner’s own variety (primarily referring to lexical items) and the objective is the effectiveness of communication. Culturally, learners should be exposed to native speakers’ cultures, nonnative speakers’ cultures, and the learners’ own cultures for the purpose of developing the learners’ intercultural competence. Pragmatically, learners should be taught universal communicative rules, native speakers’ communicative rules, and nonnative speakers’ communicative rules in order to foster the capabilities of dealing with emerging problems in communication. In regard to cultures and pragmatic rules, learners cannot learn all of them in schools since the time of schooling is limited and everyone’s life is short but cultural knowledge and pragmatic rules are almost numerous. Therefore, developing their capabilities (Widdowson 2003) is much more important than acquiring specific types of rules.14 The third model is how ELF is instructed in classroom teaching. The suggested solution is SBP in the POA which emphasizes ELF must be instructed in a specific scenario in which a productive activity is required to be completed. Each scenario includes four elements, i.e., why (purpose), what (topic), who (identity), and where (setting). By completing more productive activities in typical scenarios, the learners can acquire ELF capabilities that hopefully can be transferred to new scenarios. Conclusion ELF is a thriving research area in applied linguistics which, however, has not paid much attention to ELF instruction. This chapter has aimed to fill in the gap by proposing three models of ELF instruction from a pedagogical perspective. The first model redefined the learning objective of ELF as ICC rather than CC. The second model further specified what to be taught and what to be achieved in ELF instruction. To differentiate the content of ELF teaching from ELF objectives is very essential for maintaining English used by people around the world intelligible to each other. In other words, the primary component of input should be native varieties but output produced by ELF learners should not be assessed by native speakers’ norms. If input is encouraged to be a nonnative variety, the output would be slipped far and far away from the norms, and the intelligibility among ELF users will be greatly reduced.15 These models are logically linked with one another, with each model centering on one issue. Furthermore, they are progressively developed in the sense the earlier one is the basis of the later one. Hopefully, further research will be carried out on their effectiveness. Notes 1 This study was funded by “Research on the Innovation of Foreign Language Education in China” (Grant Number: 22JJD740011), a major project of Key Research Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences under the Ministry of Education (MOE).

134  Qiufang Wen 2 Initially, English as an international language (EIL) was used (Jenkins 2000) and later EIL and ELF were regarded as interchangeable by some scholars; see, for example, Jenkins (2002). However, not all ELF researchers think that they are interchangeable. According to the view of Seidlhofer (2011), ELF is more suitable than EIL, referring to communication in English among people with different mother tongues. 3 The number is calculated by the number of entrants multiplied by the number of required years of English learning at different levels of education. For example, students in primary education are required to learn English from Primary 3. Thus, the total number of English learners is calculated by the number of entrants multiplied by 4 years. 4 Those who do research on classical Chinese and archaeology could be exempted from taking the uniformed national English test. 5 College English test is a national unified test for all university students to take after they have finished the first two-​year English learning at university. It was formally started in 1987 and was approved by the Department of Higher Education in the MOE (Yang 2019). 6 In the late 1990s, the websites and databases were not available in Chinese universities and printed international journals were limited. Therefore, it was not easy for Chinese scholars to have access to international journal articles. 7 Lingua franca is not a new term to Chinese people because Putonghua is used as a lingua franca for communication among Chinese people with different ethnic backgrounds and diverse dialects of Chinese. 8 In 1991, national English written tests (Band 4 and Band 8) for English majors started. Band 4 is taken by English majors when they have finished the first two years of learning and Band 8 is taken by English majors when they have finished the fourth year of English learning. However, the spoken English test was absent due to its difficulty in implementation. I was thus invited to design an experiment on the validity, reliability, and feasibility of a national spoken English test-​band 4. The experiment lasted five years and eventually the test formally started in 1999 (Wen and Zhao 1995). 9 But due to the influence of English cultures, Chinese people who have learned English for more than five years most likely would respond to the compliments by saying “Thank you”. 10 This is a literal translation of the Chinese term. 11 In the Chinese context, English instruction is carried out based on thematic modules. One module usually lasts two weeks. One cycle of instruction is to finish one module. 12 In the POA there are two kinds of assessment. One is called instant assessment in the sense the feedback is given immediately after the learner’s performance, which occurs at the phase of Enabling. The second is called delayed assessment, which means that there is a time gap between the submission of the productive works and assessment. Assessing here refers to the delayed assessment. 13 SBP in the POA can be used in two kinds of courses. One is called Integrated English and the other is called Viewing, Listening, and Speaking. The illustrative example I gave is from Integrated English which emphasizes connected discourse such as oral presentations, public speeches, and responding to emails. At the tertiary level, they only have one hour per week to practice interactive communication in the course of Viewing, Listening, and Speaking (CVLS). Due to limited instruction time, CVLS is primarily to develop students’ competence in understanding oral English spoken by speakers from different countries. 14 This might sound very much knowledge based. However, in the Chinese monolingual classroom, what we can do at most is to use some typical illustrative examples to show

Three models of ELF instruction: from a pedagogical perspective  135 the real case of ELF communication. However, if the classroom is multilingual, or we say the class accommodates international students from different countries, then the students can practice ELF. 15 Readers might ask why it is important to stick to the ‘native norm’. As I mentioned earlier in the text, what is taught and what is achieved are strikingly different. A similar view has been expressed by Widdowson (2003, 2016). In Widdowson’s paper (2016), he used the answer to the question about globalization in the interview by Ban Ki-​Moon, the then Secretary General of the United Nations as an illustrative example of ELF used by a nonnative speaker. My argument here is Ban was not taught this kind of English by his teacher when he was at school. The textbook provided by the teacher was most likely based on the native varieties.

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Part III

ELF and perspectives on multilingual communication and education

9 Rethinking English as a lingua franca from decolonial perspectives Yumi Matsumoto and Ryuko Kubota

Introduction In this theoretical chapter we attempt to rethink conceptualizations of English as a lingua franca (ELF) not only with perspectives from multiplicity and fluidity of language and communication but also drawing from decolonial and global South perspectives. These latter decolonizing perspectives can provide an alternative view, enabling us to delink ELF approaches from European hegemonic epistemologies that define legitimate forms and users of language as well as the concept of language itself (see Pennycook and Makoni 2020). Because of the prominence of globalization and internationalization, our communication has increasingly become multilingual and multicultural. Considering the rapid changes in our language and communicative practices that are influenced by such global trends, applied linguists have not only discussed the multiplicity of languages associated with multilingualism but have also begun introducing the concept of fluidity in relation to language, modes of communication, and interactional practices among multilinguals. Particularly, the use of English as a medium of communication in intercultural settings (e.g., classrooms) gained much attention in the field of applied linguistics around the turn of the millennium (see, e.g., Jenkins 2000, 2002; Seidlhofer 2001). Since then, the field of ELF has significantly expanded, and it has established and acknowledged itself as a disciplinary field, as clearly illustrated in Jenkins, Baker, and Dewey’s (2018) handbook of ELF. The handbook demonstrates a wide range of ELF research endeavors, examining various linguistic aspects (e.g., phonology, morphosyntax, pragmatics), diverse communicative contexts and modes (where English is used as a lingua franca through face-​ to-​face and virtual modes and English is used for academic writing/​composition), research methodologies (e.g., conversation analysis, corpus-​based approaches, ethnography, see also Murata 2020), and pedagogical applications for English language teaching (ELT). Although we acknowledge the value of ELF empirical research endeavors, we argue that several lingering issues related to conceptualizations of ELF require more critical work and awareness. These issues to be questioned include (a) focusing on English that further reinforces its global status; (b) focusing more on speech DOI: 10.4324/9781003391463-12

142  Yumi Matsumoto and Ryuko Kubota compared with other multimodal interactional resources (e.g., gestures) (cf., the similar focus on speech exists in the broader field of linguistics, see Block, 2014); and (c) being rather exclusive in terms of where ELF research is generated (mostly from the global North, particularly economically advanced parts of Europe, although we saw some expansion into East Asia and South America). It is important to note, however, that several researchers recently made efforts to reconceptualize and expand ELF theoretically, including by more explicitly underscoring the multilingual nature of ELF interactions (reconceptualizing ELF as English as a multilingua franca, see Jenkins 2015, 2018), which had in fact already been recognized from the outset of ELF research (e.g., Seidlhofer 2009), and overcoming lingual bias (see Block 2014) and integrating nonverbal aspects (e.g., gestures, gaze) for analyzing multilingual ELF communicative practices holistically (e.g., Konakahara 2017; Matsumoto 2019; Matsumoto and Canagarajah 2020). Despite this recent work, we argue that such efforts need to be further expanded—​ namely, we must move beyond underscoring the multiplicity of languages and the fluidity of language and communication—​by discussing decolonizing perspectives that problematize boundary-​based thinking related to language(s) and West-​centered normative understandings of language and communication. Decolonial perspectives can further enrich ELF research on theorizing and analyzing multilingual communicative practices by questioning the possible supremacy of English within the ELF conceptualization [see also a similar critical consideration by Cogo, Jenkins, Dewey, and Pérez’s attempt to create an alternative term, “Multilingualism with English,” which puts “multilingualism” before “English” (Centre for Multilingualism with English 2023)]. Our aim is for this chapter to be a meaningful step toward achieving “equitable multilingualism” (Ortega 2019: 23)—​ in investigating more diverse lingua franca communication that entails much beyond communication involving English—​by integrating insights of decoloniality and by underscoring the importance of taking holistic and equitable approaches to language and communicative practice among much more diverse multilingual populations. The move toward equitable multilingualism can invite and expand empirical studies from beyond current ELF research boundaries (i.e., Europe, Southeast and East Asia, and more recently, South America, particularly, Brazil and Colombia, and Australia), potentially enabling the field to become much more inclusive and to value diverse linguistic and cultural norms. The theoretical development of ELF In this first section, we briefly review the development of ELF as a field, dividing its history into three phases (ELF 1, ELF 2, and ELF 3), following Jenkins (2015). The purposes of this historical review are to (a) make explicit the dynamic changes in how ELF has been conceptualized over the past few decades; (b) consider how those shifts have affected the major focus of ELF empirical investigations; and (c) illuminate possible advantages and weaknesses of ELF conceptualizations—​ particularly the assumptions currently underlying ELF (which include generally focusing on speech, e.g., Björkman 2014, yet see emerging research on ELF written discourse like WrELFA 2015, or written corpus of ELF academic communication,

English as a lingua franca from decolonial perspectives  143 see also Turner, this volume), which require critical reexamination through decolonial and global South perspectives. ELF Phase 1 was characterized by efforts to identify core linguistic features (pronunciation, lexis, and grammar). During this initial period (the early 2000s) of ELF, Jenkins (2000, 2002) focused on phonetics and phonology—​two linguistic aspects in which the differences between so-​called native speakers and nonnative speakers of English are relatively easy to recognize. Other researchers like Seidlhofer (2004) and Cogo and Dewey (2006) examined characteristics or patterns of lexicogrammar. Those researchers at the time tended to conceive of ELF as a language system or a variety, attempting to identify core linguistic features of ELF (see, e.g., Jenkins 2000). It can be argued that this feature-​based and variety-​oriented approach resembles the approach by researchers in the field of World Englishes (WE) as Jenkins (2015) states (e.g., Kachru 1996; see more discussion of WE approaches in Bolton 2021). In fact, both fields made efforts to identify and describe unique, core linguistic features and patterns of Englishes, thus attempting to differentiate Englishes that are “legitimate” language systems or varieties from so-​called native speakers’ English. Prior to ELF Phase 1, a critical conceptual discussion initiated by Seidlhofer (2001) and other researchers identified the conceptual gap between the sociolinguistic reality of how and by whom English is used in the internationalized world and how we normally research and teach English language based on native speaker norms. This discussion greatly impacted initial attempts among researchers within ELF to identify and describe unique, distinctive linguistic forms or features of ELF or English in particular for transforming ELT by considering actual nonnative English speakers’ English use. One representative example of ELF Phase 1 is Jenkins’s (2000, 2002) efforts to identify the lingua franca core (LFC) that was thought to be critical for achieving intelligibility among nonnative speakers of English in intercultural communication. Jenkins (2000) suggested five segmental and prosodic features as the LFC that could safeguard intercultural communication, prioritizing LFC as a focus for English pronunciation teaching (instead of focusing on all phonological elements). Based on LFC approaches, Jenkins attempted to make changes in ELT based on native speakers’ norms. Another focal linguistic area of research during ELF Phase 1 was lexicogrammar. Since the mid-​2000s, various ELF (spoken and written) corpora became available for data-​driven research (e.g., the Corpus of English as a Lingua Franca in Academic Settings, or ELFA; Vienna-​Oxford International Corpus of English, or VOICE). For instance, based on the VOICE corpus, Seidlhofer (2004) identified common lexicogrammatical features among so-​called nonnative English speakers that deviate from those of so-​called native speakers but do not seem to cause communicative troubles in intercultural communication. Again, this type of approach seems to align with WE approaches (specifically, Kachruvian perspectives; see Bolton 2021), documenting linguistic evidence along with local histories of English language and codifying Englishes for legitimating diverse English varieties around the globe (e.g., Bolton 2003). However, as Seidlhofer (2009) aptly noted, despite possible observed regularities in ELF corpus data, ELF interactions also exhibit inherent fluidity and involve

144  Yumi Matsumoto and Ryuko Kubota ad hoc, situated-​meaning negotiation. Thus, researchers in the field of ELF (e.g., Mortensen 2013) increasingly started to recognize the limitations of describing ELF and conceptualizing ELF as a rather stable or distinct language system—​given that linguistic form is variable and diverse depending on context (see, e.g., Cogo 2009, Kaur 2009a, 2009b). The next phase, ELF Phase 2 (according to Jenkins 2015), was characterized by its focus on language use and practice and more specifically on examining interactional processes and pragmatic strategies for achieving understanding. In contrast with ELF Phase 1, this second phase drastically shifted the focus to language use and local communicative practices, employing practice-​ based approaches to understanding ELF (Mortensen 2013). According to Seidlhofer (2009), interlocutors in ELF contexts use “their multi-​faceted multilingual repertoires in a fashion motivated by the communicative purpose and the interpersonal dynamics of the interaction” (242). This new focus on ELF interactional practice and dynamic negotiation processes—​instead of unique linguistic forms, features, or regularities—​led to a proliferation of ELF pragmatics research and interactional analysis during this phase. Numerous researchers (e.g., Björkman 2013; Cogo 2009; Kaur 2009a, 2009b; Kimura 2018; Matsumoto 2011, 2018) examined diverse ELF contexts, including university classrooms and study-​abroad settings. Research often employed conversation analysis to examine interactions sequentially. The most productive line of research related to these empirical studies has been identifying communicative strategies (see Björkman 2014 for a communicative strategy framework for ELF communication, e.g., repetition, paraphrasing) for preempting and resolving interactional troubles and achieving understanding. These diverse communicative strategies seem to help avert problems of understanding and ensure communicative success despite the unexpected, fluid nature of interactions due to interlocutors’ linguistic and cultural differences. Furthermore, when investigations of English as an academic lingua franca in oral discourse (Björkman 2013) became popular, several researchers (e.g., Kalocsai 2014; Kimura 2018; Smit 2010) employed ethnographic approaches to longitudinally investigate the development of communicative practices by incorporating the notion of communities of practice (Wenger 1998). This longitudinal, ethnographic orientation along with the model of communities of practice—​which can be more appropriate than the earlier way of understanding communities based on variety-​oriented speech communities, which was partially influenced by WE research methods and is associated with Phase 1—​represented a new trend in ELF research. In ELF Phase 3, Jenkins (2015) foregrounded and reiterated the multilingual characteristics of ELF by conceptually reframing ELF as “English as a Multilingua Franca” (73), conceiving of English as one of many languages from which to choose as a medium in intercultural communication (see also Jenkins 2018). With this conceptualization, Jenkins critiqued a widespread belief or assumption that English is the default language of international, intercultural communication (see, e.g., Crystal 2012) and reiterated that other languages can also function as lingua franca, and that communicative practice in intercultural communication frequently

English as a lingua franca from decolonial perspectives  145 happens through a mix of languages (for similar discussions on multilingual nature of ELF interactions, see Cogo 2012; Hülmbauer 2013; Pietikäinen 2018). In other words, ELF is characterized not just by its variability (Phase 2), but its complexity involving multilingual communicative contexts (namely, multiplicity of languages and communicative norms) has been underscored. Besides multilingualism, several researchers (e.g., Kimura and Canagarajah 2018; Matsumoto 2019) recently proposed the necessity of integrating multimodality for illustrating the complexity of ELF interactions and multilingual communicative practices, suggesting further epistemological and methodological expansions of ELF by considering multiple semiotic resources beyond speech. Recognizing ELF as a multilingual and multimodal practice, several researchers (e.g., Kimura 2020; Konakahara 2017; Matsumoto 2018, 2022; Matsumoto and Canagarajah 2020) conducted in-​ depth analyses of multimodal interactional resources, including verbal and nonverbal elements (e.g., gestures, objects), in a way that treats them as integral, rather than supplementary, to ELF communication. In short, ELF Phase 3 can be characterized not only as multilingual but also as multimodal, and both of these elements are essential resources in ELF and any communicative practices. In sum, in this section we discussed the theoretical development of ELF as a field and its methodological approach to a lesser degree. This brief review exhibits the evolving nature of ELF research over the past few decades. As each phase of ELF built on the previous phase, the field became larger and richer, aligning with and encompassing a broader body of research and enabling its connection and overlap with other theories in applied linguistics, such as WE and translingualism. Such openness and flexibility in conceptualizing ELF are surely among the advantages of ELF as a field. However, as discussed below, the general tendency of understanding language in a rather fixed and bounded manner (see Canagarajah 2018; Kimura and Canagarajah 2018)—​which can be attributed to ELF’s ties to (applied) linguistics (exhibited through the field’s investigation of communicative practice based on linguistic fields like phonetics/​phonology, syntax, and pragmatics), the disciplinary field of linguistics with a strong Eurocentric foundation—​can be critically reconsidered from decolonial and global Southern perspectives. Furthermore, ELF’s theoretical and empirical focus on the global North (particularly European-​ origin) can be reimagined from decolonial and local perspectives (see, e.g., Yu and Liu 2022 for questioning the relevance of ELF in all geographical contexts, for example, for Chinese educational contexts). Decolonization and perspectives from the global South The field of language studies has recently begun to pay greater attention to the idea of decolonization, a conceptual tool for scrutinizing and dismantling the oppressive effects of colonialism as seen in the hegemony of dominant languages, such as English, and Eurocentric knowledges, as well as other systems of power interrelated to issues such as race, gender, class, sexuality, and culture (Pennycook 1998; Pennycook and Makoni 2020). Essentially, decolonization attempts to disrupt colonized ways of being, knowing, and doing within various social domains.

146  Yumi Matsumoto and Ryuko Kubota Decolonial perspectives can shed new light on how ELF research has attempted to—​and still needs to—​approach multiplicity and fluidity in language and communication. Recently, decolonial perspectives have been applied to many facets of language studies, including linguistic analyses, academic writing in English, translingual practices in the classroom, teaching English as an additional language in various parts of the world, the intersectionality of race and language in education, and more (see, e.g., Awayed-​Bishara et al. 2022; Canagarajah 2022; Deumert et al. 2020; García et al. 2021; Jordão in this volume; Kubota 2020, 2022; Litzenberg 2021; Pennycook and Makoni 2020). These scholarly discussions draw on the works of critical scholars from the global South, especially Latin America. Decolonial perspectives require an understanding of coloniality. While colonialism refers to a system of political, economic, and cultural domination of a nation or people caused by the colonizer, coloniality is the enduring effects of colonialism (Maldonado-​Torres 2007). According to Mignolo and Walsh (2018), coloniality is intimately tied to modernity, a European idea characterized by universal history, progress, and development, and is embedded in the colonial matrix of power that gives rise to the Western control of knowledge and institutional structures. In this sense, “coloniality is far from over; it is all over” (Mignolo and Michelle 2013). Clearly, the English language is a powerful medium through which coloniality has spread in colonized territories under British and American colonial rule and in almost all corners of the world through capitalist globalization in contemporary society. The dominance of English in the world and the resultant prevalence of the use of English (compared to other languages) as a lingua franca among people from diverse L1 backgrounds is certainly associated with this colonial continuum. Even before the present surge of scholarly interest in decolonization, the link between colonialism/​coloniality and English was explicitly scrutinized by Pennycook nearly two decades ago. Through a poststructuralist lens, Pennycook (1998) discussed how colonial discourses produced the dominant European images of the language and culture of the Self (the colonizer) and the Other (the colonized). He further pointed out the colonial construction of the ways in which English language has been taught and learned. More recently, Motha (2014) argued that British and American colonial and imperial domination in the past had lingering cultural and linguistic effects, as observed in the global desire for teaching and learning English as an international language. These critiques indicate that the ways in which people communicate in English (compared to other languages) as a lingua franca may be entangled with the enduring effects of colonialism. They also invite us to explore how the inquiry focus and methodology of studying ELF communication can be further reconceptualized through a decolonial lens. Broadly speaking, decoloniality aims to “delink from the epistemic assumptions common to all the areas of knowledge established in the Western world since the European Renaissance and through the European Enlightenment” (Mignolo and Walsh 2018: 106). Mignolo and Walsh argue that decoloniality promotes “radically distinct perspectives and positionalities

English as a lingua franca from decolonial perspectives  147 that displace Western rationality as the only framework and possibility of existence, analysis, and thought” (17). Decoloniality is about unlearning, undoing, and reconstructing the dominant taken-​for-​granted ways of learning, knowing, and doing, which are often founded on Western rationality and privilege White, male, heterosexual, middle-​class, non-​Indigenous, and all normative identities and perspectives. Yet, there is one important caveat. The trendy discourse of decolonization has been challenged from Indigenous perspectives in North America. For Tuck and Yang (2012), decolonization should not only represent an abstract notion of advocacy for social justice, but it should pursue the repatriation and reclamation of Indigenous land, water, language, and culture for Indigenous people. Non-​ Indigenous educators discussing decolonization might run the risk of obscuring the harm that settler colonialism has done to Indigenous people, land, culture, and communities. Although the idea of decoloniality can certainly be employed to disrupt power structures in many contexts, the violence of colonial structures and the enduring coloniality inflicted upon Indigenous people and communities must be acknowledged. Decolonial thinking overlaps with the perspectives of the global South or Southern epistemologies, which can bring to light the knowledges that have been made invisible within the colonial framework of Eurocentric knowledge production, imposition, and consumption (e.g., Connell 2007; Santos 2016, 2018). As Pennycook and Makoni (2020) explain, the global South refers to “the people, places, and ideas that have been left out of the grand narrative of modernity” (1). As such, these Southern perspectives aim to disrupt and restore power inequalities and oppressions related to Indigeneity, race, gender, class, language, sexuality, and other categories that exist not only between the global North and the global South but also within either the global North or the global South. In other words, the global South does not always refer to geographical locations, but rather it signifies justice-​deserving spaces. Just as decolonial thinking questions the global dominance of White Euro-​ American knowledges and practices, Southern perspectives also problematize global inequalities perpetuated by Eurocentrism, White supremacy, patriarchy, economic gaps, heterosexuality, and ableism, and seek to validate alternative ways of thinking, being, and doing. Southern perspectives provide “a space for alternative understanding of the world, an escape from Eurocentric critiques of Eurocentrism,” creating a space for the voices from the global South to express not only victimhood but also agency for refusal and change (Pennycook and Makoni 2020: 28). This takes us to the question of who needs decolonial and Southern perspectives for change. Focusing on epistemological decolonization to resist capitalism, colonialism, and patriarchy, Santos (2018) argues that decolonization needs to be engaged by both the colonized and the colonizer. From a Kenyan perspective, Thiong’o (1986) discusses how colonial imposition of English through the education system in Kenya created binary images of the languages and cultures of the superior colonizer and the inferior colonized, making colonized people internalize

148  Yumi Matsumoto and Ryuko Kubota the colonial power and violence. Overcoming this power structure requires both the colonizer and the colonized to decolonize the mind. Taken together, decolonial and Southern perspectives question what perspectives and whose voices are represented in research. Specifically, they challenge the tendency of knowledge production taking place mostly in the global North, and through linguistic analysis of primarily English often used in oral interactions. Decolonial and Southern perspectives can uncover possible inequities of power hidden behind such scholarly orientations and encourage all ELF scholars to think differently. Conceptual lineages and possible limitations of decolonial perspectives Although decolonial and Southern perspectives can provide a radical shift in thinking for local and global justice, it is important to acknowledge that the underlying critical stance is not totally new. In the field of ELT, the global power of English and English speakers has been long problematized from many different perspectives, including linguistic imperialism (Phillipson 1992), poststructuralist critique (Pennycook 1998, 2021), political economy and critiques of neoliberalism (Holborow 2015; O’Regan 2021; Park 2021), antiracism (Kubota and Lin 2009; Motha 2014), academic writing and publications (Lillis and Curry 2010), and translanguaging (García et al. 2021) to name a few. In fact, the original impetus of the concept of WE (e.g., Kachru 1985) can be described as having a “decolonizing ‘spirit’ ” (Saraceni and Jacob 2021: 11) in the sense that it aimed to delink from the colonial hegemony of British and American standard English as the only objects of study and instead draw attention to the legitimacy of postcolonial and other varieties of English. In a similar vein, ELF also attempted to redress the power inequality between native English speakers and nonnative English speakers by legitimizing the ownership of English used by nonnative speakers (Widdowson 1994). Thus, decolonial perspectives could be interpreted as “old wine in a new bottle,” so to speak. In fact, these conceptual lineages of the concept of decolonization with its constant change of nomenclature hint at potential limitations of decolonial perspectives. First, advocating decolonization could be reduced to a just fashionable concept with little substance, thereby leading to nonperformativity of decolonial speech acts (cf., Ahmed 2012). Echoing the criticism made by Tuck and Yang (2012), we can say that decolonial and Southern perspectives may simply become a trendy bandwagon inviting people to jump on, without a genuine commitment to actual decolonial undoing in proposing to decolonize pedagogies, curricula, and knowledge production (Moosavi 2020). In the field of language studies and education, many new conceptual trends or turns (e.g., social, multilingual) have come and gone, functioning as catchy labels and slogans (Schmenk et al. 2019). These turns get further intensified in the neoliberal pressure for scholars to publish a large volume of work (Kubota 2016). Even nonnative English-​speaking scholars and professionals in the field of ELT advocating to demystify the superiority of native

English as a lingua franca from decolonial perspectives  149 English speakers may still conform to the Western ways of knowing and speaking (Kumaravadivelu 2016). Second, the concepts used for scholarly inquiry, such as WE and ELF, despite their decolonizing spirit of questioning and disrupting the colonial matrix of power represented by linguistic normativity (e.g., standard English), can lead to various kinds of essentialism and simplified visions of diversity, akin to liberal multiculturalism, that merely celebrate difference and individual agency (Kubota 2004). Regarding WE (particularly related to Kachruvian approaches), the linguistic categorization based on nation-​states ignores not only vast diversity within the category (Bruthiaux 2003) but also unequal power relations between different varieties of English used by diverse speakers within stratified socioeconomic structures (Tupas 2021). With regard to ELF, O’Regan (2014), for instance, questioned the substance of the concept itself from a Marxist perspective, as it may sideline socioeconomic inequalities that position groups of people around the world differently in terms of access to English language acquisition in the first place. Moreover, O’Regan (2014) argues that ELF is reified as a describable entity depoliticized and detached from capitalist interest. Despite these potential risks (e.g., becoming a fashionable trend, leading to essentialism), decolonial perspectives can offer a transformative vision that reconceptualizes normative ideas about language (e.g., English) as well as linguistic forms and practices. They also invite us to question the modernist, West-​based ways in which linguistic and educational research has been generally theorized and conducted. Overall, decolonial perspectives can serve as a useful conceptual tool for questioning why and how diverse L1 users communicate in or choose English as a lingua franca, how Northern perspectives tend to orient ELF research in a particular way, and what the consequences are. In what follows, we will present some insights that decolonial perspectives offer to ELF research. Insights of decolonial perspectives on ELF: Rethinking three possible assumptions in ELF The preceding overview of decoloniality and its conceptual integration in language studies and ELT can reorient ELF research, enabling us to reconsider several assumptions underlying ELF conceptualizations and empirical research including: (a) the focus on English (compared to other languages) that further reinforces its global status; (b) the analytical focus on speech; and (c) the knowledge base mostly from the global North. Below we critically discuss these three issues from decolonial and Southern perspectives. First, we would like to consider the primary focus on English for empirical investigations. ELF research (rather than research on lingua franca communication broadly) naturally and inevitably focuses on English, reflecting and confirming the global prominence of English used as a lingua franca and users’ more frequent choices of English than other languages. Furthermore, it also relates to the fact that ELF as a field was partially influenced methodologically by WE scholarship, at

150  Yumi Matsumoto and Ryuko Kubota least during its early stages (ELF Phase 1 and ELF Phase 2) when researchers made efforts to legitimize nonnative speakers’ English use by describing and exploring a possible codification of unique linguistic features of English in intercultural contexts. Yet, from decolonial perspectives, English language is indeed a hegemonic medium through which coloniality has spread not only to colonized territories in the past, where local or Indigenous languages were often forcibly replaced by English, but also all over the world through capitalist globalization in the present. In fact, it is important to acknowledge that there are other global languages or languages that are used (in addition to English) in local linguistic communities. For example, Kubota (2013) examined communicative practices among Japanese expatriates at subsidiary companies in China, finding that while English was used as a lingua franca, English language usage was limited to particular individuals, purposes, and contexts. Instead, Japanese and Mandarin functioned as major lingua franca in these companies’ workplace communication (see also Kubota and McKay 2009 regarding the possibility of other languages as a lingua franca). As discussed above, more recently ELF (particularly ELF 3) brought multilingualism to the forefront conceptually (see “English as multilingua franca,” Jenkins 2015). Nonetheless, the prevalent scholarly practice of investigating the use of English as a lingua franca and the sheer volume of such research may fuel the idea that English is a predominant medium for global communication, reinforcing linguistic neocolonization. Therefore, a decolonial orientation for research would encourage decentering English and situating lingua franca communication within a broader framework involving other languages as well as a blurry interface between languages including or excluding English. As we will discuss below, decentering English opens up possibilities for investigating how diverse language users employ various interactional resources (including linguistic and multimodal ones for meaning-​ making) to communicate with each other. The second assumption that we want to address relates to the centrality of speech. This focus reflects the fact that ELF research has been mostly conducted by employing knowledge from (applied) linguistics, as illustrated in the development of ELF. In particular, during ELF 1 and ELF 2 phases, researchers examined linguistic aspects, including phonetic, phonological, morphosyntax, and pragmatic elements, in various ELF multilingual communicative contexts. As discussed, several researchers (e.g., Kimura and Canagarajah 2018; Matsumoto 2019) began arguing for the necessity of integrating nonverbal elements for ELF conceptualization and interactional analysis, but the centrality of speech (compared with nonverbal elements) is still prevalent (see also Block 2014, for discussion of lingual bias, or the tendency to conceive of communicative practices exclusively in terms of the linguistics, in the second language acquisition field). Additionally, O’Regan (2021) pointed out the phonocentrism, or the primacy of speech, reflected in the paradigms of ELF and WE as part of the scholarly interest in linguistic multiplicity and fluidity, which further resonates with the neoliberal commodification of communication (e.g., interactions at call centers). O’Regan drew attention to the scholarly roots of phonocentrism in Saussurean linguistics, which indeed represents a

English as a lingua franca from decolonial perspectives  151 modern and Western invention of academic knowledge that has reinforced the significant value of Eurocentric research. Taking into consideration decolonial and Southern perspectives, however, we need to think beyond colonial conceptualizations of what language means and entails. Decoloniality questions the normative understanding of language. For instance, translingualism or translanguaging (e.g., García et al. 2021), which is theorized based on decolonial perspectives, attempts to disrupt the modernist idea about fixed linguistic boundaries (e.g., named languages, clear division between speech and other meaning-​making resources). From another decolonial angle, the primacy of speech as an object of linguistic investigation—​as well as the neoliberal commodification of language—​over other modes of communication (e.g., nonverbal aspects such as gestures and facial expressions, material objects, spatiality) should be challenged (see the aforementioned criticism of phonocentrism in ELF—​ O’Regan 2021). Furthermore, Canagarajah (2018) introduced a flat ontology in relation to translingual practice, acknowledging how material, nonhuman resources can work together with humans in accomplishing communicative activities and thus arguing for flattening the normally assumed hierarchy, including human over nonhuman, and speech over nonverbality, in our thinking and research. In other words, thinking from alternative perspectives like decoloniality invites us to view language and communication more holistically by integrating multimodal resources as part of ELF in its meaning-​making practices (see Matsumoto 2019, 2022), and by even acknowledging how communication is shaped by power relations among language users from diverse intersectional identities (Kubota et al, 2022). Lastly, the third assumption or norm in ELF research that we want to highlight is the primacy of a knowledge base mostly from the global North. Since its initial phase, ELF has mainly been conceptualized and developed by mostly European researchers, and most empirical studies were initially conducted in Central and Northern Europe (e.g., U.K., Austria, Finland). Notably, research on ELF has gradually expanded to other geographical contexts, which include other parts of Europe (e.g., Spain, Greece, Turkey), East Asia (e.g., China, Japan), and Southeast Asia (e.g., Malaysia). However, research from the global South, where many people are often bilingual and multilingual speakers, is scarce (except recently emerging research on ELF-​informed teacher education and English medium education in Brazil; see Calvo et al 2022; Gimenez, El Kadri, and Calvo 2018a, 2018b). It is also noteworthy that ELF is rarely discussed or studied in native English-​speaking countries (e.g., the United States), where the society is increasingly becoming multilingual and multicultural due to rapid demographic shifts because of immigration and internationalized education (except Matsumoto 2019, 2022). This may have to do with the colonial ideology of English-​only monolingualism. These current situations are unfortunate considering the potential affordances of the ELF theoretical and analytical lens. Based on current definitions of ELF (e.g., Jenkins 2015, 2018; Mortensen 2013; Seidlhofer 2011), it can be applied in very diverse multilingual, intercultural communicative scenarios regardless of geographical locations. For instance, Mortensen (2013) simply defined ELF as

152  Yumi Matsumoto and Ryuko Kubota “the use of English in a lingua franca scenario” (36). It seems that conceptually, ELF approaches can shift beyond European or Asian contexts. Furthermore, from decolonial perspectives, European hegemonic thinking, or what knowledge from where can count as legitimate, should be critically reexamined (Pennycook and Makoni 2020). Specifically, ELF conceptualizations can be further revised and enriched by understanding more diverse, locally specific, multilingual communicative practices beyond the current research locus of the global North (e.g., economically advanced parts of Europe, Southeast, and East Asia), for example, countries in Africa where multiple languages coexist (as seen in Guido’s ELF-​ related work 2008, 2012). Such rethinking, we argue, leads to more equitable multilingualism (see Ortega 2019), potentially enabling the field of ELF to be more inclusive and legitimizing more diverse multilingual, translingual, and intercultural practices. Conclusion Decolonial and Southern perspectives can invite us to challenge possible unequal distributions of power in existing inquiries and orientations of ELF research more explicitly than before. Specifically, this chapter attempted to problematize how the current approaches to research on ELF communication may further reinforce the perception of English as a predominant language and its global status, contain inquiry primarily within the domain of speech, and maintain the inquiry focus and methodological approach within the global North, despite the ongoing refinements and expansion within the field. As a future direction for extending decolonial questioning, we may focus more on a wider range of backgrounds of language users (see also Ortega 2019 for including diverse multilinguals beyond elite populations) rather than solely on linguistic practices in lingua franca communication. Indeed, language is used by humans with diverse identities in terms of race, gender, sexuality, class, ethnicity, nationality, and (dis)ability. Decolonial perspectives would disrupt the concept of communication as primarily consisting of linguistic forms and practices and redirect our attention to how human differences and resulting power relations shape or reshape lingua franca communication. For instance, certain linguistic output can be interpreted or reacted to differently due to the perceived racial or ethnic backgrounds or unique positionalities of the interlocutors (Kang and Rubin 2009) (cf., research based on interactional sociolinguistics that focused on differences in interlocutors’ sociolinguistic references and/​or institutional power in intercultural communication, e.g., Gumperz 1982). Furthermore, human communication involves emotion and cognition, influencing the ways interlocutors engage with language. More research is needed to uncover explicitly how diverse human factors produce specific power relations contextually, which further shape lingua franca communication (see some examples like Guido, 2012, which illustrated conflictive, power-​laden communicative contexts involving migrants and officers from different lingua-​cultures). However, in employing decolonial and Southern perspectives, it is important to be aware of the pitfall of elevating them to a new conceptual canon or exploiting

English as a lingua franca from decolonial perspectives  153 them to play a neoliberal game of incessant knowledge production. In addition, decolonial research on (English as a) lingua franca communication in settler colonial societies, such as the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, should recognize the historical oppression of Indigenous languages, people, and communities. With such a caveat in mind, it is meaningful to incorporate a decolonial spirit and awareness into ELF epistemology and its empirical investigation (see, e.g., Kimura & Tsai 2023, which attempts to decolonize ELT classroom interactions). This would enable the ELF field to move forward and further broaden its scope by critically discerning how power operates on multiple levels, involving various languages, linguistic and semiotic features, language users, ideologies, and researchers, and by inviting even more diverse voices and perspectives beyond the Eurocentric research orientations and mindsets. The insights of decolonial and Southern perspectives in particular enable us to make visible elements related to colonialism, inequality, and power that might be hidden within conceptualizations of communication in English as a lingua franca, allowing us to meaningfully engage in reflections about conceptual and empirical research. Such critical reflections make it possible to reimagine and suggest alternative ways of discussing and studying the roles of lingua franca communication as a meaning-​making practice employed by people in our multilingual, multicultural world. References Ahmed, S. 2012. On being included: Racism and diversity in institutional life. Durham: Duke University Press. Awayed-​Bishara, M., H. Nets, and T. Milani 2022. Translanguaging in a context of colonized education: The case of EFL classrooms for Arabic speakers in Israel. Applied Linguistics 43(6), 1051–​1072. https://​doi.org/​10.1093/​app​lin/​amac​020 Björkman, B. 2013. English as an academic lingua franca. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Björkman, B. 2014. An analysis of polyadic English as a lingua franca (ELF) speech: A communicative strategies framework. Journal of Pragmatics 66, 122–​138. https://​doi. org/​10.1016/​j.pra​gma.2014.03.001 Block, D. 2014. Moving beyond “lingualism”: Multilingual embodiment and multimodality in SLA. In S. May (ed.), The multilingual turn: Implications for SLA, TESOL, and bilingual education. New York: Routledge, pp. 54–​77. Bolton, K. 2003. Chinese Englishes: A sociolinguistic history. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bolton, K. 2021. World Englishes: Approaches, models and methodology. In B. Schneider, T. Heyd and M. Saraceni (eds.), Bloomsbury World Englishes Volume 1: Paradigms. London: Bloomsbury Academic, pp. 9–​26. Bruthiaux, P. 2003. Squaring the circles: issues in modeling English worldwide. International Journal of Applied Linguistics 13(2), 159–​178. https://​doi.org/​10.1111/​ 1473-​4192.00042 Calvo, L., C. S., A. Cogo, El Kadri, M. and T. Gimenez 2022. “English gradually” and multilingual support in EMI: Insights from lecturers in two Brazilian universities. Journal of English as a Lingua Franca 11(2), 147–​170. https://​doi.org/​10.1515/​jelf-​2022-​2081 Canagarajah, S. 2018. Translingual practice as spatial repertoires: Expanding the paradigm beyond structuralist orientations. Applied Linguistics 39(1), 31–​54.

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10 Going beyond English-​only medium instruction Challenges of multilingual education as an LPP mechanism1 Masakazu Iino Introduction This chapter will reexamine how EMI (English-​medium instruction) and study-​ abroad programs are functioning as an LPP (language policy and planning) mechanism to raise awareness of ELF (English as a lingua franca) concepts in higher education in Japan. If ELF researchers aim to deliberately intervene in people’s linguistic attitudes and behaviors, then where is ELF orientation located in the frameworks of LPP approaches? How can ELF-​informed LPP be implemented? How sustainable is it to implement multilingual education efforts and study-​abroad programs to raise awareness of ELF as an LPP mechanism? In this chapter, based on the 10-​year-​long research project of ELF and EMI in Japanese higher education (see Iino 2019a, 2019b, 2020; Murata 2019; Murata, Iino and Konakahara 2019), the questions mentioned above will be explored. More dialogue between ELF and LPP fields is called upon to effectively implement ELF-​informed language policies. Overview of LPP studies as a subfield of sociolinguistics/​applied linguistics LPP is now recognized as a subfield of sociolinguistics and sometimes called macrosociolinguistics, the focus of which is more on language matters of the (inter) national, societal, and institutional level with a conviction that language itself or language conception can be modified and influenced by various “mechanisms” (Shohamy 2006). The field can also be regarded as one of the subfields of applied linguistics or clearly related to applied linguistics. Regarding the nature of LPP, Lo Bianco (2004: 738) mentions that LPP research is a practical academic discipline that incorporates knowledge from fields other than linguistics, “where language is only a part.” He also points out that language problems always arise in specific historical contexts, which involve “rival interests reflecting ‘loaded’ relations among ethnic, political, social, bureaucratic, and class groupings, and other kinds of ideological splits and controversies, including personal ones” (ibid.). LPP studies in the past could be divided historically into three phases, as summarized by Ricento (2000), First, LPP studies were conducted and applied in response to the decolonization and new state formation movements in the 1950s and 1960s. Ricento (2000: 198) DOI: 10.4324/9781003391463-13

160  Masakazu Iino called this phase “classical” in LPP studies, represented by status, corpus (Kloss 1968), and acquisition (Cooper 1989) planning during the postcolonial nation-​ building era after the 1950s. LPP was concerned with the intervention that “flows from an authoritative person or agency deciding that there exists a language problem which needs to be resolved” (Lo Bianco 2014: 198). In this climate, technicist approaches to modernize and standardize local/​indigenous languages, typically by creating an orthographic system for an oral language, for example, were largely viewed as politically neutral endeavors. Such LPP efforts “entailed cultural/​ethnic unity within a defined geographical boundary (state), and a common linguistic identity among the citizens of a polity” and “stable diglossia” (Ricento 2000:198). Furthermore, “the continued dominance (if not domination) of European colonial languages in high status domains of education, economy, and technology” (Ricento 2000:199) was facilitated by the “devised taxonomies of languages according to their relative suitability for national development” (ibid.). During such a nation-​ building stage, status planning, in particular, often became the proxy of political, economic, and social conflicts in their linguistic ecology (Iino 2020). Second, LPP studies shifted to incorporate the rising critical research paradigms to examine widespread failures of modernization experienced in the 1970s and 1980s. During this period, newly independent states were still “dependent on their former colonial masters” (Ricento 2000: 200), and “hierarchization and stratification of populations” and “the role of language(s) and culture(s) in this process” (ibid.) were identified. In fact, Ricento’s description of the second phase had hinted the root of the ELF conception: “Cherished notions such as ‘native speaker,’ ‘mother tongue,’ and ‘linguistic competence’ were called into question, problematized, and even abandoned (see, for example, The Native Speaker is Dead, Paikeday 1985)” (ibid.:201). The structural stratification of multilingual situations was regarded by Ricento (2000) as “social behavior” in the following way: historic inequalities and conflicts did not diminish with the selection of an indigenous language for Low variety functions, and designation of European languages for High functions tended to perpetuate socioeconomic asymmetries based on education, access to which was socially controlled by dominant groups (internally), and influenced by regional and global economic interests (externally). (Ricento 2000: 202). In Ricento’s (2000) third phase, LPP studies expanded their scope of inquiry to cover an emergence of new world order in the early 1990s, with massive migration, reemergence of local ethnic identities as well as new regional/​supranational coalitions such as EU and the expansion of ASEAN, the globalization of capitalism coinciding with the collapse of the Soviet Union, and postmodern research paradigms and attention to linguistic human rights (see, for example, “attitude planning” [Reagan 2011], one example of which is promoting sign language for visually impaired people’s linguistic human rights). During the third phase of Ricento’s (2000) historical perspectives, the “centralization in the control and

Going beyond English-only medium instruction  161 dissemination of culture worldwide” was mentioned “to be a greater threat to independence than was colonialism itself” (ibid.: 203) in that “the new media have the power to penetrate more deeply into a ‘receiving’ culture than any previous manifestation of Western technology” (Smith 1980: 176, cited in Said 1993: 291–​ 292), which are dominated by “a handful of multinationals” (Said 1993, cited in Ricento 2000: 203). In addition, Graddol (2006) points out that the rise of personal computers in the 1990s and Internet technology further accelerated the hegemonic ideologies of English (see also Unger 1987). The more recent LPP field is “fueled in large part by the imperious spread of English” (Hornberger 2006: 24). In fact, ELF studies can be said to have stemmed from the spread of English –​the resulting problems arising from the gap between the English of native speakers (NESs) particularly in educational settings (i.e., the “distribution of a stable and unitary set of encoded forms,” Widdowson 2003: 50) and that being spread mostly by “non-​native” speakers of English with different focuses and contexts (e.g., English use in business and academic settings) (Iino 2020). While the linguistic ecology-​ oriented approaches are concerned with protecting, maintaining, and promoting endangered languages being threatened by the spread of former colonial languages such as English, French, or Spanish (for example, Quechua in Peru, Hornberger 1988), ELF studies have not directly encompassed so-​called “minority/​small language” issues, nor have they explicitly discussed colonial history and ‘language’ issues. This could be one of the reasons why some scholars advocating ‘decoloniality’ critique ELF research (see Makoni and Pennycook 2012; Pennycook and Makoni 2020; see also Jordao and Matsumoto and Kubota, this volume). ELF studies have focused more on how English is actually used in multilingual settings as a result of the spread of English, including English as a de facto lingua franca as a choice beyond a single named “code” (see Seidlhofer and Widdowson 2020) for international interactions in domains such as business, political, and academic settings. Nevertheless, ELF orientations share critical concepts with LPP discussions, including “linguicism,” “linguistic human rights” (Skutnabb-​Kangas 1986), and “native speakerism” (Holliday 2006). Legitimization and nonstigmatization of ELF speakers and their language use, based on the sociolinguistic reality, can be considered one of ELF’s goals as well as an LPP purpose. Lo Bianco (2014) mentioned that the goal of ELF orientations is to contest institutionalized linguicism against ELF speakers as follows: ELF scholars and teachers can be spoken of in a more or less unitary way, taking for granted that they have a common interest in advancing recognition of ELF as a legitimate field of academic research, second, that ELF scholars are collectively committed to contesting institutional discrimination against speakers of English as a Lingua Franca, especially students, and maximally that the ELF community are seeking inclusion of ELF in programs of teaching and research. (Lo Bianco 2014: 198) Hence, Lo Bianco (2014) stressed the overlapping nature of both subfields of ELF and LPP by saying, “recognition of speakers of ELF and removal of discrimination

162  Masakazu Iino against them,” that is, the necessity of these to be explicitly incorporated into language policy and planning, “then ELF and LPP share direct and immediate overlap” (ibid.: 200–​201). This also leads to a close connection between LPP and applied linguistics (AL), which deals with “the theoretical and empirical investigation of real-​world problems in which language is a central issue” (Brumfit 1995: 27). The increase of EMI programs in Japan exemplifies such a case of the close relation between ELF and LPP mechanisms as a result of the spread of English. The internationalization efforts by university management were accelerated to deal with the spread of English in higher education as well as the global ranking systems initiated by THE (Times Higher Education) in 2004 and QS (Quacquarelli Symonds) in 2010 (see Bradford and Brown 2018; Murata 2019). Universities, the rankings of which were once measured in the domestic context, are now compared and measured on an international scale. In such context, the critical and postmodern nature of ELF questioned the unequal distribution of power between the so-​called “native speakers” and the “non-​native speakers” of English, and if “native speakers” are the custodians of English (Widdowson 1994). The underlying issues of ELF and LPP may share the root in this context as well, even though the two fields have not sufficiently conversed with each other (see Lo Bianco 2014) despite being both very important and closely connected subfields of applied linguistics. What is critically missing in the link between LPP and ELF is such ontological assumptions toward what language is and what communication is all about, since ELF is not a named language or variety, nor happening within national jurisdiction, but is a linguistic phenomenon beyond a single code observed in multilingual/​ supranational contact situations2. What makes English an international language is “not conformity to Inner Circle competence norms” (Seidlhofer and Widdowson 2020: 329), but “it only becomes international when it is used as an adaptable resource for negotiating meanings and relationships across lingua-​cultural borders, in other words when it is used as a lingua franca.” (ibid.). So far, LPP research frameworks rely heavily on the notion of “named” languages within the national jurisdiction or territorial boundaries (see critiques of this, for example, García et al. 2021; Makoni and Pennycook 2012; Pennycook and Makoni 2020) as well as the “standard” language ideologies (Lippi-​Green 1997). Considering these developments of ELF and LPP studies as seen above, the following sections will examine the current issues that an EMI program of a private university in Tokyo, as a case of LPP mechanisms, is facing, and its two newly developed study-​abroad programs to explicitly mobilize and enhance diverse linguistic and cultural resources to depart from the so-​called “English-​Only” orientation. Such efforts are expected to provide opportunities for students to be exposed to supranational contact situations operated multilingually in more than English as well as to the typical ELF use in higher education. EMI as an LPP mechanism It has been often claimed that ELF research outcomes so far have provided numerous implications but not many applications (Dewey and Patsko 2018),

Going beyond English-only medium instruction  163 although recently, applications of ELF research are being developed and explored in classroom teaching (e.g., Sifakis and Bayyurt 2018), materials development (e.g., Galloway 2018), assessment (e.g., Harding and McNamara 2018; Shohamy 2018), and study-​abroad programs (e.g., Suzuki 2022; Kural and Kocoglu 2016; Kaypak and Ortactepe 2014). Such pedagogical applications of ELF studies are considered a “mechanism” to influence the learners’ perceptions toward English and consequently ways of teaching and learning and using English. This chapter will reexamine how EMI and study-​abroad programs are functioning as an LPP mechanism in higher education in Japan. If ELF researchers aim to deliberately intervene in people’s linguistic attitudes and behaviors as to raising awareness of ELF, then where is ELF located in the frameworks of LPP? How can ELF-​ informed LPP be implemented? How sustainable is it to implement multilingual education efforts to raise awareness of ELF as an LPP mechanism? Based on the framework of Shohamy (2006), who stressed the interactive influences between ideologies and practices through multiple mechanisms (e.g., rules and regulations, language education, language tests, language in public space, and myths), the study will investigate what kinds of ideologies regarding EMI are subscribed by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), university administrators and parents and students, and how such mechanisms are managed by EMI providers and consumed by the students (see also Jenkins 2014, 2019). Through ethnographic observations of an EMI program and EMI courses3 at a private university in Tokyo and interviews with the stakeholders and questionnaires, Iino (2019a) and Murata and Iino (2018) revealed that both the EMI providers and the participants subscribed to common ideologies including English being the global competence, and native speakers being the best language teachers and models. Importantly, they also found that the EMI program was loaded with multiple functions, such as a mechanism to respond to the language policy to improve English proficiency, to boost international rankings, and to invite more international students. Such practices may, in turn, implicitly influence English education policies as well. In the university where the current research was conducted, most international students were from the so-​called “Expanding Circle” (Kachru 1985) regions. Only about 6% of the students in the four-​year degree program are from English-​ speaking countries (the Inner Circle) such as the US, Canada, the UK, and Australia, and about 7% are from the Outer Circle such as Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines (see Murata, Iino and Konakahara 2019: 152 for details). However, despite the fact that the EMI program represents a typical ELF situation, where the students and faculty members originate from diverse linguacultural backgrounds, the concept of ELF is almost lacking or even unnoticed in the program. EMI is often understood synonymously with “English-​Only,” and the nature of the “E” in EMI has not been vigorously questioned. The development of multilingual resources and the diversity that the participants bring in are undervalued, while they are conforming to the ideological hegemony of Inner Circle English and willingly participating in “imagined communities” (Anderson 1991) of future global elites.

164  Masakazu Iino Study-​abroad as an LPP mechanism In the EMI program, one year study-​abroad is a requirement for most Japanese students, which also functions as a powerful LPP mechanism. Because of their deep-​rooted native-​speakerism (Holliday 2006) and lack of ELF awareness, they tend to choose the “Inner Circle” countries for their study-​abroad destinations in order to learn “proper” English. This is evidenced by the fact that while exchange programs in Inner Circle countries are always overly demanded, programs in non–​Inner Circle countries are usually undersubscribed in this university (cf., henceforth UTP, UTP 2019). For example, in 2021, after a slight recovery of the COVID-​19 impacts on the number of Japanese students studying abroad for a year (1189 in 2019, 49 in 2020, 583 in 2021), the preference for the Inner Circle countries, such as the US, the UK, and Canada, continued (345 out of 583 students, 59.2%) (UTP 2021), although those who attend study-​abroad programs in Expanding Circle countries such as France, Germany, Korea, Sweden, Spain, Italy, and Netherlands, have increased recently (ibid.), largely because of the increase of EMI programs in these countries.4 Choosing a study-​abroad destination is a case of both “status planning” (Kloss 1968) and “acquisition planning” (Cooper 1989) at an individual level. It is a choice of a language among many other languages available to meet the foreign language requirement as well as a choice of a country/​region and an institution for the study-​abroad requirement. Their decisions are made mainly based on their TOEFL or IELTS score plus GPA (Grade Point Average) and a statement of purpose in the first semester of their first year. A student who was preparing for the study-​abroad application commented in an interview with the author as follows: My parents would not allow me to study in any country but the US or the UK, because they say I have to learn proper English. I also feel I have to learn English from American or British native speakers. (UG1M-​2016). (translated by the author) うちの親はアメリカかイギリスでないとちゃんとした英語じゃないか らダメだって言うし、僕もアメリカ人とかイギリス人のネイティブに 習わないとダメなんじゃないかって。 The native-​speakerism ideology is deeply subscribed to by stakeholders, i.e., the students and their parents, as shown in this case. It is a challenge to provide ELF-​informed guidance to the students who must submit their study-​abroad applications, typically in the early second semester of their first year at university, and it is even more challenging to influence their parents’ ideologies, although the concept of ELF is introduced as an academic topic in classes such as ‘Introduction to Language Studies’, ‘Introduction to English Linguistics’, and ‘Sociolinguistics’.

Going beyond English-only medium instruction  165 AIMS and APM as an LPP mechanism In this EMI program, two comprehensive study-​abroad programs, i.e., AIMS (ASEAN International Mobility for Students Program) (see also Azirah Hashim, this volume) and APM (Area Studies and Plurilingual/​Multicultural Education), including intensive CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) training of pre-​and post-​study-​abroad periods, were newly created in the 2010s to explicitly diversify the students’ study-​abroad destinations in non–​Inner Circle countries and to promote LOTE (language other than English) education. In EMI programs, including other areas in Asia, there is an inherent issue of the English-​only orientation, because students tend to be “so inclined and incentivized to concentrate on English rather than other languages to survive the program” (a Taiwanese professor, interviewed in 2022). It is a commonly observed challenge to set multilingualism as a goal in EMI programs, even though the students in EMI programs are in fact multilingual. Lo Bianco (2014: 211), on this matter, emphasizes the importance of fostering universal multilingualism as follows: “ELF practitioners and researchers should establish the aim of fostering universal multilingualism as a critical objective towards a fairer communication order for the future.” AIMS, funded by the MEXT grant “Re-​Inventing Japan Project” in 2013, is a student mobility program among six ASEAN universities (Chulalongkorn University, Thammasat University, Malaya University, University of Indonesia, University Brunei Darussalam, De La Salle University) and UTP (see UTP, 2013, “AIMS7 Universities Consortium Plurilingual and Pluricultural Program” for the details). Participants study content subjects in EMI programs in each university plus a local language. Although the nature of the ‘E’ of EMI is not clearly defined in this program, the participants are expected to be exposed to a local variety of English in their respective countries as well as to gain multilingual communicative skills and a mindset of valuing differences and bridging cultures as “cosmopolitans” (ibid.). Typically for many Japanese undergraduate students, Southeast Asian countries are not commonly viewed as their study-​abroad first options (cf. Shimauchi 2016). The participants interviewed by the author had various reasons to join the AIMS program, such as prior experiences in the Inner Circle countries, insufficient scores in English to apply to a competitive program conducted, especially in the Inner Circle countries, financial support by MEXT, or special connections to the country such as parents’ job transfer. Whatever reasons they had, those who studied abroad on this scheme reported their affinity to the country they stayed and rich experiences they had with students from varying linguacultural backgrounds and even reported gaining confidence in their communication ability. For example, one returnee student commented on his experiences in Thailand, comparing it with his stay in the US, as follows: I stayed in the US for long enough. I didn’t feel I belonged there. But after I came to Thailand, I felt naturally much closer to Thai people. They were very kind to Japanese people. … I want a job related to Thailand in the future. (UG3M-​2015) (translated by the author)

166  Masakazu Iino アメリカはもう十分ですね。なんか居場所がないっていうか。でもタ イにきてからは、ここの人と自然に溶け込めて。親日的で。… 将来タ イと関わる仕事がしたいです。 During the interview, he emphasized the physical, cultural, and national proximity to Thai people, which he did not feel in the US. Another student commented on her unexpected exposure to the diversity of the students in Thailand, which reduced her anxiety about English,5 as follows: I was surprised to find that there are so many international students from all over the world. Expressing my opinion in class is much more natural here than in Japan. Since my classmates’ English varies, I didn’t have to worry so much about what was correct or wrong with English use. (UG3F-​2016) (translated by the author) 世界中から留学生が来ていてびっくりしました。日本にいるときより 授業で発言しやすい感じがして。英語がみんな結構いろいろで、英語 で何が正しいか、間違っているか、そんなに気にしなくていいかなっ て。 Another program, APM, was established in 2017 under the MEXT Super Global University funding project to promote Chinese, French, Spanish, and Korean (CFSK) in the EMI program. The goal of APM is summarized in its mission statement. … modern citizens … should be able not only to use English as an essential lingua franca for global communication in varied contexts, but also possess the linguistic skills and sociocultural expertise in one particular area to fully understand the differences and similarities … . (UTP, 2018, “APM International Symposium 2018 Report”) APM has three phases of training for students: (1) preparing for study-​abroad programs employing CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) for the first-​time learners of one of the four languages (CFSK) while studying content subjects in EMI; (2) participating in the partner study-​ abroad programs; and (3) following-​up content courses in English +​CFSK. Although it is still too early to evaluate the effects of installing the APM program, particularly due to the negative effects of COVID-​19 on the students’ mobility, it is expected to raise the number of students studying in the CFSK-​speaking countries and to gain LOTE communicative skills. Some students with non-​Japanese ethnic backgrounds participate in the APM, particularly in the Korean and Chinese programs, in order to maintain their heritage languages. Thus, both AIMS and APM students are exposed to ELF situations not only in the EMI program in Japan but also in other countries. Exposures in different contexts are expected to further foster their ELF orientations.

Going beyond English-only medium instruction  167 Concluding remarks As briefly seen above, AIMS and APM, efforts made in higher education, are examples of LPP “mechanisms” (Shohamy 2006, 2018) to provide opportunities for participants to be exposed to multilingual and multicultural ELF situations and to engage in ELF “practices” (Spolsky 2004) of discovering plurilingual self, reminding participants that the nature of the ‘E’ of EMI is not intended to pursue the English-​Only ideology based on the native-​speakerism. In the EMI program, it is vitally important to relativize the status of English and to situate English more explicitly in a multilingual context. In other words, EMI (English-​Only-​orientated medium instruction) needs to evolve into MME (multilingual-​medium education) (see also Dafouz and Smit 2016 for EMEMUS: English-​medium education in multilingual university settings, and Murata and Iino 2018, Murata 2019 regarding ‘ELF’MI, i.e., EMI being placed in ELF use in multilingual settings6) to reflect the global reality of English use and to better prepare future cosmopolitans. Smit (2018), in this regard, says, “all go beyond a simplified ‘Englishization’ approach and require a context-​sensitive combination of two or more languages” (2018: 394) as a language policy in higher education. The MEXT funding is limited to five years, and the programs are not necessarily sustainable without stakeholders’ willingness to participate and institutional support. In fact, only one bilateral double-​degree program was established and is still active after the AIMS funding expiration, while other exchange programs became dormant, partially due to COVID-​19 influences. The APM program also faced a severe drop in student enrollment during COVID-​19 and it has not recovered to the originally planned level. Imagined hierarchy and cascade structures of languages and study-​abroad destinations tend to delimit such opportunities. In this regard, postprogram follow-​up studies are needed to examine how such mechanisms and practices influence the participants’ ideologies and behaviors. Where is ELF in LPP frameworks? The answer may require clarifying and repositioning the ‘E’ of ELF and the ‘L’ of LPP. Both ELF and LPP are situated in the field of applied linguistics, exploring how real people are communicating in the real world, and how communicative problems they face are to be solved. Thus, more research coordinating these two subfields of applied linguistics is necessary. After all, “the real language policy of a community is more likely to be found in its practices than in management.” (Spolsky 2004: 222). Notes 1 This chapter was modified based on Iino, M. (2019b). “Going beyond EMI: plurilingual-​ multicultural education as an LPP mechanism” in Waseda Working Papers in ELF. Vol. 8, 85–​92. 2 Widdowson (2019: 29), in this regard, mentioned, “The focus of study now shifts from the form that ELF takes as language contact to how people use it to make contact with each other,” and continued, “Conceived of in this way, it is not multilingualism but global communication that is the ‘superordinate’ and ELF study is then not located in the field

168  Masakazu Iino of linguistics but falls squarely into that of applied linguistics as an investigation of what people in the real world experience in using ELF as an expedient resource for communicative problem solving.” 3 While an EMI program is a degree program conducted almost entirely in English, EMI courses are offered in English on a voluntary basis in the otherwise Japanese being the medium of instruction program (see Konakahara, Murata and Iino 2019: 157 for details). 4 Other factors including visa restrictions due to COVID-​19 or the hate crime incidents in the US must be considered. Further studies are needed to understand the recent increase of non–​Inner Circle countries or regions as study-​abroad destinations. 5 The interviewee also commented that she did not have to be nervous with English while talking to local staff members. 6 In any case, the “E” in EMI or MMI (hidden here in the M) incorporates ELF elements, which are naturally set in multilingual settings, thus, EMI meaning “ELF”MI.

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170  Masakazu Iino Murata, K., M. Iino, and M. Konakahara 2019. Realities of EMI practices among multilingual students in a Japanese university. In J. Jenkins and A. Mauranen (eds), Linguistic Diversity on the International Campus. Oxon: Routledge, pp. 149–​171. Otheguy, R., O. Garcia, and W. Reid 2015. Clarifying translanguaging and deconstructing named languages: A perspective from linguistics. Applied Linguistics Review 6(3), 281–​307. Paikeday, T. 1985. The Native Speaker is Dead! Toronto and New York: Paikeday Publishing. Pennycook, A. and S. Makoni 2020. Innovations and Challenges in Applied Linguistics from the Global South. London, England: Routledge. Reagan, T. 2011. Language Policy and Planning for Sign Languages. Washington, DC.: Gallaudet University Press. Ricento, T. 2000. Historical and theoretical perspectives in language policy and planning. Journal of Sociolinguistics 4, 196–​213. Said, E. 1993. Culture and Imperialism. New York: Vintage Books. Seidlhofer, B. and H. G. Widdowson 2020. What do we really mean by ELF-​informed pedagogy? An enquiry into converging themes. In M. Konakahara and K. Tsuchiya (eds), English as a Lingua Franca in Japan: Towards Multilingual Practices, pp. 323–​331. Shimauchi, S. 2016. Higashi Ajia Niokeru Ryugakusei Idou no Paradaimu Tenkan [The paradigm shift of study-​ abroad students’ mobility in East Asia]. Tokyo: Toshindo Publishing. Shohamy, E. 2006. Language Policy: Hidden Agendas and New Approaches. Oxon: Routledge. Shohamy, E. 2018. ELF and critical language testing. In J. Jenkins, W. Baker and M. Dewey (eds), The Routledge Handbook of English as a Lingua Franca. Oxon: Routledge. pp. 583–​593. Sifakis, N. Y. and Bayyurt 2018. ELF-​aware teaching, learning and teacher development. In J. Jenkins, W. Baker and M. Dewey (eds), The Routledge Handbook of English as a Lingua Franca. Oxon: Routledge, pp. 456–​480. Skutnabb-​Kangas, T. 1986. Multilingualism and the education of minority children. In Phillipson, R. Phillipson and T. Skutnabb-​Kangas (eds), Linguicism Rules in Education. Parts 1–​3. Roskilde: Roskilde University Center Institute, pp. 42–​72. Smit, U. 2018. Beyond monolingualism in higher education: a language policy account. In J. Jenkins, W. Baker and M. Dewey (eds), The Routledge Handbook of English as a Lingua Franca. Oxon: Routledge, pp. 387–​399. Smith, A. 1980. The Geopolitics of Information: How Western Culture Dominates the World. New York: Oxford University Press. Spolsky, B. 2004. Language Policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Suzuki, A. 2022. University students’ global citizenship development through long-​term study abroad. Journal of English as a Lingua Franca 11(1), 77–​88. Unger, M. 1987. The Fifth Generation Fallacy: Why Japan is Betting Its Future on Artificial Intelligence. New York: Oxford University Press. UTP* 2013. AIMS7 universities consortium plurilingual and pluricultural program. Available from: www.was​eda.jp/​sils/​jp/​aims/​index​_​en.html [accessed 15 August 2019]. UTP*. 2018. APM international symposium 2018 report. Available from: www.was​eda.jp/​ fire/​sils/​news/​2018/​08/​07/​8128/​[accessed 15 August 2019]. UTP*. 2019. Center for international education, data. Available from: www.was​eda.jp/​inst/​ cie/​cen​ter/​data [accessed 31 August 2019].

Going beyond English-only medium instruction  171 UTP*. 2021. Center for international education, data. Available from: www.was​eda.jp/​inst/​ cie/​cen​ter/​data [accessed 11 April 2023]. Widdowson, H. G. 1994. The ownership of English. TESOL Quarterly 28(2), 377–​389. Widdowson, H. G. 2003. Defining Issues in English Language Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Widdowson, H. G. 2019. The relevance of ELF study to real world issues. In K. Murata, T. Ishikawa, and M. Konakahara (eds), Waseda Working Papers in ELF. Vol. 8. Tokyo: Waseda ELF Research Group, pp. 23–​30.

11 Why aviation English is not ELF Dominique Estival and Alastair Pennycook

Introduction The concept of English as a lingua franca has appealed widely to many working in English language education, as it provides a number of advantages over other accounts of English in the world. Above all, it decentres native speakers of English and makes speakers for whom English is not a first language the main focus, arguing that this majority of English users should be given status as the creators and arbiters of what English is and how it should be used. Understandably, this argument has great appeal to those users, since it no longer places them in a deficit position with respect to the supposed guardians of the language. For specific domains of language use such as global aviation communication, the ELF approach provides a framework for understanding the language of pilots and air traffic controllers (ATC) in terms of communication predominantly between speakers for whom English is not the first language. There is a long history of research in aviation communication from a variety of angles: pragmatics (starting with Goguen and Linde 1983; Linde 1988), linguistics (Philps 1991; Mell 1992), conversational analysis (Nevile 2004, 2005, 2006), or human factors to determine the causes of miscommunication (Cushing 1994; Prinzo and Morrow 2002; Prinzo 2008). Most of those studies considered such communication to be between native speakers of English. The Chicago Convention (ICAO 1944) had established that international communications in aviation would be conducted in English and that the model to be followed was the language of native speakers of English. For decades, therefore, aviation was considered to be conducted in ‘English’, with English even characterised as the ‘universal language of aviation’ (Crocker 1999, preface). In the past few decades, however, this has shifted and, with the growing need to teach aviation communication to a majority of pilots and air traffic controllers for whom English is not the first language, the field of aviation English is now widely considered from the perspective of second language teaching and testing (e.g. Knoch 2009; McNamara 2011, this volume). Indeed, since the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) mandated Language Proficiency Requirements in 2003 (to be implemented by 2008), a large proportion of work in aviation English focuses on the training of nonnative English speakers. DOI: 10.4324/9781003391463-14

Why aviation English is not ELF  173 Following a number of accidents resulting from miscommunication, including the collision on the ground at Teneriffe in 1976, the crash of Avianca 052 in New York in 1990, and especially the Charkhi Dadri midair collision in 1996 (Cookson 2009), a request from India spurred the ICAO to establish Language Proficiency Requirements (LPRs) and to mandate that aviation personnel (pilots and air traffic controllers) be tested for English proficiency before being allowed to operate. The highest level of proficiency (Level 6) is awarded to native speakers of English, or speakers who can demonstrate ‘near native’ proficiency (Matthews 2004)1. The actual tests used to determine this level of proficiency and the criteria to be met are hotly debated (e.g. Knoch 2009; Alderson 2011). The LPRS and the documents produced by ICAO to define ‘aeronautical communications’ and the standards to be met have undergone a series of revisions. One of the most important documents, Doc 9835 (ICAO 2010), shows clear evidence of input from language professionals, with influence from early ELF research, especially the concept of accommodation and the need for NESs to be aware of difficulties NNESs experience (but see Estival 2019). The ELF framework has had an important influence on the field of aviation communication. Indeed, many researchers have characterised aviation English as a lingua franca (Douglas 2014; Estival and Farris 2016; Borowska 2017; Friginal et al. 2019; Monteiro 2019, inter alia) or studied it from an ELF perspective (Kim and Elder 2009; Kim 2012). The ELF literature and the aviation communication literature align in a number of ways: A framework for describing interactions in aviation communication or for teaching aviation English to pilots and air traffic controllers is not best based on native speaker norms. Neither would a World Englishes approach, with its emphasis on pluralisation of varieties of English, serve the aviation community well. As Krishnaswamy and Burde (1998) note, newfound postcolonial freedoms brought both national airlines and new Englishes to countries around the world, but to observe that the pilots of Malaysian or Ethiopian Airlines may request permission to land in a recognisable variety of English would not appear to have practical benefits for aviation communication. Despite certain similarities in orientation, and a desire to distance itself from the control of the inner circle, the methodological nationalism that has constrained a lot of linguistic research, particularly in frameworks such as World Englishes (Schneider 2018), would not contribute greatly to an industry focused on ensuring effective communication. The ELF framework works much better for understanding how communication is done between people for whom English is not the first language (Seidlhofer 2011; Schneider 2018). It is clearly more useful to think of aviation communication as ‘a means of communication in English between speakers who have different first languages’ (Jenkins 2009: 4) or as ‘any use of English among speakers of different first languages for whom English is the communicative medium of choice, and often the only option’ (Seidlhofer 2011: 7). This shift is particularly important for global aviation communication, since it does not hold NESs as the model, it recognises that at the centre of most instances of aviation communication are speakers for whom English is not a first language, and it acknowledges accommodation strategies as being expected in any interaction.

174  Dominique Estival and Alastair Pennycook While this is a welcome development over previous perspectives, aviation communication only partly fits the ELF framework. It is an instance of Language for Specific Purposes, and aeronautical communications are expected to follow certain conventions required by the physical constraints of radio communication, such as limited bandwidth and single-​channel transmission. The best-​known of these conventions is probably the International Radiotelephony Spelling Alphabet (Alfa, Bravo, Charlie …). The successive revisions of this Alphabet, which was finalised in 1955, arose from the need to eliminate ambiguity in the international radiotelephony context, avoiding sounds that can be confusable over the radio channel and sounds that are unique to English.2 Single-​ channel transmission requires clear turn-​marking, which is not necessary in ordinary conversation, as well as making it obligatory for pilots to repeat or acknowledge instructions from air traffic controllers in prescribed ‘readbacks’, as in the routine exchange in (1). (1)  ATC: Lima Mike Yankee [LMY], Clear to land. Pilot: Clear to land, Lima Mike Yankee [LMY] Aviation communication is heavily standardised. As with many other aspects of the aviation industry –​airport protocols, engineering manifestos, aircraft separation, cockpit ergonomics, and so on –​safety is the central concern. As a result, aviation communication is not an open-​ended domain of language variation, but a highly prescribed set of language norms. Beyond the convention of the International Alphabet, aviation English is subject to a range of regulations. Because it frequently occurs between NNESs, aviation communication shares features with ELF, and yet, as a prescribed set of communicative norms, it also differs in significant ways. In the rest of this paper we explore this tension, looking first at similarities between ELF and aviation communication and second at questions of standardisation and areas where ELF and aviation communication overlap and diverge. This is followed by a wider discussion of the ideological stances that underpin arguments about lingua francas, the ongoing problem of the role of NESs within aviation communication, and the possibility of considering aviation communication in terms of a cross-​linguistic register. The conclusion returns to evaluate the pros and cons of considering aviation communication in terms of ELF. Similarities and divergences between ELF and aviation communication It is interesting to observe that a number of the features commonly found in varieties of English and noted in earlier ELF studies (Jenkins 2000) –​such as the pronunciation of ‘th’ as ‘t’ or ‘d’ –​are in fact prescribed in aeronautical radiotelephony, as shown in (2). (2)   /​th/​→ /​t/​three → tree        thousand → tousand

Why aviation English is not ELF  175 While all aviation communication using English is supposed to adhere to these norms, there are inconsistencies on two levels: first, as discussed further below, NESs may be reluctant to change their language use to adhere to them, and second, such pronunciation rules only apply to certain words. For instance, the pronunciation of /​th/​prescribed for ‘three’ and ‘thousand’ in (2) is not extended to other contexts and is not prescribed for other lexical items: the word ‘thrust’ is still expected to be distinguished from ‘trust’. On the other hand, numbers in aviation have prescribed pronunciations which are not usually found in any variety of English, apart from aviation communication. (3)  five → fife   [to be more clearly distinguishable from ‘nine’ ] four → fower [to be more clearly distinguishable from the preposition ‘for’ ] nine → niner [to be more clearly distinguishable from ‘five’ ] As exemplified in (3), the rules of radiotelephony pronunciation aim to eliminate ambiguities. The numbers ‘two’ and ‘four’ are particularly interesting because they are homophonous with the prepositions ‘to’ and ‘for’. As a result, these two prepositions are to be avoided in front of numbers (Cushing 1994). In the example reported by Estival (2019: 28), an NES student pilot on a training flight misunderstood the ATC instruction ‘Best rate to eight zero’ (meaning ‘Best speed rate to Flight level 80 [i.e. 8000 feet]’) as ‘Best rate two eight zero’ (meaning ‘Best speed rate [to] Flight level 280 [i.e. 28000 feet]’). As he had requested clearance to 8000 feet, he was confused but replied obediently ‘Flight level two eight zero’, which was soon questioned by another air traffic controller. The first air traffic controller should have said ‘Best rate to Flight level eight zero’ (or possibly ‘Best rate eight zero’) but it was the student pilot who was later reprimanded. In another effort to eliminate ambiguities in radiotelephony, where nonverbal signals are not available, common phrasal verbs such as ‘go up’ or ‘go down’ are replaced by ‘climb’ and ‘descend’. These lexical items cannot be confused with each other, even with a bad radio signal and in non-​face-​to-​face communications. This mandated avoidance of phrasal verbs accords with ELF data on one level –​ phrasal verbs are a notoriously tricky and confusing aspect of English that are often replaced by alternatives (‘open’ and ‘close’ for ‘turn on’ and ‘turn off’ for example) (Pennycook 2004) –​though avoidance on the principle that two phrases with ‘go’ might be ambiguous in the challenging medium of radiotelephony, as well as the possibility of actually requiring such changes, once again diverges from common ELF practices. Pairs of words such as ‘ascend’ and ‘descend’, which could be confused with each other, are also avoided. Similarly, the pair ‘negative’ for ‘no’ and ‘affirm’ (with stress on the first syllable) for ‘yes’ aims to increase intelligibility and avoid confusion. The unfortunate tendency, however, particularly in US contexts, to use nonstandard ‘affirmative’ (which is more readily confusable with the three-​syllable ‘negative’) can reduce the effectiveness of this pairing (Estival 2019).

176  Dominique Estival and Alastair Pennycook Accommodation has become one of the key ways ELF can be understood (Jenkins 2000, 2022). Since it has proved difficult to define ELF simply along the lines of communication between speakers of languages other than English, or to define a core of commonalities, the interactional features of ELF communication have gained prominence. A focus on pragmatics, attitude, and accommodation has accordingly become more significant. Perhaps surprisingly, given the highly constrained domain of usage, not only is there space for accommodation in aviation communication, but accommodation is actually recommended in the guidelines (ICAO 2007, 2016a, 2016b). Recommended accommodation strategies include the advice to ‘remain intelligible and supportive to less proficient users’ by keeping ‘intonation neutral and calm’, ‘moderating the rate of speech, limiting the number of pieces of information per utterance, and providing clear breaks between words and phrases’ (ICAO 2010, [5.3], 2016b). Accommodation has been described in contexts of aviation communication (Bieswanger 2013; Estival 2019; Ishihara and Prado 2021). The use of politeness markers such as ‘good day’ or ‘thank you’, while recognised as contributing to building rapport and helping interaction, is not recommended and quite limited (Bieswanger 2013; Hansen-​Schirra 2013; Clark 2017; Ishihara and Lee 2021). It is nonetheless the kinds of standardisation mentioned above that are arguably one of the most salient features of aviation communication. In aviation, standardisation has long been recognised as indispensable for safety. Simplifying the ergonomics of the cockpit, for instance, was found to have a profound impact on the reduction of incidents due to control manipulation errors, such as confusing the levers for flap extension and for undercarriage, which are now always very clearly distinguished. There is still room for improvement, especially concerning the units of measure whose variety and variation continue to bewilder even experienced pilots. Is it feet or meters for altitude? Knots or meters per second for wind speed? Litres, gallons, kilograms, or pounds for fuel? These confusions have all been documented to contribute to incidents or accidents, one of the most famous being the ‘Gimli glider’, a Boeing 767 which ran out of fuel after an error in calculating fuel quantities (Government of Canada 1985). Such standardisation is largely anathema to sociolinguistics and ELF, where a strong ideological commitment against standardisation (regarded as inappropriate regulation opposed to creativity, diversity, authenticity and linguistic democracy) is the norm (Hutton 2022). This points to a clear divergence between ELF as a framework and the aims of aviation communication, in that ELF embraces diversity and flexibility while the context of aviation demands adherence to standards and as much reduction of variation as possible. This leads to the recognised tension between the aims of language teaching and the aims of aviation communication training. Although ‘expert speakers’ (ICAO Level 6) are judged as such when they can paraphrase, and are able to understand and produce idiomatic expressions or to manipulate phrasal verbs, these are precisely the types of language to be avoided in order to increase comprehension and avoid ambiguity. To attain the highest level of aviation English proficiency, therefore, student pilots for whom English is not a first language (first language speakers of English are

Why aviation English is not ELF  177 not, or only minimally, tested –​a major concern to which we return below) are taught and tested in forms that are not appropriate in the medium for which they are being trained. One contested domain of ELF is the use of idioms. Does idiomatic language use (particularly with idioms drawn from other languages) detract from ELF communication or does it add a certain colour to what is sometimes only seen as a very functional domain? Seidlhofer’s (2011) concerns with what she calls unilateral idiomaticity (the use of idioms from versions of English that are not widely shared) and Prodromou’s (2008) idiomatic paradox (what makes idioms so easy and natural in one version of English may be precisely what makes them incomprehensible in another) both point to the problems of idiomatic phrases in ELF. On this point, aviation communication is once again clear: Don’t do it. In fact, it is part of the ICAO recommendations (ICAO 2010, 5.3.1.4) and the use of idioms is well documented as a cause of misunderstanding in aviation (Clark 2017; Estival 2019).3 Nevertheless, idiomatic expressions can still be found in aviation communications, as seen in the examples below. In (4), an air traffic controller, presumably NES, gave a clearance to an aircraft departing on the short flight from Bankstown to Sydney (Australia), with an expression that could not be understood by the NNES student pilots flying in the area, thus diminishing their situation awareness (Estival 2016: 44). (4) Cleared for the Smoke. The idiosyncratic expression in (5), apparently used by some US pilots to mean ‘180 knots’ (a transposition of the position of ‘South’ on the compass), is not widely comprehensible (Paul Stevens, p.c.).4 (5) Speed South The two examples in (6) and (7) were produced by an air traffic controller (presumably NES) at Bankstown (Australia) within the space of a few minutes (Estival 2019: 29). Ironically, (6) was a sarcastic rebuke to a pilot who repeatedly failed to use the appropriate phraseology in his required readback. It was not understood by the NNES student pilot sitting in another aircraft on the ground with the first author. (6) ATC: Close but no cigar. After confirming that an engine problem had been resolved, the exchange in (7) with another pilot seemed to be sufficient clearance for that pilot to taxi to the holding point, to the amazement of the NNES student also about to taxi, who did not know that expression either. (7) ATC: OK, so you’re happy to roll the dice and have a go? Pilot: We’ll roll the dice and have a go.

178  Dominique Estival and Alastair Pennycook These idiomatic expressions can be amusing but their use is highly problematic when they are broadcast on an open radiotelephony channel that needs to be understood by all listeners. Such idiomatic phrasing seems to arise from two causes: It occurs almost always between first language users of English and may be thought of as permissible because of the perception that ‘plain English’ can be used instead of standard phraseology. The term ‘plain English’ itself is problematic and widely misunderstood. The ‘plain English’ of aviation is not conversational English (also called ‘general English’), nor is it the language advocated by the Plain Language Movement (Cutts 1996). There are affinities with work in specific domains such as the law (Adler 2012), though this is aimed largely at overcoming the difficulties of legalese for communication between the legal profession and the public, while plain English in aviation remains a professional register. As Bieswanger (2016) makes clear, it is more useful to see plain English as one of two registers of aviation English: Radiotelephony (R/​T) and Plain Aviation English (PAE) (or Aeronautical Plain English [APE] for Borowska (2017)). PAE is a register of aviation communication, which is defined by Doc 94832 (ICAO 2007), to be used when no standard phraseology is available. While PAE contrasts with the rigidly prescribed radiotelephony register and its standardised phraseologies, it must still be concise, precise, and nonambiguous; it must follow R/​T as closely as possible and should only be used when no phraseology is available. ‘Redundancy’ has also been found to be both common and beneficial in ELF communication, providing speakers and listeners with more options for understanding each other (Seidlhofer 2011). Gibbons (2009) suggests that ‘abundancy’ would be a better term than the seemingly negative ‘redundancy’, since speakers are typically providing a wider range of options than might seem strictly necessary. In aviation and other high-​stakes contexts such as surgical operation theatres or nuclear plants, technological ‘redundancy’ in systems is not only positive but necessary. For example, having two separate angle of attack sensors can be seen as a costly duplication of resources, but using only one as input to the MCAS software contributed to the fatal crashes of the Boeing 737 MAX (FAA 2020). Redundancy, however, is not a positive attribute of communication in aviation because it conflicts with the imperatives of conciseness and brevity imposed by the radiotelephony medium. Not only must speakers make their transmissions as short as possible in order to prevent radio frequency congestion and allow other transmissions, while many speakers compete to be heard with possibly distress or urgent calls, but they must also be careful not to interrupt others or overtransmit. Only one channel can be heard and if more than one speaker transmits at the same time, the audio signal is unintelligible. Instrument redundancy is good; linguistic redundancy is not. Another reason for conciseness is that extra words may make it more difficult for listeners (especially NNESs) to identify what is important in the speech signal (see McNamara, this volume). For instance, in an incident at Narita (Japan), the excessive verbosity of an NES pilot at the beginning of an emergency, shown in (8), contributed to a series of misunderstandings and delays (Estival et al. 2023). (8) Can you give us a vector back to Narita at this time?

Why aviation English is not ELF  179 The expected phraseology would be as in (9). (9) Request vectors to Narita, National Cargo eight nine one [891]. Compared to (9), (8) contains seven additional words: four in the polite formula ‘Can you give us’, and three in the unnecessary adverbial ‘at this time’ (it also omits the required flight call sign). These seven unexpected words made it difficult for the Japanese air traffic controller to extract the crucial ones ‘vector back to Narita’ from the pilot’s transmission, as evidenced by their reply, ‘Say again’. The similarities and differences between ELF and aviation communication are laid out in Table 11.1. While there are evident commonalities –​communication is often between NNESs, the ability to accommodate is encouraged, and idiomatic language use is largely discouraged –​there are many aspects in which they diverge: most obviously, aviation communication also occurs between NESs, while ELF still requires at least one NNES participant. As shown in the table, there are also differences between R/​T and Plain Aeronautical English (PAE): While concise, precise, and unambiguous language use is always strongly emphasised in both, variability and the ability to paraphrase are expected to some extent in plain aeronautical language. Table 11.1 makes it clear that some of the differences between ELF and aviation communication can be attributed to different goals and perspectives: while aviation communication is regulated and prescriptive, ELF research aims to describe interactions between actual speakers. ELF and aviation English studies can sometimes converge: Ishihara and Prado’s (2021) analysis of meaning negotiation in plain English during partial communication breakdowns is a good example. Indeed, it could be argued that while ELF is not relevant for standard R/​T, it can be useful when things go wrong and PAE must be used. Nevertheless, in general, the aims of sociolinguistic studies of ELF and of professional development in aviation English remain orthogonal. Table 11.1 Where do ELF and Aviation Communication differ? Characteristics

Between NNES Between NES and NNES Between NES Accommodation Variation Paraphrase Concise Precise Unambiguous Idiomatic expressions Slang

ELF

yes yes no yes yes yes not required not required not required not recommended not recommended

Aviation communication R/​T

PAE

yes yes yes yes not allowed not allowed required required required not allowed not allowed

yes yes yes yes limited limited required required required not allowed not allowed

180  Dominique Estival and Alastair Pennycook How well does ELF serve aviation communication? The ELF framework has provided useful input to the recommendations of the international aviation body (ICAO 2007, 2010), leading to an impetus for regulatory changes in aviation language training and testing in individual countries (e.g. South Korea, Brazil). At least in the regulations, NESs are no longer the expected role models and accommodation to NNESs is recommended. Nevertheless, while the discussion so far might simply suggest the conclusion that ELF and aviation communication overlap in some domains but not in others, and that ELF may therefore be partially useful, there are other reasons to push this discussion further. These have to do with questions of what the ‘E’ and the ‘LF’ of ELF describe, how well ELF approaches can deal with the global politics of English, and whether it might not be more useful to think about aviation communication in terms of registers rather than types of ELF. How to reconcile an approach based on variable language use with one based on constraining variation? How to focus better on inequalities of communication within a focus based largely on equitable accommodation? How to avoid the reification of a variety which is subsumed under the label of ‘English’ or ‘ELF’? And what affordances might the concept of register bring that ELF does not? ELF has been the focus of extensive debate. It has considerable appeal because it opens a space for NNES not to consider themselves subject to central, standard, or NES norms, but rather the creators of a fluid communicative set of practices that involve English. While it has proved harder to translate this into a pedagogical orientation beyond an attitudinal shift, ELF makes it possible to rethink norms for English language education. The field has gone through several stages, from its early focus (ELF1) on trying to determine features and possibly a core of ELF, its second phase (ELF2) acknowledging the fluidity of ELF and the impossibility of describing it in terms of a variety, and later (ELF3) developments foregrounding the multilingual contexts of ELF and ‘English as a Multilingua Franca’ (Jenkins 2015: 73). The shift away from trying to characterise ELF in varietal terms responded to, and thus made less relevant, earlier critiques that ELF idealises ‘a monolithic entity called “English” ’ and neglects ‘the inclusive and plural character of the world-​wide phenomenon’ (Kachru and Nelson 2006: 2) or that the now largely abandoned notion of a lingua franca core, might mean that ‘one form of prescription’ is being ‘(unwittingly or even wittingly) replaced by another’ (Rubdy and Saraceni 2006: 10). Despite the continuing problems that the label ‘ELF’ indicates an ontological assumption about the status of English prior to communication in ELF, or that the terms ‘ELF users’ and ‘ELF contexts’ refer to clearly identifiable people and situations (O’Regan 2016), ELF proponents, particularly in later iterations of the project, have vehemently rejected accusations that ELF is a monolithic variety or that it may be a new form of prescriptivism, arguing that it is precisely ‘the polymorphous nature of the English language’ (Seidlhofer 2006: 42) that is central to their work, that it ‘is not a variety of English but a variable way of using it’ (Seidlhofer 2011: 77).

Why aviation English is not ELF  181 Questions remain, however, along several lines, and with particular implications for seeing aviation communication in terms of ELF. One problem is the scope of a program that seeks to incorporate the vast array of ‘ELF contexts’ in which English may be part of a communicative event. As ELF researchers have moved away from any notion of a variety or a speech community, it has become difficult to grasp quite what ELF ultimately includes (Ricento 2015) –​particularly when it is conceded that first language speakers of English ‘can indeed participate in ELF’ (Jenkins 2009: 41) –​so that ‘many scholars still wonder about who is included and excluded from the label “ELF” and what constitutes a context of ELF interaction’ (Holmes and Dervin 2016: 5). Since ELF is not a variety but a variable and polymorphous way of using English, and since ‘multilingualism rather than English’ (Jenkins 2015: 75) may be the central focus, it is worth asking what work the ‘E’ in ELF now does. If the emphasis is on multilingua francas (Makoni and Pennycook 2012) or translingual practices (Canagarajah 2013), does the potential inclusion of English warrant its position as a defining feature of an exchange (Ou et al. 2020)? If one side of the problem hinges on the status of the ‘English’ in ELF, the other side relates to the shifting territory of what is meant by a lingua franca. Some, particularly from a World Englishes perspective, have suggested the label is inappropriate given that it describes an existing language (English) being used as a lingua franca, rather than the emergence of a language in communicative contexts, as in the original use of the term (Kachru 2005). This objection does not hold up to much scrutiny, however, since the use of the term ‘lingua franca’ to refer to languages of wider communication is now common (Ostler 2010). What actually constitutes a lingua franca, however, is a far more contentious question than is often allowed. The fact that English is often claimed to be the world’s most widely used lingua franca while Chinese is considered the most widely used first language draws on a set of language ideologies that, like ELF, are based on the contested ground of a native speaker/​nonnative speaker distinction (Pennycook 2012). Chinese (depending on what the term encompasses) can equally be seen as a widely used lingua franca across China and elsewhere (Chew 2009). The question that emerges is whether we view ELF as a preexisting entity that precedes communication or whether it is an emergent set of communicative practices that involve some kind of English in some shape or form (Canagarajah 2007). If, as seems the most common contemporary position, it is viewed in terms of emergent practices, it is difficult to square this view with the coded nature of aviation communication. A different set of critiques has pointed to the limitations of ELF in dealing with the broader politics of English and globalisation (Guilherme 2019; O’Regan 2021). With its main focus on critique of the dominance of native English speaker norms, the ELF program takes a largely liberal egalitarian stance –​what O’Regan (2016: 212) calls ‘liberal-​idealist rationalism’ –​typical of socio-​and applied linguistics (Pennycook 2022). While this ideological position can promote egalitarian goals, it does not generally provide adequate tools for engaging with the ways inequalities are perpetuated more broadly (Ives 2015), suggesting instead

182  Dominique Estival and Alastair Pennycook something of an egalitarian playing field of convivial communication among largely NNESs (Mackenzie 2014: 140; O’Regan 2016; Rudwick 2022). Scholars from the Global South have questioned the division by which they, however proficient, are ‘designated as speaking a lingua franca, not English stricto sensu’ (Guilherme 2019: 45). However much researchers may wish to reclaim ELF as a positive term to describe English as it is used, speakers may still resent being labeled speakers of ELF rather than just English speakers, as such a label cannot avoid derogatory connotations in the contexts in which many speakers, and particularly nonwhite speakers, find themselves. The injunctions to address the ‘ambiguity’ of ELF in contexts such as South Africa and to dismantle ‘the whiteness of English as a lingua franca.’ (Rudwick 2022: 15) remain concerns for ELF as well as the wider field of ELT (Jenks 2017). All of this has major implications for aviation communication. As we showed in the previous section, while ELF and aviation communication share some common ground, they diverge along multiple lines. The question is whether it is useful to see aviation communication –​ a highly prescribed and specific set of regulated language practices –​as a type of ELF, with its focus on variability, creativity, and open-​ended negotiation. Indeed it may be unwise to include a fixed code such as aviation communication in the ELF framework when that framework may obscure the need for a sharper analytic focus on the aviation communication context. In an aviation context, unless a stronger emphasis is brought to bear on questions of race, gender, and the role of NESs, then a well-​intentioned liberal approach to communication will have little effect. The English of NNESs is frequently disparaged along racial lines (Estival and Molesworth 2009). The aviation industry is still massively dominated by men (only 6% of pilots are women), with wide implications for communications, for example, between male NES pilots and female NNES air traffic controllers (Estival et al. 2023). Meanwhile, many instances of miscommunication are a result of inappropriate use of aviation English by NESs (Clark 2017; Estival 2019, inter alia). This brings us finally to questions of registers. Incorporating aviation communication (‘Aviation English’) under the ELF umbrella assumes that the language in which aviation communication occurs is a kind of English: not a variety of English, but a type of English for specific purposes. As Bolton and Jenks (2022: 496) note, however, ‘the global spread of English necessitates an audit of the “E” in the ESP acronym’. It may be more useful to see aviation communication as language (not English) for specific purposes. This is the problem of placing ‘English’ first in the ELF formula. Bieswanger (2016) uses the term Aviation English as an umbrella term to cover what he argues are two distinct and specialised registers, standardised phraseology and plain Aviation English. Following Biber and Conrad (2009), Bieswanger argues that, given their situational (contextual pilot-​ATC communication) and formal (lexical and grammatical) features, both can best be described as registers. Both registers, he notes, have to be learned through explicit instruction by native as well as nonnative speakers of English. Both can be considered specialised and distinct registers, meaning that neither can be assumed to be part of a more general capacity in English. Both Plain Aeronautical/​Aviation English (PAE) and

Why aviation English is not ELF  183 standardised phraseology (R/​T) are professional registers: they are constrained by the domain in which they are used and their vocabulary is strictly defined. Unlike other professional registers, the structure of turns and the pronunciation of some lexical items are strictly prescribed. Contrary to popular claims that English is ‘the language of the skies’ (ICAEA), ‘the language of aviation’ (Illman 1998; Friginal et al. 2019), or even ‘the universal language of aviation’ (Crocker 1999), these registers occur across languages: A large amount of aviation communication, particularly in general aviation and in military contexts, is conducted in the local languages. Portuguese aviation communication, for example, is taught to both military and civil pilots in Brazil (Silva 2023). What is noticeable about such language use, whether in French, Portuguese, or Russian, however, is its conformity to common register features. As has been noted with other widespread registers or styles, such as the language of call centres, it is ‘linguistic style, not the language itself’ (Hultgren 2011: 37) that is at stake. It is a way of using language –​ a style or register –​that is compulsory rather than a language. While English often plays a dominant role, it is registers of service encounters across languages rather than linguistic codes that are important in those contexts. Likewise in aviation, a highly prescribed and regulated form of communication can (contrary to popular myth) occur across languages (not just English) and can also therefore be seen as a cross-​linguistic register (Estival 2016: 50; Pennycook 2018). Conclusion: towards aviation communication As we have shown, there are a number of similarities between ELF and aviation communication, particularly the fact that most of this communication occurs between people for whom English is not a first language. There are also shared features such as the avoidance of idioms or replacing /​th/​ with /​t/​. The influence of the ELF literature on the recommendations of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) should not be underestimated. Nonetheless, there are good reasons also to be wary of drawing too close an analogy or of assuming aviation English to be a subdomain of ELF. One set of concerns has to do with the necessarily prescriptive nature of aviation communication: Standard Phraseology is carefully and rigidly prescribed and deviation from the standards is a safety concern. While Plain Aviation English can also be used, this too has recommendations for its use. The second set of concerns have to do with the implications of using a label such as ‘ELF’ when describing aviation communication. One of the problems shared by both ELF and aviation English is that by naming the medium of communication as English, first language speakers of English all too often consider this to be their own, a medium with which they are familiar and in which they assume they should have natural speaking rights. ELF proponents have sought to overcome this problem first by excluding NESs (ELF1) and later by urging NESs to understand that this English is no longer their English. An alternative strategy is to shift attention away from a named language and to think instead in terms of cross-​linguistic registers, in this case, aviation communication. This has several implications for ELF and applied linguistics more

184  Dominique Estival and Alastair Pennycook broadly. The rush to categorise registers of professional language use as types of English because they appear to share various features needs to be looked at more critically. Languages, as is now widely understood, are constructs named through particular ideological (national, commercial, political) interests. To categorise professional registers (in medical, business, maritime, aviation or other contexts) as types of English is to overlook their formation and regulation and to invite those who assume expertise in this named language to a position of authority. If these domains could be named according to the area of expertise, then those with the requisite experience (here, aviation) can be recognised as the communicative authorities. Perhaps a return to the proposed ‘Airspeak’ (Robertson 1987), parallel to ‘Seaspeak’, would be a more useful direction. Notes 1 Although the terms ‘native speaker’ and ‘nonnative speakers’ are controversial and increasingly disfavoured, we continue to use them here in certain contexts since they are still widely used in the aviation industry and in aviation English training. When these terms are used, however, we also insist on the qualifier ‘English’ to be clear that this only refers to a status relative to this language. 2 https://​appli​cati​ons.icao.int/​postal​hist​ory/​annex_​10_​aero​naut​ical​_​tel​ecom​muni​cati​ ons.htm 3 An example where this was recognised in R/​T is the phrase ‘Go ahead’: it is now prohibited, because it has been misconstrued as ‘Move forward’ instead of the intended ‘Say what you have to say’. 4 ‘When I hear NNES recount stories of US aviators saying “Speed South” (meaning speed 180) it makes me so mad.’ Paul Stevens, Aviation English Trainer, Mayflower College, email 13/​10/​22.

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Part IV

ELF and assessment Challenging the assumed paradigm?

12 A challenge for language testing The assessment of English as a lingua franca1 Tim McNamara

Introduction The reality of English as a lingua franca communication is an established fact. For example, Canagarajah (2006: 232) writes: In terms of the currency and usage of the language, there is clearer evidence that English is used more in multinational contexts by multilingual speakers than it is in homogeneous contexts of monolingual speakers. And yet, to date no tests of English as a lingua franca exist. In their entry in a recent encyclopedia of language testing and assessment, Jenkins and Leung (2017: 103) have to apologize for their chapter on tests of English as a lingua franca testing on the following grounds: This chapter is thus different from the others in the volume to the extent that as tests of ELF do not currently exist, the discussion is primarily conceptual, exploring developments in thinking about assessing ELF rather than contributing to and critiquing specific test types, goals, and descriptors. It might be argued that the problem is the feasibility of ELF tests. But this paper will argue instead that they are perfectly feasible, and that the problem of their absence is essentially a political one. The difficulty of achieving ELF tests raises questions about the values in test constructs –​in this case, the privilege of the native speaker –​underlying speaker and learner attitudes to the possibility of such a test. The feasibility of ELF tests In order to construct a test, a number of steps need to be taken. The first of these is to decide what it is that we want to be able to conclude about the test taker from the test performance; that is, we need to define the construct. Part of operationalization of the construct is to determine the criteria against which performance will be judged. One issue in both of these steps is to examine assumptions about the role of proficiency in successful performance on ELF communication tasks. Then there DOI: 10.4324/9781003391463-16

192  Tim McNamara is the question of the scaling up of such assessments: can a standardized test of English as a lingua franca be developed, or are the tests necessarily boutique and hence unaffordably expensive tests? We will look at each of these in turn. Defining the construct

The literature on English as a lingua franca offers us two possible understandings of the construct of an ELF test. We may distinguish narrow and broad definitions of English as a lingua franca communication. In an earlier, narrow definition, ELF communication is restricted to communication among nonnative speakers of English: ELF interactions are defined as interactions between members of two or more different linguacultures in English, for none of whom English is the mother tongue. (House 1999: 74) and [ELF is] 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) Canagarajah (2007: 928) reflects this view: Speakers of ELF inhabit and practice other languages and cultures in their own immediate localities. Despite this linguistic–​cultural heterogeneity and spatial disconnect, they recognize [ELF] as a shared resource. They activate a mutually recognized set of attitudes, forms, and conventions that ensure successful communication in [ELF] when they find themselves interacting with each other. The narrow definition rules out the participation of native speakers in English as a lingua franca communication. Since around 2007, however, a broader definition of ELF has generally been agreed upon by the leading ELF researchers and is represented by the following definition from Seidlhofer (2011: 7): ELF [is] any use of English among speakers of different first languages for whom English is the communicative medium of choice, and often the only option. Widdowson concurs when he defines ELF as: the communicative use of linguistic resources, by native as well as non-​native speakers of English, when no other shared means of communication are available or appropriate. (Widdowson 2013: 190)

A challenge for language testing  193 In this broader view, then, ELF communication can involve native speaker interlocutors. That is, native speakers are ELF users, too. This has radical implications for our understanding of the possibility of ELF testing, as it enormously broadens the contexts in which ELF communication is understood to be taking place. For it implies that whenever a nonnative speaker is a participant in interaction, whether it is with native speakers or with other nonnative speakers, or with a mix of both, the communication is by definition lingua franca communication. (Note that this means that all second/​foreign language communication is lingua franca communication; that is, the notion of lingua franca communication is not restricted to communication in English.) And it means that ELF communication is typical of contemporary life in a globalized world. ELF communication is characteristic of international education, as there will be nonnative speakers of English in virtually every classroom in English medium universities, either as students or lecturers. The same is true of international business. International conferences are conducted in the medium of English as a lingua franca according to this broad definition. In multicultural societies where English is the principal language, such as the US, the UK, Australia, and Canada, the practice of medicine and law is regularly carried out in English as a lingua franca. The personal lives of individuals, and their experiences of travel, will often also involve ELF communication. Assuming this broader definition as the basis for construct definition in assessment settings, then I think we need not agree with the pessimistic position of Jenkins and Leung when they say: The question here is whether the notion of construct, as it has been understood in language assessment research hitherto, is workable in assessment settings where ELF is a legitimate concern. (Jenkins and Leung 2017: 113) One way of thinking about the construct is: on what basis should we choose among a possible group of candidates the one who is most likely to be successful in ELF communication? For example, in a company in Vietnam which exports to other countries, both English speaking and non-​English speaking, a lot of the communication and negotiation has to be done over the telephone, and involves ELF communication. If the company has a vacancy and has to choose from a list of applicants for the position, what evidence should I seek which will allow me to make a judgement as to who among the applicants is most likely to be successful in the ELF communication tasks involved in the job? Determining the characteristics of successful communication is no more complex a task than determining the characteristics of a desirable employee in other job selection contexts. Certainly, factors other than language proficiency will be involved, which is precisely what Dell Hymes understood when he defined communicative competence in his famous paper on the topic. While he is famous for his expansion of the dimensions of language proficiency beyond the narrowly grammatical, his other, and more radical, contribution was to realize that noncognitive factors –​that is, personality factors –​were also crucial. He called this broader set of capacities ‘ability for use’ and comments:

194  Tim McNamara The specification of ability for use as part of competence allows for the role of noncognitive factors, such as motivation, as partly determining competence. (Hymes 1972: 283) In addition to motivation, he refers, following Goffman, to a range of other factors: … capacities in interaction such as courage, gameness, gallantry, composure, presence of mind, dignity, stage confidence … (Hymes 1972: 283) Various authors have made a start on specifying the characteristics of an individual who is likely to be successful at English as a lingua franca communication and are drawn to this broader conceptualization of competence as including aspects of ‘ability for use’. For example, Canagarajah (2007: 928) states: Form receives reduced significance; or rather, form gets shaped according to the contexts and participants in an interaction. More important are a range of other skills, abilities and awareness that enable multilingual speakers to negotiate grammar. In addition to grammatical competence we have to give equal importance to: Language awareness –​enables speakers to make inferences about the norms and conventions of their interlocutors Strategic competence –​to negotiate interpersonal relationships effectively Pragmatic competence –​to adopt communicative conventions that are appropriate for the interlocutor, purpose and situation. Harding (2012) lists a range of abilities, some cognitive, but others either noncognitive or with noncognitive (volitional, motivational) aspects: Ability to tolerate and comprehend different varieties of English (e.g., accents, syntax, discourse styles, etc) Ability to negotiate meaning Ability to use (or adjust) phonological features crucial for intelligibility Ability to accommodate Ability to notice and repair breakdowns in communication. A further aspect of the construct of ELF communicative capability (Seidlhofer 2011, Widdowson 2003, 2012, 2016) which has not been previously mentioned is the ability to cope with communication with people whose English proficiency, traditionally defined, is better than yours and worse than yours (as well as with people whose English is roughly at the same level). Notice that this requirement applies to the competence of native English speakers as well as nonnative speakers: not all native speakers are very successful at communicating with

A challenge for language testing  195 people whose proficiency (based on native speaker norms) is less, often considerably less, than theirs, although ELF communication requires such an ability. The simple reason is that we cannot choose our interlocutors in ELF communication but must be able to cope with communication with interlocutors differing widely in proficiency. The criteria to be used to judge performance

By what criteria should performance on English as a lingua franca communication tasks be judged? It has long been recognized that the criteria for judging are an operationalization of the construct of the test. A recent study (Sato 2014, Sato and McNamara 2018) has cast light on how criteria for judging performance on English as a lingua franca communication tasks might differ from those normally used in judgements of spoken language proficiency. The study involved asking linguistic laypersons –​native and nonnative English-​speaking graduate students at an Australian university, none of whom had any training in linguistics or language teaching –​to judge performances on two kinds of tests of spoken English proficiency and to articulate the grounds for their judgement.2 The study of the judgements of linguistic laypersons is relevant because they represent the interlocutors found in real-​ life communication arguably more than linguistically trained persons, such as teachers and trained raters, who are the usual judges in oral proficiency examinations. The performances were by candidates on two tests: the Spoken English Test of the major Chinese English language test, the College English Test, and paired interactions on the Cambridge suite of EFL tests. The informants watched video recordings of the performances, gave an overall judgement of the quality of the communicative ability of the candidates, and then provided a think-​aloud protocol as they viewed the performances a second time, pausing the video recordings to comment on particular features of the performance. They were then interviewed by the researcher, in order to clarify the grounds for their judgements and comments. The think-​aloud protocols and interviews were recorded and transcribed, and the features of the performance that were oriented to by the informants were identified. The main finding of the study was that while there was some overlap between the features of the performances that the laypersons valued and the standard proficiency criteria used in speaking tests, there were also significant differences. Sato found seven main categories used to judge the performances, with subcategories in each (Table 12.1). Sato’s findings are important and suggest that the criteria used to judge performance on standardized oral proficiency tests do not adequately represent what native and nonnative speaking interlocutors care about in oral communication with nonnative speakers –​that is, what matters in ELF communication. The criteria used in an ELF test are likely then to be significantly different from those we are currently used to. Other recent studies offer potential for identifying criteria relevant to judging the success of English as a lingua franca communication. A number of studies have tried to determine that Jacoby (1998) and Jacoby and McNamara (1999)

196  Tim McNamara Table 12.1 Criteria oriented to by non-​expert judges Main category

Subcategories

English Language Features

Overall English Ability; Fluency (speech rate, pause, repair); Pronunciation (accent, prosody); Linguistic Resources (accuracy and complexity of lexicogrammar) Overall Performance and Global Ability; Overall Message Conveyance; Overall Comprehensibility of Message Ideas; Framing of Ideas; Topical Knowledge Interaction and Engagement; Interactional Organization Body Movement; Eye Contact; Posture: Facial Expression Confidence; Relaxation; Anxiety; Attitudes; Willingness to Communicate Miscellaneous Features; Comments Unrelated to Speaker Behaviors; Rater’s General Belief

Overall Communicative Success Content Interaction Nonverbal Behavior Composure/​Attitude Other

Source: Sato and McNamara (2019: 916).

term ‘indigenous criteria’ for judging performance –​that is, criteria indigenous to –​naturally occurring in –​a particular communicative setting –​for example, in academic settings, in clinical settings, and so on. This typically involves working with informants from those settings to try to ‘get inside their heads’ to understand what they value in communication, both spoken and written, in that setting. For example, Elder (2016) reports on a major study in the health communication context of criteria used by health professionals in judging the communicative performance of trainees interacting with patients. Another way of thinking about the issue of the criteria appropriate for judging ELF communication is in terms of a distinction proposed by McNamara (1996) between ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ performance assessments. In a ‘strong’ performance assessment, performance is judged against real-​world criteria and incorporates ‘ability for use’ as proposed by Hymes (1972) –​the whole personality of the speaker (see the discussion earlier in this paper). Furthermore, all participants in a communicative setting would be treated equally, both native and nonnative speakers, again a fundamental feature of ELF communication, as we have also argued. This is in contrast to ‘weak’ performance assessments in which there is a focus on language proficiency alone, narrowly conceived, and in which performance is judged against traditional language proficiency criteria only. This is the case with most spoken language tests at present. The preference for weak performance assessments reflects a long-​standing tradition in language testing of using discrete aspects drawn from components of models of communicative language ability which reflect a narrow, linguistically oriented view at odds with Hymes’s broader, richer view.

A challenge for language testing  197 The role of language proficiency in performance

A further question to be addressed in the design of tests of English as a lingua franca is whether capability in ELF and language proficiency are the same, and if not, is this important? Canagarajah (2007: 925) addresses this question in the following way in his discussion of what he calls Lingua Franca English or LFE: It is unclear what constitutes the threshold level of English proficiency required to join this invisible community. Though some proficiency in English is certainly necessary, it is evident that even those individuals with a rudimentary knowledge can conduct successful communication while further developing their proficiency. This facility is no doubt attributable to the language awareness and practices developed in other contexts of communication with local languages. Multilingualism is at the heart of LFE’s hybrid community identity and speaker proficiency. A radical implication of this multilingualism is that all users of LFE have native competence of LFE, just as they have native competence in certain other languages and cultures. In the study by Sato (2014), discussed above, lack of language proficiency did not necessarily lead to negative evaluation of the quality of a performance; instead, some raters’ comments indicated that successful task completion and the quality of content compensated for observed linguistic problems. For example, one informant commented: If it [what the speaker talks about] is interesting, you can forgive any muck up of the English language or whatever. It’s interesting you sort of fight to understand it.3 Nevertheless, as Sato himself comments: Language ability generally enables speakers to create discourse and convey detailed and relevant information. In this sense, low-​proficiency speakers are less likely to convey intentions successfully and provide a high-​quality message. In addition, interlocutors are distracted by linguistic problems unless L2 speakers possess minimally adequate language proficiency. (Sato 2014: 261) On the other hand, it has to be said that in general, the central role that proficiency plays in successful ELF communication has been underplayed by proponents of ELF. It is very clear that competent performance on more complex communicative tasks requires control of vocabulary and ability to process input and output quickly, which are dimensions of what is normally understood as language proficiency. I am currently learning German and am roughly at a low B1 level on the

198  Tim McNamara Common European Framework of Reference (Council of Europe 2001). But there are many communicative tasks in German as a lingua franca that I am incapable of, simply because I lack the vocabulary, and my speed of processing what people say to me, and my ability to formulate utterances myself, is too slow. It is clear that proficiency, as conventionally measured by standardized native speaker–​based oral proficiency tests, is a relevant dimension of ELF communicative ability, even if it is not synonymous with it. There is an urgent need for empirical investigation of this issue. The testability of ELF performance

Jenkins and Leung (2017:107) raise doubts about the testability of English as a lingua franca communication altogether: If ELF were not a stable variety as such, then there would be no normative references in terms of language forms and/​or use for testing, and if this was so, it would be impossible to assess ELF by conventional psychometrically oriented standardized tests of the kind that were currently being administered around the world. But we have seen that the construct of ability to communicate in English as a lingua franca does not focus on ELF as a ‘stable variety’, although much of the early work at Vienna on creating a corpus of ELF communication seemed to focus on establishing ELF as a variety. Rather, the construct focuses on the ability to manage the interactive demands of ELF communication in settings where one cannot control the proficiency of one’s interlocutor. And it is important to remember that assessments of complex performances with complex constructs are normal in other contexts, such as in job interviews and personality assessments. The novelty of the construct requires creative thinking but does not in principle prevent us from developing ELF tests. Potential contexts of uses of such a test include personnel selection and professional registration, among others. What we want to know from an ELF test is, ‘Who can more successfully manage ELF communication in such a setting?’ The real problem: the politics of ELF I have argued so far that ELF tests are entirely feasible. They will be novel and will require creative thinking in order for them to deliver valid interpretations of the communicative ability of individuals in ELF settings, but they can in principle be made. So why do none exist? This takes us into another area altogether: the values that are implied in an ELF test and the clash that they involve with the interests of other stakeholders, in particular native speakers. The question of whose values will prevail is ultimately a political question and cannot be resolved by psychometric expertise alone.

A challenge for language testing  199 The issues can be understood by looking at the context of tests of communicative ability in international civil aviation (see also Estival and Pennycook, this volume). The ELF character of the spoken interaction (air traffic controller communication in English with a pilot, either of whom may be nonnative speaker of English) has long been recognized by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a United Nations body which establishes policy governing the conduct of international civil aviation. The work context of aviation communication is complex, busy, and technologically mediated. Typically, simultaneous communication is going on between a single air traffic controller (ATC) and several pilots, possibly involving English for some pilots and local language for others (where the pilot and the ATC share the same language). Language communication is not the only source of information on evolving situations: information is provided by radar screens, for example. Acknowledging the particular difficulties of communication in this ELF setting, and the highly consequential nature of that communication, ICAO has long insisted that the training of pilots and ATCs cover the following: 1. The use of standard radiotelephony phraseology: In routine situations, the use of a restricted language is required, that is, a standardized set of words and phrases for use in all routine radiotelephony communications. Pilots and ATCS are tested on their mastery of this restricted language as part of their training and certification. 2. The use of ‘Plain language’: Given that nonroutine circumstances will inevitably arise at times, even if not frequently, the use of a less restricted variety may be called for in such circumstances. This, however, is still constrained to ensure that mutual understanding is achieved. ICAO defines plain language as: The spontaneous, creative and non-​coded use of a given natural language. Plain language shall be used ‘only when standardized phraseology cannot serve an intended transmission’. (ICAO 2010: x) It emphasizes, however, the need to ensure mutual intelligibility: Users with high proficiency must accommodate their use of language so as to remain intelligible and supportive to less proficient users. (ICAO 2010: 3–​3) When using plain language, speakers are required to be fluent, clear, concise and unambiguous. (ICAO 2010: 3–​6)

200  Tim McNamara 3. Compulsory routines to ensure successful communication: ‘Readback’ and ‘Hearback’: This third aspect of aviation communication reflecting the ELF character of the communication and its seriousness involves a rigorous repetition protocol. For example, when an Air Traffic Controller (ATC) sends a message, the pilot who receives the message has to repeat it verbatim. This is known as ‘readback’. The original ATC sender then actively listens to the repetition to check its accuracy –​ this step is known as ‘hearback’. If the ATC detects an error in the pilot’s readback, the controller again sends the correct version and actively listens (‘hearback’) for the pilot’s readback again. This process continues until the message has been successfully received. Ongoing concern about the quality of aviation communication and the impact of miscommunication led ICAO to conduct an analysis of language as a factor in fatal aviation accidents. They identified a number of associated factors: (a) incorrect use of standardized phraseology; (b) lack of plain language proficiency; and (c) the use of more than one language in the same airspace. As a result, ICAO introduced a new policy requiring ATCs and pilots involved in international aviation to demonstrate proficiency in English at a given level. Note that this policy addresses only the second of these factors. The new policy introduced a spoken proficiency scale with six levels, with a minimum of Operational Level (Level 4) being required for authorization to work in international aviation as a pilot or ATC. Those achieving Level 4 are required to be retested every three years. Those performing at the Extended Level (Level 5) have to be retested every six years. The highest level (Expert Level) requires no retest, and all native speakers of English without a speech impediment are deemed to be at this level. (We will comment on the problematic nature of this aspect of the policy below.) Performances are judged against six assessment criteria: Pronunciation, Interactions.

Structure,

Vocabulary,

Fluency,

Comprehension,

and

Overall level awarded is the minimum on any of the six criteria. The wording of the level definitions mostly assumes an ELF context of communication. For example, Pronunciation at Operational Level 4 is defined as follows: Pronunciation, stress, rhythm and intonation are influenced by the first language or regional variation, but only sometimes interfere with ease of understanding. Operational Level 4 speakers demonstrate a marked accent, or localized regional variety of English. Occasionally, a proficient listener may have to pay close attention to understand or may have to clarify something from time to time… While it is not an Expert level, it is important to keep in mind that pronunciation plays the critical role in aiding comprehension between two non-​ native speakers of English.

A challenge for language testing  201 Interactions at Operational Level 4 are defined in this way: Responses are usually immediate, appropriate and informative. Initiates and maintains exchanges even when dealing with an unexpected turn of events. Deals adequately with apparent misunderstandings by checking, confirming or clarifying. The implementation of the policy was in the hands of aviation authorities of each of the member states. The implementation was originally to be done by 2008 but was subsequently deferred to 2011; even then 137 of the 191 states were still noncompliant with the policy. The quality of the tests used to certify achievement at the required level has been an issue. In particular, the noted British language testing Authority Charles Alderson (2009, 2010, 2011) has voiced doubts about the validity of many of the tests which have been developed for this purpose, and this has led to an initiative on the part of the International Language Testing Association (ILTA) to work together with ICAO to judge and approve the validity of the tests developed by member states to implement the policy. Despite this, there has been disturbing evidence of lack of faith in the justification of the policy. For example, in Korea, where all relevant aviation personnel are now deemed to be compliant with the policy, the test content in multiple versions has been published online, and repeated attempts are allowed until the version which the candidate has prepared for appears, thus allowing them to pass. In Japan, where again all relevant personnel are now compliant, a professionally made test for Level 4 was rejected on the grounds that ‘80% of personnel would lose their jobs’ and an easier test has been used. Are the aviation authorities in Korea and Japan being reckless and irresponsible in their efforts to undermine this policy? Or are they as it were voting with their feet against the policy, which they refuse to take seriously? What could be the grounds for their effective rejection of the policy? A study was undertaken by Kim (2012) to investigate the issue. She was granted permission to use recordings of (Korean) air traffic controller and NS/​NNS pilot communications at Incheon airport, Seoul, in which six episodes of miscommunication had been identified –​ none of them leading to accidents in fact, but potentially dangerous. She used two groups of expert informants (Korean air traffic controllers and pilots) to help her interpret what was going on in these episodes, and what the nature and source of the miscommunication was. Her research question was, ‘What is role of language proficiency in the miscommunication in these episodes?’ Kim’s first main finding was that a significant cause of the miscommunication was the behavior of native speakers, who failed to adhere to ICAO policies on the use of fixed phrases instead of spontaneous speech, and who did not accommodate their accent, word choice, or speed of delivery, again in disregard of the ICAO policy. In fact, the Korean pilots indicated a preference for communicating with Japanese ATCs on flights to Japan, who were scrupulous in their adherence to the ICAO communication conventions, thus making for safe communication. They

202  Tim McNamara contrasted this with the problems they had in flying into the US, particularly LAX (Los Angeles International Airport), where the ATCs made few accommodations to their non-​native-​speaking interlocutors. One of her informants, a pilot with 13 years of experience, illustrated the problem in the following way: For example, if there’s cloud that we want to avoid, we, non-​native English speakers, say ‘request heading 090 due to CB [cumulonimbus cloud]’. … But, when a native English speaking pilot takes a microphone, their blah blah blah is endless, saying ‘we see one cell on the right but there’s even bigger one on the left, so after we fly forward about 10 miles, we want to go right, and so on’. Then, the controller says ‘say again’. They, native English speakers, don’t know how to deliver a direct message. It’s they who do not follow the radiotelephony conventions, but they blame us for being non-​native. That’s outrageous! Kim’s second major finding was the crucial role of professional competence: if present, it facilitated communication, making language proficiency less of an issue; if lacking, it could hinder communication. Another pilot informant, again with 13 years’ experience, put the role of professional competence as lessening the dependence on language this way: If a pilot has good knowledge, he’s able to recognise a situation precisely and deliver the right message accordingly. Especially when he knows the task procedure, that is, what a controller needs to know in the associated situation, the pilot is able to provide the controller with very necessary information … It’s not the amount of speech. The less information is provided, the better the efficiency is … If we meet someone who shares situation awareness, no word is needed … The ICAO testing policy comes from complete ignorance of aviation. (Kim and Elder 2015: 140) In contrast, the way in which poor professional competence could contribute to miscommunication was indicated in the following comment by the same pilot informant: It was just a simple request. The aircraft was scheduled for Incheon but it requested a diversion to Vladivostok, but look at how many turns were made only over the destination. The controller was the problem rather than the Russian pilot’s level of English because the controller was so lacking in knowledge about adjoining airways … An unexpected name of the airport cropped up and the controller got completely muddled about it. He had little knowledge about adjacent airways which he should have known. (Kim 2018: 415) Kim’s study reveals the basis for the lack of confidence in the policy on the part of some aviation authorities. They see the policy, and the tests that implement it,

A challenge for language testing  203 as lacking in validity, as the tests get it wrong about who is safe in this ELF environment, and who is not. Many highly experienced personnel with language proficiency which does not meet the Level 4 standard but is still clearly adequate for the tasks they face are failed by the test; many proficient speakers, including by definition all native English speakers, who flout the protocols for communication established by ICAO are actually exempt from testing (see also Estival and Pennycook, this volume, on this point). In other words, the construct in the test, focusing solely on language proficiency judged against native speaker norms, is too narrow, with other factors, particularly professional experience and competence, being ignored; the standard of proficiency is set too high for highly experienced personnel with an excellent safety record; and the sole responsibility for successful communication is seen to lie with nonnative speaking personnel (native speakers are exempt from testing altogether!). The misguided direction of the policy, the way it penalized experienced personnel with adequate English but who could not easily achieve Level 4 on the test was summed up in the following comment from an Air Traffic Controller with eight years’ experience: I think those senior controllers who have many years of experience can just realise something unusual in a given situation even before a pilot says something to inform us. They don’t even attentively listen to the radio, but it’s true that they just know it. I think it’s possible because they’ve been in the same or similar situations before. They grasp the whole thing happening by catching just one word and give us the solution. It’s amazing that they know why the pilot requested a certain thing, what the pilot needed, and what measures need to be taken. I think that’s why we can’t undervalue the number of years of experience in this field. (Kim & Elder 2015: 140) Kim’s finding is echoed for general ELF communication by an observation of Canagarajah (2007: 929): Ironically, the only cases of miscommunication House (2003) observed in her research were in the interaction of multilingual speakers with those for whom English is native or sole language. This miscommunication in native-​non-​native talk is easy to explain, as NSs would fail to negotiate, treating their norms as universally applicable. The conflict over values in ELF tests Whose values and interests are expressed in the construct of the ICAO test? It can be argued that the privilege of the native speaker is an underlying value in the ICAO tests. The policy making bodies are dominated by native speaker representatives, and native speakers are automatically exempted from testing. This issue is not recognized by the language testing world: as previously noted,

204  Tim McNamara ILTA supports current ICAO policy and is working to implement it in its current form. In the famous discussion of validity in Messick (1989), the values implicit in test constructs are a central feature of Messick’s model of validity. He asks us to consider as part of test validation the question of ‘what social and cultural values and assumptions underlie test constructs and hence the sense we make of scores’. In a globalized world, this privilege of the native speaker needs to be seriously questioned, which is in fact the heart of the English as a lingua franca initiative. In the contemporary globalized workplace, there is no longer any basis for making a priori distinctions between the competence of native and nonnative speakers in the testing regimes controlling access to such work settings. But it will be difficult to change existing attitudes and the testing policies they reflect. There is the problem of the inevitable resistance of native speakers to being tested, and even if they were tested, there is the problem of motivation to succeed in communication even after a successful pass on the test. Nevertheless, we cannot any longer escape the difficult and complex issue of values in language test constructs. I have argued elsewhere (McNamara 2012) that test constructs are sites of struggle over values. The struggle to achieve ELF tests in relevant work and other settings will inevitably be a political one. The discussion in this chapter demonstrates that the question of ELF testing has broader implications for language assessment. Jenkins and Leung (2017: 114) raise the appropriate question: All assessment of second/​foreign/​additional language implicates speakers’ bi-​/​ multilingualism experience, particularly in terms of their learning experience of which lingua franca communication (in English or any other language) is likely to be a component. Does this mean that ELF considerations are automatically relevant to all language assessments…? The answer is again ‘yes’. What I hope to have demonstrated in this chapter is that all communicative English language assessment is English as a lingua franca assessment (and the same is true for all other languages). Any communication situation in which one of the participants is a nonnative speaker of the language concerned is a lingua franca situation. This means that all settings in which language learners are required to communicate are lingua franca settings, and so all assessments of their ability to communicate in such settings are necessarily lingua franca assessments. And this makes the complete absence of lingua franca assessments all the more puzzling –​and a huge challenge for language assessment. Notes 1 This chapter was originally published as McNamara (2018) in Waseda Working Papers in ELF (English as a Lingua Franca), Volume 7, pp.13–​29. It has been republished in this book with permission of the author with minor modification. It is however extremely sad that the author, Professor Tim McNamara, passed away on 15 September 2023

A challenge for language testing  205 without seeing the publication of this chapter. The chapter is dedicated to him by all the other contributors to this volume, for his life-​long dedication to fairness in education and assessment. Thank you, Tim, for your commitment. 2 Note, however, that there is the possibility of their being indirectly affected by their experience in taking standardized English tests to meet the entry requirements for university entrance. 3 Note that in the use of ‘forgive’ in the above excerpt, we can detect a native speaker of English perspective, but most probably unconsciously and unintentionally.

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206  Tim McNamara Kim, H. 2012. Exploring the construct of aviation communication: A critique of the ICAO language proficiency policy (Unpublished doctoral thesis). University of Melbourne. Kim, H. 2018. What constitutes professional communication in aviation: Is language proficiency enough for testing purposes? Language Testing 35(3), 403–​426. Kim, H. and C. Elder 2015. Interrogating the construct of aviation English: Feedback from test takers in Korea. Language Testing 32(2), 129–​149. McNamara, T. 1996. Measuring Second Language Performance. London; New York: Addison Wesley Longman. McNamara, T. 2012. English as a lingua franca: The challenge for language testing. Journal of English as a Lingua Franca 1(1), 199–​202. Messick, S. 1989. Validity. In R. L. Linn (ed.), Educational Measurement (3rd ed.). New York: American Council on Education & Macmillan, pp. 13–​103. Sato, T. 2014. Linguistic Laypersons’ Perspective on Second Language Oral Communication Ability (Unpublished PhD thesis). University of Melbourne. Sato, T. and T. McNamara 2019. What counts in second language oral communication ability? The perspective of linguistic laypersons. Applied Linguistics 40(6), 894–​916. Seidlhofer, B. 2011. Understanding English as a Lingua Franca. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Widdowson, H. G. 2003. Defining Issues in English Language Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Widdowson, H. G. 2012. ELF and the inconvenience of established concepts. Journal of English as a Lingua Franca 1(1), 5–​26. Widdowson, H. G. 2013. ELF and EFL: What’s the difference? Comments on Michael Swan. Journal of English as a Lingua Franca 2(1), 187–​193. Widdowson, H. G. 2016. ELF, adaptive variability and virtual language. In M.-​L, Pitzl and R. Osimk-​Teasdale (eds), English as a Lingua Franca: Perspectives and Prospects. Boston: De Gruyter Mouton, 31–​37.

13 Writtenness in assessed English Implicit assumptions of a smooth read Joan Turner

Introduction In this chapter I look at the interaction between academic reader and student in one of the major domains of English dominance, namely international higher education. While ELF studies have looked at international higher education, notably in a special issue of the Journal of Pragmatics (Björkman 2011) and in a book by Jenkins (2014), the focus has been mainly on spoken interaction and the implementation of language policies. My focus is on the attitudes that lecturers and students have towards written work submitted for assessment in international higher education, and my main argument is that there is a need for attitudinal shift in the uptake of writing, especially given a language in international use. I have used the term ‘writtenness’ (Turner 2015a, 2018, 2019) to highlight not only the importance of written language in the representation, communication, and assessment of knowledge and understanding but also the evaluative culture surrounding its uptake. Writtenness often plays an implicit role in assessment, as opposed to the explicit focus on the conceptual content of what is written. The contrast is not to deny the importance of writing as content but rather to redress the balance in the hierarchy, where content is favoured and the writing as linguistic materiality usually only surfaces as a problem or a deficit. The prevalence of such an attitude creates a rather negative environment for ELF users as well as indeed for many students with English as their first language. To some extent, this is not surprising as, to paraphrase Bourdieu and Passeron (1994), ‘academic language is nobody’s mother tongue’. I draw on the results of qualitative research, including semi-​ structured interviews with academics and students in a UK context as well as focus groups with students and EAP practitioners, to illustrate and critique the tensions and ethical questions that arise around the role of the writing in assessment practices (see also Turner 2011, 2018). I also look at the construction of dominant attitudes and aesthetic criteria for writing in cultural history, especially in the second half of the 17th century, when the scientific revolution was underway, new knowledge was proliferating, and it was increasingly communicated in writing. This was also a time when English was being consolidated as a national language and taking over in the national context from the use of Latin as the scholarly lingua franca. DOI: 10.4324/9781003391463-17

208  Joan Turner The contemporary reverse movement from national only to international lingua franca brings into question the persistence of 17th-​century rhetorical and aesthetic ideologies in current expectations of writing in English. I critique this persistence as a block to an internationalising dynamic where a multiplicity of people from differing lingua-​cultural backgrounds using English should naturally lead to more diverse conditions of acceptability in its production and reception. However, the notion of English continues to circulate as a monocultural norm in international higher education. The lack of tolerance for diversity and diversification is emblematised in the increasing demand for the proofreading of university assignments by third parties. On the one hand, the apparent desire for perfectly proofread texts or what I highlight as the continuing value of ‘polished prose’ and the cultural preference for a smooth read illustrate attitudes towards writtenness. On the other hand, the demand for proofreading militates against a more open reception of diverse prose styles, heterogeneity of form, and flexibility of reading position in a more lingua-​culturally internationalised arena of higher education. From this perspective, proofreading is a foil to what a different attitudinal approach to writing might be, one in which, for example, a ‘smooth read’ might be disrupted, along with monocultural assumptions of ‘good’ writing in English. The Englishisation of contemporary international higher education English has become the predominant language for teaching and learning in universities rather than the national language of their geographic location. However, university strategic visions in China, Japan, Korea, and Singapore, as well as in Anglophone and European countries, pursue the concept of internationalisation through English medium instruction (EMI) without questioning the cultural legacy embodied in assumptions of language use. While internationalisation policies could have drawn on the rich potential of international students and their multilingual repertoires, for example, in curricular input into intercultural communication and its wider educational benefits, this is seldom explored (see also discussion in Jenkins 2014). Language issues in general have not been foregrounded in strategic visions. Yet they loom large in practice. Recent collections of research into the workings and effects of EMI, such as Kuteeva et al. (2020) and Lasagabaster and Doiz (2021), highlight among other things the difficulties for discipline-​based teachers in different geographic locations, who have to switch to English. One particularly poignant example comes from Piller and Cho (2013) who recount the suicide of a Korean academic faced with this Englishisation demand, in order that the university could be ranked as ‘international’. The neat equation of ‘international’ and ‘English’ suggests that whatever the language background of individual students (and, for that matter, staff), the international university will uncontroversially and unproblematically deliver its teaching and learning in an undifferentiated notion of English. Lillis and Curry (2015) noted a similar attitude towards English in their study of reviewer commentary on work submitted for publication by multi-​ lingual scholars. They stated:

Writtenness in assessed English  209 The ideology of English within reviewer evaluative commentary is overwhelmingly one of English as a stable standard semiotic resource. (2015: 134) A uniform notion of English is supported and sustained also by the globally administered language tests such as IELTS or TOEFL, whose fitness for purpose is questioned by Jenkins and Leung (2013) as they maintain the model of the native speaker as benchmark. Furthermore, these gatekeeping tests purport the smooth running of English language performance in higher education if the requisite score is reached. However, a language test score does not guarantee immediate acculturation and a smooth path through EMI and linguistic performance. As a result, reliance on an entrance test score masks the complexities of language use in academic performance. The tests give a snapshot of linguistic expertise across the four skills, but they cannot provide a full picture of what’s required in terms of language use once students have begun their degree courses. It is seldom understood by university administrators and academics in other fields that the tests have ultimately very little to say about what it is like to write an academic essay, or any extended piece of writing. The IELTS writing test, for example, is not integrated with extensive reading on a particular topic, which then has to be distilled and reintegrated into the framework of developing an argument around a specific title, as would be the case in the context of a specific discipline. I have previously critiqued (Turner 2004) the reification of language test scores in the interests of university admissions processes. Institutions or specific programmes can raise or lower the entrance scores they require on language tests, based on market demand for a particular subject. This could mean lowering the entrance scores required in the interests of receiving more students. In such cases, it would appear that the number of students paying high fees is more important than the ability of such students to complete their courses without a struggle. Inconsistencies around language test scores within and across higher education institutions mirror the fault lines created by the assumptions in internationalisation strategies that the vehicle of English will circulate smoothly throughout their curricula and learning outcomes. In what I have termed the ‘elite economy’ (Turner 2018:125) purported in internationalisation strategies, English circulates like a global currency, buying ease of communication and mobility within high-​ level global networks. This economy is, however, one of an ‘imagined’ global community (cf. Anderson 1983), rather than one of reality. Singh and Doherty (2007), for example, have pointed out the gap between student expectations of an international higher education and the reality they face both during and after their studies, where the high-​level occupations they were anticipating do not necessarily await. As well as experiencing disappointments after their ‘international’ education, many students struggle with academic writing in English during their studies. The finality of the gatekeeping test score with regard to language issues sidesteps this issue and ignores the intellectual legitimacy of ongoing language and

210  Joan Turner writing development. Rather than promote and support such a positive trajectory, institutions prefer to assume the smooth circulation of English in the international higher education economy. This means that when problems do arise with language and especially writing, they are framed as a deficit. It is not simply acknowledged that students may be unfamiliar with the styles and conventions of academic writing; rather they are deemed remedial at the outset. In stark contrast then to the smooth-​running economy of English with its elite connotations, there runs instead a remedial economy, where language problems loom large. Writtenness as an implicit assessment criterion The high-​stakes nature of writing in university assessments causes students anxiety. This was particularly prominent in focus groups where students discussed their approaches to writing (see also Turner 2011). While students wanted to get their writing right and communicate their ideas effectively to their intended audience, they also gave out strong feelings of uncertainty. They felt that they were not being told exactly what was required of their writing. Such a lack of explicit criteria for writing ties in with writing being taken for granted in academic culture. The assumption is that if you understand what you are writing about, the writing itself will flow. I have characterised this assumption as an ‘expository ideology’ (Turner 2018), with its roots in the predominant epistemology of 17th-​ century science whereby the exposition of newly discovered knowledge is ‘laid bare’ also in written ‘expository’ prose. This prose makes the knowledge visible, just as observers of experiments at the Royal Society could see with their own eyes what was being unveiled before them (for examples of this history of science, see Shapin, 1994, and Jardine 1999). Such a visibilising expectation of writing is tied up in expectations of ‘good’ writing, apparent also in evaluations such as ‘clarity’ and ‘elegance’, as well as in the notion of ‘polished prose’. How these criteria are achieved, however, is not spelled out. They are rather taken for granted in expectations of writtenness, whose aesthetic and cultural values arose in the latter half of the 17th century. Writtenness in English: the cultural construction of its stylistic values In the late 17th century, English was taking over from Latin as the national language of scholarship, as, for example, shown in the fact that Newton’s second major work Opticks was written in English rather than Latin, as was the case for his earlier Principia Mathematica. The sociolinguist Mugglestone (2003) refers to ‘the prevailing climate of linguistic (and cultural) thought’ in this historical period, in which: the standard variety of English was regularly praised for its copious vocabulary, its qualities of elegance, its capacities for rhetoric, and its potential for stylistic and intellectual polish. (Mugglestone 2003:10)

Writtenness in assessed English  211 The attributes of ‘standard’, ‘elegance’, and ‘polish’ continue to this day in evaluating written English. The association of written English with the national standard is deeply embedded and prevails in sociolinguistic orthodoxy. Lillis critiques this orthodoxy in her claim that sociolinguistics has neglected writing in general. As she puts it: precisely because writing is marginalized as an object of study, there is a danger that it tends to get treated in sociolinguistics in much the same way as it does in the public media or common sense discourse; that is, as already discussed in terms of standardisation and codification, and therefore, through a particular emphasis on correctness. (Lillis 2013:12) The reductive emphasis on writing as correctness bolsters the advocacy of proofreading as a solution to problems of student writing (see further below). My emphasis on writtenness, which includes social attitudes towards writing as well as evaluative judgments of it, is an attempt to dislodge taken-​for-​granted notions of the written as the repository of standards, easily accessible to all. In the contemporary global climate of English, ELF research re-​invigorates longstanding debates within sociolinguistics between language standards and language change, between prescriptivism and descriptivism (see, for example, Cameron 1995; Haberland 2011; Hall 1960). ELF research implicitly asks the question, whose standards? In the world of scholarly publication, there are already centripetal and centrifugal forces at play. On the one hand, the centripetal authority of standard varieties remains powerful and is maintained with the help of intermediaries, such as literacy brokers or authors’ editors, although this is by no means straightforward for the writers concerned (see Flowerdew 2000, 2001, 2008; Lillis and Curry 2010; Kuteeva and Mauranen 2014 for examples). On the other hand, an explicit distancing from native-​speaker norms is made in the publication policies of scholarly journals such as the Nordic Journal of English Linguistics (Mauranen, Perez-​Llantada and Swales 2010) and the Journal of English as a Lingua Franca, where, in recognition that acceptable usage in English is diversifying, the aim is not to edit language issues as long as the meaning is clear. As Mauranen, Perez-​ Llantada, and Swales see it, such a journal policy is generating an ‘ELF version of standard English’ (Mauranen, Perez-​Llantada and Swales 2010: 467). My position is not to focus on centripetal, standardising processes, nor to espouse the authority of one standardising authority over another, but rather to value a more flexible stance towards heterogeneity (see also, Turner 2023). Prescriptivism does not work, especially amidst a plurality of potential prescriptivisms. It is therefore practices of diversity and greater acceptability of heterogeneity in form, and arguably also of rhetorical organisation, that should inform a shift in attitudes and uptake of written English, away from the lingering values of 17th-​century prescription and preference. Going back to Mugglestone’s quote, the notions of ‘polish’ and ‘elegance’ remain aesthetic virtues in the judgement of academic writing. An internet search will

212  Joan Turner bring up a plethora of agencies offering to teach or convert your texts into ‘polished prose’. An alternative version is ‘pristine prose’. Elegance also appears frequently as a positive evaluation of writing, as evidenced in academic book reviews (Turner 2018, ­chapter 3). Academics also seem to expect elegance in the writing of their students. One of my interviewees said that he wanted his PhD students to ‘write with elegance’. When prompted to elaborate on what he meant by that, he stated: -​um–​that is expressing for example, one thought in a sentence, and one particular chain of thoughts in a paragraph, and an extended chain of thought in a section, rather than going to another one or even in a sentence, starting another chain of thought. Certainly, the ordering and presentation of thought, the more economically it’s done, the more successful it is. (Humanities Professor, author’s data) Elegance then is teamed up with economy of expression and logical structure. In her study also, English (2011) found that lecturers named elegance as one of the attributes marking the ‘highest quality’ of writing (English 2011: 56). The desire for elegance in writing can also work against students writing in English as an additional language. In her article, ‘Simplicity without elegance: features of sentences in L1 and L2 academic texts’ Hinkel (2003) implies that elegance is a level of achievement that is unrealistic for L2 students. Elegance acts as a benchmark in assessment then, even if only to mark its absence. This negative benchmark occurs also in a statement from another of my PhD supervisor interviewees. He was talking about fine art students, where the written thesis is only part of the submission for the award: They can always express ideas, you know, in an unsophisticated way, not very elegant. They will have trouble ever being published but a lot of them are never intending to be published anyway because they are just trying to filter some ideas out of their own creations. (Fine art Professor, author’s data) Elegance clearly remains an aesthetic criterion of written excellence in English, if one which many students are not expected to reach. The point I want to emphasise here is that the stylistic virtues for English prose set up in the second half of the 17th century continue to have ideological resonance, not only but especially in the context of academic writing. Values such as plainness or clarity, brevity or concision, and ‘polished prose’ or ‘elegance’ continue to wield power. While such aesthetic values may not be solely restricted to English, their cultural sedimentation remains an issue for the uptake of written English in its international role as the academic lingua franca. By contrast with the nationalising context of English as an academic language in the 17th century, one might expect the current period of internationalisation to bring the culturally laden values of prose style into question and to de-​stabilise their taken-​for-​granted status as principles of academic communication. Nonetheless, these values persist.

Writtenness in assessed English  213 The proofreading solution When written language is perceived as a problem, the solution of proofreading steps into the breach, as a quick-​fix solution. The routine meaning of proofreading in publication contexts confers an academic acceptability and indeed respectability on it. This makes it easy for university tutors to casually suggest that students have their work proofread. At the same time, it resonates conceptually with cultural expectations of polished prose. In my interviews with professors in the humanities and social sciences, they saw a need for conventionally correct, well-​written academic prose and did not see proofreading done by others as problematic, although one social sciences professor realised that it was ‘tricky’ and that the proofreader ‘has got to not think as it were’ (Turner 2012: 24). This rather robotic characterisation of proofreading points up the assumption of a borderline between content and language, a problematic assumption in itself for applied linguists. The danger of crossing this borderline also poses rather a dilemma for assessment, especially when proofreading means rather more than its conventional meaning (see further below). Another of my professor interviewees exemplified acceptance of the appropriacy and apparent ease of proofreading when she talked of asking her PhD students to ‘have someone read through’ their work. She said: sometimes when I’ve gone through people’s drafts two or three times and I’m satisfied that the underlying structure is alright then I’ll say to them, ‘I would suggest that you get a partner or friend or peer to read through it for you, and identify areas which are difficult to understand, or make basic corrections in spelling and expression.’ (Social Sciences Professor, author’s data) Notably, the supervisor makes sure that the ‘underlying structure’ is OK first and stresses the point that she herself will have ‘gone through’ the drafts more than once. She acknowledges the important distinction between structure-​and sentence-​ level concerns but is prepared to relegate the latter to others. The professor further justifies making the request of her students, in the following ways: a) because that saves me a bit of work b) because I think it’s appropriate that they should take responsibility for fine-​ tuning some of it themselves, drawing on other sources of support as appropriate. While the idea that the student take responsibility for ‘fine tuning’ her/​his writing seems reasonable, how she or he enlists support is less clearly defined. The easy assumption that ‘support’ is available is misleading. Not all students will have easy access to friendly and helpful ‘readers’. This was a topic discussed in the focus groups I held with students. While some students reported exchanging the favour of proofreading with a gift of flowers or a meal, others found it difficult to find a willing reader. As the following MA student from Switzerland put it:

214  Joan Turner I think it is quite difficult to find someone who takes his or her time to proofread a text. For small texts, I have enough colleagues who are willing to do that. It often takes a couple of days to find someone who does it really serious and not only looks at the first pages but corrects the whole text including bibliography. I just found it difficult to find someone who will read long texts. (author’s data) This quote points up the time-​consuming nature of proofreading and hence the lack of willingness to commit to it. While internal institutional support in language and writing development is generally available, this may not include the provision of ‘reading through’ the extended texts of individual students. In fact, many language centres often categorically state that they do not provide proofreading. Despite this, English for Academic Purposes tutors are often indignant that students come to ‘drop-​in’ support sessions expecting that tutors in these sessions would ‘correct’ their texts before the students handed them in for assessment. Such tutors critiqued the lack of educational benefit in the proofreading process. One EAP tutor in a focus group said: where does that expectation on the part of the student come from, that that is what we should be doing, rather than them, as I see it, taking responsibility and trying to improve themselves. (author’s data) Starfield (2015) critiques a similar scenario from her Australian context, where PhD supervisors were asking their students to have even drafts of their chapters proofread before the supervisor looked at them. She roots this expectation in the neo-​liberal ethos of contemporary higher education, where the financial benefits of international student recruitment prevail over applied linguistic research and practice in EAL and academic language pedagogy. Given such conflicts of educational benefit and the vagueness of notions such as ‘read through’ and ‘make basic corrections’, a general ethos of uncertainty prevails. In this ethos, combined with their own lack of confidence in their abilities with English, students often resort to paying for help. Another student focus group participant showed how common this was, and how much energy was expended in finding such help at a financially viable rate for the individual student. He said: the first thing to do for most of my friends, either Korean or Japanese is … we have to find proofreaders, cheap and professional and we always share the experience from websites, and from your friends’ friends and even if the potential proofreader lives in another university town you will email her ‘Do you have any proofreaders for me?’ She is doing Women’s Studies. OK, I like her and it is cheap. So it is very important. (M. Phil. student from Taiwan, author’s data)

Writtenness in assessed English  215 The implications of proofreading for assessment The extent to which proofreading is sought and provided is invisible to academic assessment procedures and processes. There are ethical implications here also in terms of equitability among students. As another focus group student remarked: If you get a higher mark just because someone made your sentences sound better then I think this is not fair. There are so many non-​native students that getting better marks just because one can afford paid proofreading should not be the point. (MA student from the Netherlands, author’s data) As well as the EAL perspective, this quote accentuates the controversial power dynamics surrounding assumptions of the native speaker, a common concern of ELF research. Turning to external proofreaders to mediate the English in assignments submitted for assessment can also be a threat to the integrity of the EAL student’s understanding of the discipline, as illustrated in the following example. The example was posted on a professional listserv. The Korean student, who was doing an MA in applied linguistics at a UK university, had written: There is no doubt that English has a privileged status as a lingua franca in a globalised world and English competence is essential for university admission and job employment in Korea, in the expanding circle of English (Kachru 1992). (my italics) Her proofreader changed this to: There is no doubt that English has a privileged status as a lingua franca in a globalised world and English competence is essential for university admission and employment in Korea, expanding the circle of English (Kachru 1992). The proofreader clearly had no idea that the expanding circle was a specific analytical concept in the discipline and rather than insert quotation marks around the expression, which would have signalled its status as Kachru’s concept, the proofreader in effect made the expression meaningless. From an academic assessor’s perspective, no negative judgment is likely to have arisen from the student’s initial rendering. By contrast, the proofreader’s intervention could lead the assessor to suspect that the student hasn’t properly understood Kachru’s circle concepts and therefore to negatively evaluate the piece. As well as conceptual errors, proofreaders can introduce linguistic ones, as Harwood (2018) found in his analysis of the kinds of textual intervention made. Proofreading then is clearly not the panacea it is assumed to be.

216  Joan Turner Proofreading in applied linguistics and higher education research The ubiquity of the demand for proofreading in university contexts has made it a topic of growing interest in applied linguistics research in differing national contexts (Conrad 2019, 2020; Corcoran et al. 2018; Harwood et al. 2009; Harwood 2018; Heng Hartse and Kubota 2014; Liu and Harwood 2022; McNally and Kooyman 2017; Turner 2011, 2015b). Conventionally, proofreading implies the correction of typos, spelling mistakes, misplaced punctuation marks, the omission of references, and the like. However, as Harwood et al. (2009); Lines (2016); McNally and Kooyman (2017); and Harwood (2018) have shown, the number and type of textual interventions made by third-​party proofreaders extends far beyond this traditional norm. Taxonomies have been created detailing the kinds of changes made or not made in the name of proofreading, which include categories outlining the number of words added or deleted in any intervention (see, for example, Kruger and Bevan-​Dye 2010; Harwood 2018), as well as stylistic changes. Furthermore, proofreaders vary in what they change and what they don’t change. Harwood (2018) found that not everything was changed in a text that could/​should have been. The use of the term proofreading in higher education contexts then is effectively a euphemism, minimising what is actually done in terms of textual intervention. The ethical implications as well as the potential educational benefits (or not) of providing proofreading services have also been discussed (Harwood et al. 2010; Harwood 2019, 2022; Lines 2016; Turner 2011). In her case studies, Salter-​Dvorak (2019) pointed out the inequitable effects on students’ educational outcomes arising from inconsistencies in the kind and amount of help with writing that individual tutors from different disciplines gave their students. While two students in different disciplines had similar language proficiency, one student whose tutor had not been very helpful failed to gain an award, while the other, with a more concerned and helpful tutor, was successful. Universities continue to debate the issue of proofreading, whether to have policies around it, what they should contain, and so on. The new regulatory landscape being prescribed by the Office for Students (2021) may accelerate and re-​shape such debates. While not the result of wanting to tackle the use of external proofreaders, this UK regulatory body has recently become concerned about spelling, punctuation and grammar in written English and is seeking to embed the assessment of ‘technical proficiency in written English’ into their regulations. If adequate resources were put into writing development as a whole, rather than the overly narrow and misleadingly reductive focus of spelling, punctuation, and grammar, the strategy of including the writing in assessment could be positive. However, the ethos surrounding it is currently one of remediation rather than one of justified learning. It also appears to be re-​enacting monocultural assumptions of English, with no sense of diversity in how it is used. There is a danger then that the implementation of such a policy could be overly punitive and narrowly prescriptive, thereby accentuating rather than diminishing existing problems.

Writtenness in assessed English  217 Proofreading from an ELF perspective Behind the problematic solution of proofreading is the deeper cultural expectation of polished prose. While proofreading serves to maintain cultural assumptions of polished prose, albeit imperfectly as we have seen, its role from a more ELF-​ oriented perspective is different. Here, recourse to the strategy of proofreading may be seen as enabling institutional policy makers to avoid making difficult decisions in relation to international English. It avoids addressing the issue of variation and variability in form that might be expected of a language in international use. ELF communication by its nature makes linguistic variation a standout feature of interest, as has been seen in many studies (for example, Seidlhofer 2005, 2012; Jenkins 2011; Jenkins et al. 2011; Mauranen 2012). While the argument for adjustment and accommodation has been frequently made for spoken interaction, and the issue has been extensively debated in research publication contexts, the interaction between writer and reader in university contexts has not been the subject of extensive debate. Proofreading has in effect blocked or deflected such debates. Proofreading in itself is not malign. In the sense of rigorous attention to detail, it promotes scholarliness. This could also be a justification for prohibiting proofreading by third parties. The issue is rather attitudes towards written English as an international language. Here, it is not my aim to suggest that anything goes, nor to typologise the kinds of textual interventions that should or should not be made to accommodate the reader. I argue rather for a more flexible reading position, which tolerates variation in form. As in spoken interaction, there is scope both for intervention and a ‘let it pass’ (Firth and Wagner 2003) mentality. In what follows, I will give an example of where intervention might be preferred, although not necessarily in all contexts, and some examples where intervention is not necessary or misguided. I will also illustrate the operation of contingency in what readers/​assessors change. Some reader/​writer scenarios

1. Variability in intervention according to context: A student persistently writes: ‘As Smith notes out …’ or ‘as Peters notes out …’ as an introduction to a claim made by somebody else. The use of ‘notes out’, a conflation of ‘notes’ and ‘points out’, is perfectly intelligible and an argument could be made not to change it. However, to the British reader, the expression jars not least because it creates a cognitive disjunct in the underlying metaphors motivating ‘notes’ and ‘points out’ respectively. Each expression conveys the appropriateness of the underlying physical action: the writing motion of making a note versus the finger-​pointing motion behind ‘points out’. The conflation in effect draws attention to the underlying cognitive metaphors. These metaphors would potentially not be noticed if the realisation was ‘notes’ or ‘points out’ respectively. In other words, the expression ‘notes out’ draws attention to itself rather than the simple rhetorical purpose it performs. Whether it is necessary to ‘correct’ such a usage or not depends on the context and the authority of the

218  Joan Turner decision maker, as well as the attitude of the student. In the context of writing a PhD thesis in a UK university, it might be useful to the writer to know the difference between the two expressions, as the rhetorical purpose of attributing claims is very common. In an EMI context, however, where both tutor and student may be using English as the lingua franca, it is possible that the cognitive disjunct does not arise, there is no stumbling block for the reader, and all is well. 2. The same cultural idiom, differently expressed: The following is an example of an idiomatic expression, which has widespread cultural resonance in European contexts. The expression in British English is ‘play devil’s advocate’, but ‘play the advocate of the devil’ has the same meaning and should not need to be changed. The situation is similar for other idiomatic expressions, which circulate across lingua-​cultures but may shift the lexico-​grammar around. Pitzl’s (2009) example of ‘we should not wake up any dogs’ as opposed to the British English version of ‘let sleeping dogs lie’ is a case in point. Heterogeneity in lexico-​grammatical form does not conflict with the uptake of meaning here. 3. Misguided correction: My third example relates to instances where changes are made unnecessarily, helping neither the student nor the uptake of meaning. Misguided correction is a major issue in international English contexts, as shown in the example of the Korean student’s use of ‘expanding circle’ above. It is also the focus of Murata’s (2019) critique of a native speaker English teacher, who ‘corrected’ the use of a generic verb in favour of a more colloquial British English usage, rather than focusing on language that would be more appropriate for the Japanese businessman he was teaching. 4. Idiosyncratic changes: An examiner of a PhD thesis substituted the preposition ‘in’ for the italicised words, below: This acknowledgement towards the diversity of Englishes should raise the attitudes of the participants of the international communication to try to understand each other. What is striking here is not the change itself but the apparent contingency in making this change as opposed to any other in the excerpt. Another reader might have focused on ‘raise the attitudes’, a conflation of ‘raise awareness’, and ‘change attitudes’ and there are other possible changes that could have been made. The excerpt is generally comprehensible, especially when being read in the context of a much larger text, where the argument the student was pursuing was clear, and this single intervention makes no appreciable difference to the uptake of meaning. The excerpt could be seen as an example of ‘written accent’ (see also Zawacki et al. 2007), in alignment with the multiple spoken accents that occur in the use of English. I do not wish to deny that there are circumstances where textual intervention is necessary for greater comprehensibility. The issue here is to recognise and oppose

Writtenness in assessed English  219 the tendency to assume a homogeneous standard and to make changes where none are necessary for the uptake of meaning. The international picture of English usage is one of heterogeneity. There is no absolute authority. Ultimately, wielding the solution of proofreading enables a ‘head in the sand’ approach to a shifting landscape of language use. It also muffles the conversation that needs to be held institutionally about international English, including greater acceptability of variation in form, greater tolerance for the ‘awkward’ expression, and greater attention to writtenness in assessment criteria and to the equitable treatment of all students. Conclusion As a language in international use, English is cut loose from nationally determined standards. Expectations of writtenness in English hark back to the values of scientific modernity and a universalising epistemological framework, but they need to change with increasing diversification of its users and contexts of use. Print culture technologies for maintaining standards and consistency, such as proofreading, have shape-​shifted into different practices, which generate different issues for higher education, such as questions of academic integrity and whether the original voice of the author matters. The idiosyncrasies of proofreaders and academic readers are also creating inconsistencies in what gets changed or not changed, which ultimately devalues the notion of correctness. An attitudinal shift is required whereby the contemporary reader in international higher education no longer expects the writer to provide a smooth read, but rather takes up a more flexible, interpretive stance and tolerates a rougher ride through a text. References Anderson, B. 1983. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso. Björkman, B. (ed.), 2011. Journal of Pragmatics 43, Special Edition on English as a Lingua Franca in the International University. Bourdieu, P. and J-​C. Passeron 1994. Introduction: Language and relationship to language in the teaching situation (R. Teese, Trans.). In P. Bourdieu, J-​C. Passeron and M. de Saint Martin (eds), Academic Discourse: Linguistic Misunderstanding and Professorial Power. Cambridge: Polity Press, pp. 1–​34. Cameron, D. 1995. Verbal Hygiene. London: Routledge. Conrad, N. L. 2019. Revisiting proofreading in higher education: Toward an institutional response to editors Canada’s guidelines for ethical editing of student texts. TESL Canada Journal 36(1), 172–​183. Conrad, N. L. 2020. Proofreading revisited: Interrogating assumptions about postsecondary student users of proofreading. Journal of English for Academic Purposes 46, Article 100871. Corcoran, J., A. Gagné and M. McIntosh 2018. A conversation about ‘editing’ plurilingual scholars’ thesis writing. Canadian Journal for Studies in Discourse and Writing/​ Rédactologie 28, 1–​25.

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Writtenness in assessed English  221 Lasagabaster, D. and A. Doiz (eds) 2021. Language Use in English-​Medium Instruction at University: International Perspectives on Teacher Practice. London: Routledge. Lillis, T. and M. J. Curry 2010. Academic Writing in a Global Context: The Politics and Practices of Publishing in English. London: Routledge. Lillis, T. 2013. The Sociolinguistics of Writing. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Lillis, T. and M. J. Curry 2015. The politics of English, language and uptake. The case of international academic journal article reviews. AILA Review 28, 127–​150. Lines, L. 2016. Substantive editing as a form of plagiarism among postgraduate students in Australia. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education 41(3), 368–​383. Liu, C. and N. Harwood 2022. Proofreading in a UK university writing centre: Perspectives and practices. In I. Bruce and B. Bond (eds), English for Academic Purposes in Higher Education: Politics, Policies, and Practices. London: Bloomsbury, pp. 87–​108. Mauranen, A. 2012. Exploring ELF. Academic English Shaped by Non-​Native Speakers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Mauranen, A., C. Perez-​Llantada and J. Swales 2010. Academic Englishes. A standardized knowledge? In A. Kirkpatrick (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of World Englishes. London: Routledge, pp. 634–​652. McNally, D. and B. Kooyman 2017. Drawing the line: Views from academic staff and skills advisors on acceptable proofreading with low proficiency writers. Journal of Academic Language and Learning 11, A145–​A158. Mugglestone, L. 2003. Talking Proper: The Rise of Accent as Social Symbol. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Murata, K. 2019. The realities of the use of English in the globalised world and the teaching of English: a discrepancy? JACET Journal 63, 7–​26. Office for Students. 2021. Assessment practices in English higher education providers. Spelling, punctuation and grammar. Reference OfS 2021.43. Piller, I. and J. Cho 2013. Neoliberalism as language policy. Language in Society 42, 23–​44. Pitzl, M.-​L. 2009. ‘We should not wake up any dogs’. Idiom and metaphor in ELF. In A. Mauranen and E. Ranta (eds), English as a Lingua Franca: Studies and Findings. Newcastle Upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, pp. 299–​322. Salter-​ Dvorak, H. 2019. Proofreading: How de facto language policies create social inequality for L2 master’s students in UK universities. Journal of English for Academic Purposes 39, 119–​131. Seidlhofer, B. 2005. English as a lingua franca. ELT Journal 59(4), 339–​341. Seidlhofer, B. 2012. Understanding English as a Lingua Franca. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Shapin, S. 1994. A Social History of Truth: Civility and Science in Seventeenth Century England. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Starfield, S. 2015. Quotidian Ethics in the Neoliberal University: Research and Practice Collide. In P. De Costa (ed.), Ethics in Applied Linguistics Research: Language Researcher Narratives. New York: Routledge, pp. 53–​65. Turner, J. 2004. Language as academic purpose. Journal of English for Academic Purposes 3(2), 95–​109. Turner, J. 2011. Re-​writing writing in higher education: The contested spaces of proofreading. Studies in Higher Education 36(4), 427–​440. Turner, J. 2012. Academic Literacies: Providing a Space for the Socio-​political Dynamics of EAP. Journal of English for Academic Purposes 11, 1, 17–​25. Special Issue on English for

222  Joan Turner Academic Purposes: Contributions from Systemic Functional Linguistics and Academic Literacies, Guest Edited by Caroline Coffin & James P. Donohue. Turner, J. 2015a. The symbolic economy of research literacies: The role of ‘Writtenness’ in the PhD thesis. In C. Badenhorst and C. Guérin (eds), Research Literacies and Writing Pedagogies for Masters and Doctoral Writers. Amsterdam: Brill Publishing, pp. 205–​220. Turner, J. 2015b. Academic Literacies at the Institutional Interface: A prickly conversation around thorny issues. In T. Lillis, K. Harrington, M. Lea and S. Mitchell (eds), Working with Academic Literacies: Case Studies Towards Transformative Practice. USA: WAC Clearinghouse/​Parlor Press, pp. 284–​292. Turner, J. 2018. On Writtenness: The Cultural Politics of Academic Writing. London: Bloomsbury. Turner, J. 2019. Getting the writing right: Writing/​language centres and issues of pedagogy, responsibility, ethics, and international English in graduate student research. In S. Lawrence and T. M. Zawacki (eds), Re/​Writing the Center: Approaches to Supporting Graduate Students in the Writing Center. Logan: Utah State University Press, pp. 86–104. Turner, J. 2023. The role of English in transnational higher education: Reframing expectations. In C. Donahue and B. Horner (eds), Teaching and Studying Transnational Composition. New York: Modern Language Association of America, pp. 52–​68. Zawacki, T. M., A. Habib, E. Hajabbasi, A. Antram and A. Das 2007. Valuing Written Accents: Non-​ native Students Talk about Identity, Academic Writing, and Meeting Teachers’ Expectations (2nd ed.). Diversity Research Group, George Mason University.

Index

Note: Page numbers in italics indicate figures and in bold indicate tables on the corresponding pages. Acceptance World, The 21 Ahn, K. 92 AILA Review 100 AL see applied linguistics (AL) Alptekin, C. 127 APM (Area Studies and Plurilingual/​ Multicultural Education), as language policy and planning (LPP) mechanism 165–​166 applied linguistics (AL) 1–​4, 21, 52, 145; conceptualisation of (see conceptualisation of ELF); in Japan 100–​102; language policy and planning (LPP) mechanism as subfield of 159–​162; proofreading in 216; research in ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) 76–​78; in study of ELF 28–​30 art of common talk 26 ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations): analysis of ELF in 72–​76; English as a lingua franca in 71–​72; English language challenges in 68–​71; general characteristics observed among postgraduate students in 73–​74; general characteristics observed in academics talking in 74; implications for applied linguistics research in 76–​78; introduction to 66–​67; language policy and planning (LPP) mechanism in 165–​166; teacher education in 77–​78; use of particles, ‘ah’ and ‘lah’ in 74–​75; use of repetition and rephrasing in 75–​76 ASEAN International Mobility for Students (AIMS) programme 69; as

language policy and planning (LPP) mechanism 165–​166 ASEAN University Network 69 Asian Corpus of English (ACE) 72 assessment: aviation English and 199–​203; conflict over values in 203–​204; criteria to be used to judge performance in 195–​196, 196; defining the construct in 192–​195; feasibility of 191–​198, 196; introduction to 191; language awareness 194; politics of ELF and 198–​203; pragmatic competence 194; role of language proficiency in performance 197–​198; strategic competence 194; testability of ELF performance 198; writtenness (see writtenness) aviation English 199–​200; conclusions on 183–​184; how well ELF serves 180–​183; idioms in 177–​178; International Radiotelephony Spelling Alphabet in 174; introduction to 172–​174; redundancy in 178; similarities and divergences between ELF and 174–​179, 179 Baker, C. 39 Baker, W. 117, 141 Bauman, Z. 44 BELF see Business English as a Lingua Franca (BELF) Bieswanger, M. 178 bilingualism 37–​40; thinking for speaking and 43 Bley-​Vroman, R. 36

224 Index Boldt, G. 55–​56 Bologna Process 70 Bolton, K. 68 Borowska, A. 178 Bourdieu, P. 51, 207 Brazilian society 61–​62; academic writing center in 59–​60; case of English in decoloniality of 50–​51; decolonizing identities in 53–​56; decolonizing modernity in 51–​53; EMI transversal course in 60; English as Medium of Instruction (EMI) in 49–​50; English for Internationalization course in 57–​59; illustrations of decolonial practice in 56–​61; researching English in internationalization and 60–​61 Breiteneder, A. 68 Burde, A. 173 Business English as a Lingua Franca (BELF) 101–​102; changes since COVID-​19 102–​111, 113; chat and 110–​111; discussion on 111–​112; future research suggestions for 112–​114; machine translation and 108–​110; online meetings and 105–​108 Byram, M. 124 Cambodia-​Laos-​Myanmar-​Vietnam (CLMV) programme 70 Canagarajah, S. 51, 53, 151; on ELF assessment 191, 192, 194, 197 Candau, V. M. 61–​62 Carter, R. 26 chat communication 110–​111 ChatGPT 112 Chicago Convention 172 China 117–​118, 133; English education and people’s attitudes toward native norm in 118–​122; framework of ELF teaching content and objectives in 124–​126, 125; intercultural communicative competence model in 122–​124, 123; rapid development and expansion of English learning and teaching in 119–​120; rational development and keeping down national mania for English learning in 120–​121; recovering stage in ELF instruction in 118–​119; scenario-​based pedagogy in production-​oriented approach in 126–​133, 127, 129; summary of English education in,

1978–2023 121–​122; three models/​ frameworks of ELF instruction in 122–​133 Chinese language 34, 34–​35, 36; code-​switching and 38; translanguaging and 39–​40 Cho, J. 208 choice and decision making in bilingualism and multilingualism 37–​38 Chung, H. 86 code-​switching 38 Cogo, A. 27, 28, 55, 142, 143 collaborative writing 59–​60 colonialism 146–​148 communities of practice 71 comparative fallacy 36 conceptualisation of ELF: applied linguistic study of ELF and 28–​30; conclusion on 30–​31; conventionalised languages and language as a resource and 24–​26; as function of English 55; introduction to 22; languaging, translanguaging and multi-​lingualism in 26–​28; normative view of language and 23–​24; reactions to ELF and 22–​23 contrastive rhetoric 35 conventionalised languages 24–​26 core linguistic features 143 COVID-​19 pandemic: changes in business communication since 102–​111, 113; language policy and planning (LPP) mechanism and 167 cultural thought patterns 34–​35, 35, 40–​41; transpositioning and 43–​44 cultural translation 56 cultural trappings of talk 36 Curry, M. J. 208–​209 Dai, D. W. 37 Deardorff, D. K. 126 decoloniality/​decolonization 49–​50, 61–​62, 141–​142, 152–​153; case of English in decoloniality of Brazilian society 50–​51; conceptual lineages and possible limitations of 148–​149; defined 146–​147; global South perspectives on 145–​148; initiatives illustrating 56–​61; insights on ELF 149–​152; modernity and 51–​53; proficiency and 53–​56

Index  225 de-​essentialization of identities 58–​59 Deleuze, G. 55 descriptivism 211 Dewey, M. 55, 141, 142, 143 Diniz de Figueiredo, E. H. 61 Doiz, A. 208 eight-​legged essay 36 Elder, C. 196, 202–​203 ELF see English as a lingua franca (ELF) ELT see English language teaching (ELT) EMI see English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI) English, F. 212 English as a lingua franca (ELF): applied linguistic study of 28–​30; assessment of (see assessment); aviation English as not 174–​179, 179; conceptualisation of (see conceptualisation of ELF); core linguistic features of 143; cross-​ cultural communication and 35–​37; defined 1, 22, 192–​193; framework of teaching content and objectives in 124–​126, 125; as language system or variety 143; local conventions in 26; model of intercultural communicative competence of 122–​124, 123; pedagogical perspective on (see China); politics of 198–​203; proficiency in 53–​56; proofreading from perspective of 217–​219; reactions to 22–​23; relationship to applied linguistics (AL) 1–​4, 21, 145; scenario-​ based pedagogy (SBP) and 126–​133, 127, 129; theoretical development of 142–​145; writtenness in (see writtenness) English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI) 49–​50; academic writing centers and 59–​60; English for Internationalization course in 57–​59; as language policy and planning (LPP) mechanism 159, 162–​163; researching English in internationalization in 60–​61; transversal course in 60 English for Internationalization course 57–​59 Englishisation of higher education 208–​210 English language teaching (ELT) 29–​30, 31; in South Korea (see South Korea) English Program in Korea (EPIK) 89–​91, 90

epistemophagy 55 Eurocentrism 147 expanding circle of English 215 flat ontology 151 Foundations of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 39 framework of ELF teaching content and objectives 124–​126, 125 Freire, P. 53 Garcia, O. 9, 40 Geertz, C. 51 Gibbons, P. 178 global South 147–​148; insights of decolonial perspectives on ELF in 149–​152; perspective on ELF 145–​148 Graddol, D. 161 Guattari, F. 55 habitus 51 Halliday, M. A. K. 24 Hannah, J. 25 Harding, L. 194 Harris, R. 53 Harwood, N. 215, 216 Hinkel, E. 212 Horner, B. 56 House, J. 203 Hymes, D. 193–​194, 196 idiolect 40–​41 idiomaticity principle 27; aviation English and 177–​178 idiomatic paradox 177 if-​then thinking 42 Iino, M. 163 imitation 56 Imposter Syndrome 51 Inner Circle varieties 25 integrational linguistics 53 intelligibility, proficiency as 53–​56 intercultural communication see translanguaging intercultural communicative competence (ICC) 122–​124, 123 International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) 12, 172–​173; politics of ELF and 199–​203; values in ELF tests and 203–​204 International Radiotelephony Spelling Alphabet 174–​175, 178, 199, 202

226 Index JAAL Bulletin 101 Jacoby, S. W. 195 Jang, S. 87 Japan: changes in business communication since the COVID-​19 pandemic in 102–​111; chat in 110–​111; development of applied linguistics research in Japan Association of Applied Linguistics (JAAL) in 100–​102; discussion on BELF communication in 111–​112; future research suggestions for 112–​114; language policy and planning (LPP) mechanism in (see language policy and planning (LPP) mechanism); machine translation in 108–​110; online meetings in 105–​108 Japan Association of College English Teachers (JACET) 100–​101 Japanese language 36 Jenkins, J. 26, 55, 117, 141, 142, 144, 207, 209; on ELF assessment 191, 193, 198, 204 Jordão, C. M. 61 Journal of English as a Lingua Franca 117, 124, 211 Journal of Pragmatics 207 Kachru, B. B. 7, 53, 215 Kang, S. 87, 92 Kankaanranta, A. 103 Kaplan, R. B. 5, 13, 34–​35, 43–​44 KE see Korea English (KE) Kim, H. 202–​203 Kim, M. 88 Kirkpatrick, A. 72, 77 Koike, I. 101–​102, 104 Kooyman, B. 216 Korea Educational Development Institute (KEDI) 89 Korea English (KE) 86 Kramsch, C. 100 Krishnaswamy, N. 173 Kubota, R. 9, 150 Kumaravadivelu, B. 51 Kuteeva, M. 208 language: changing ideas of ownership in 53; conventionalised 24–​26; cultural thought patterns and 34, 34–​35; normative 25; proficiency in 53–​56; resource 25; thinking in named 41–​43

Language of Thought 40–​41 language policy and planning (LPP) mechanism: AIMS and APM as 165–​166; concluding remarks on 167; English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI) as 159, 162–​163; introduction to 159; study-​abroad as 164; as subfield of sociolinguistics/​applied linguistics 159–​162 Lasagabaster, D. 208 Leander, K. 55–​56 Lee, C. 88 Lee, J. 82, 92 Lee, S. 87, 92 Leung, C. 191, 193, 198, 204, 209 Li, W. 9, 27, 39 Lillis, T. 208–​209, 211 Lines, L. 216 lingua franca core (LFC) 143 linguistic imperialism 148 Liquid Modernity 44 Lo Bianco, J. 159, 161, 165 Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, The 128 LPP see language policy and planning (LPP) mechanism Lu, M. 56 Macedo, D. P. 53 machine translation 108–​110 Makoni, S. 147 Marxist perspective 149 Mauranen, A. 117, 211 McCarthy, M. 24 McNally, D. 216 McNamara, T. 195, 196 Menezes de Souza, F. 52 Messick, S. 204 methodological nationalism 173 Mignolo, W. D. 146 mimicry 56 modernity, decolonization of 51–​53 monolingualism 41 monolingual repertoires 26–​27 Mortensen, J. 151–​152 Motha, S. 146 Mugglestone, L. 210, 211–​212 multi-​lingua franca 26–​28, 142, 144–​145, 150 multilingualism 26–​28, 37–​40 multimodality 111–​112 Murata, K. 163, 218

Index  227 Mutual Recognition Arrangements (MRAs) 70 National English Curriculums (NECs) in South Korea 83–​86, 84 native English speakers (NES): Korean English teachers and 87; positioned as owners of language 52–​53; proficiency and 53–​54 Native Speaker is Dead, The 160 NES see native English speakers (NES) Newton, I. 210 NL see normative language (NL) No, G. 87 nonnative communicative rules (NNCR) 126 Nordic Journal of English Linguistics 211 normative language (NL) 25; translanguaging and 27 normative view of language 23–​24 Oliveira, L. F. de 61–​62 online meetings 105–​108 Opticks 210 O’Regan, J. 9, 149, 150–​151, 181 orthodox ELT 29–​30, 31 Otheguy, R. O. 9, 40 Otsuji, E. 9 Outer Circle communities 25 Park, J. 87, 88 Park, J. S. 127 Passeron, J.-​C. 207 Pennycook, A. 9, 146, 147 Perez-​Llantada, C. 211 Perrin, D. 100 phonetics/​phonology 145 Piller, I. 208 Pitzl, M.-​L. 26, 68, 218 Plain Aeronautical/​Aviation English (PAE) 182–​183 plain language 178, 199 Planken, B. 103 Portuguese language see Brazilian society post-​linguistics 52 Powell, A. 21 pragmatics 145 prescriptivism 211 Principia Mathematica 210 Prodromou, L. 177 Production-​Oriented Approach (POA) 127, 127–​128

proficiency: as intelligibility 53–​56; role in performance, assessment of 197–​198 proofreading 213–​214; in applied linguistics and higher education research 216; from and ELF perspective 217–​219; implications for assessment 215 Räisänen, T. 112 Rajagopalan, K. 54 reactions to ELF 22–​23 redundancy in aviation English 178 repertoires 26–​27 repetition 75–​76 rephrasing 75–​76 resource language (RL) 25; translanguaging and 27–​28 Ricento, T. 159, 160–​161 RL see resource language (RL) Roshid, M. M. 111 Salter-​Dvorak, H. 216 Santos, B. S. de 147 Sapir-​Whorf hypothesis of Linguistic Relativity 34, 37 Sato, T. 195, 197 SBP see scenario-​based pedagogy (SBP) scenario-​based pedagogy (SBP) 126–​133, 127, 129 Schneider, E. 71 Seidlhofer, B. 68, 117, 143, 144, 177 SHARE 69–​70 Shibata, M. 87 Shim, L. 92 Shim, Y. 87, 88 Shohamy, E. 163 Situational Language Teaching (SLT) 129 Slobin, D. 42 Smit, U. 167 social capital, English as 85 socialisation 23 sociolinguistics 40–​41, 211; language policy and planning (LPP) mechanism studies as subfield of 159–​162 South Korea: discussion and conclusion on 92–​94; ELF and WE in National English Curriculums (NECs) in 83–​86, 84; English teacher education programs in 88–​92, 90; introduction to 82–​83; Korean English teachers’ perceptions of ELF and WE in 86–​88 speaker variation 40

228 Index standard radiotelephony phraseology 199 Starfield, S. 214 study-​abroad as language policy and planning (LPP) mechanism 164 Sung, K. W. 88 Swales, J. M. 112, 211 Sweeney, E. 37 syntax 145 target language communicative rules (TLCR) 126 Teach and Learn in Korea (TaLK) 89, 91–​92 teacher education, English: in ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) 77–​78; in South Korea 88–​92, 90 Terauchi, H. 101–​102, 104, 113 Testing and Teaching Spoken English 123 tests see assessment thinking for speaking 41–​44 Thiong’o, N. wa 147 Tokumoto, M. 87 transient international groups 71 translanguaging 26–​28, 151; bilingualism and multilingualism research and 37–​40; cross-​cultural and ELF communication 35–​37; cultural thought patterns and 34, 34–​35, 40–​41; defined 40; from thinking in named languages to thinking for speaking 41–​43; transpositioning and 43–​44 translingual episteme 52, 53 translingualism 53 transmission 56 transpositioning 43–​44 transversal course 60

trawsieithu 39 Trudgill, P. 25 Tuck, E. 147, 148 unilateral idiomaticity 177 universal communicative rules (UCR) 126 Walsh, C. E. 146 WE see World Englishes (WE) Wee, L. 127 Welsh language 39 Whitehouse, M. 100 Widdowson, H. G. 13, 117, 124, 192 Williams, C. 39 World Englishes (WE) 143, 149; methodological nationalism and 173; in South Korea 82, 83–​88, 84 writtenness: conclusions on 219; cultural construction of English stylistic values and 210–​212; Englishisation of contemporary international higher education and 208–​210; implications of proofreading for assessment of 215; as implicit assessment criterion 210; introduction to 207–​208; proofreading in applied linguistics and higher education research and 216; proofreading solution for 213–​214 Xi Jinping 121 Yamada, H. 36 Yang, K. W. 147, 148 Yin, J. 92 Young, L. W. 36 Zhu, H. 37