Exploring ELF in Japanese Academic and Business Contexts: Conceptualisation, research and pedagogic implications 9781138841079, 9781315732480

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Table of Contents
List of illustrations
List of contributors
1 Introduction: researching ELF in academic and business contexts
Part I Conceptualizing ELF
2 ELF: English in a global context
3 English as a global lingua franca: changing language in changing global academia
4 The unmarking trend in language changes and its implications for English as a lingua franca
Part II ELF and its research in academic contexts
5 Own-language use in academic discourse in English as a lingua franca
6 The use of unmitigated disagreement in ELF casual conversation: ensuring mutual understanding by providing correct information
7 Analysing interruption sequences in ELF discussions
8 Dynamics of ELF communication in an English-medium academic context in Japan: from EFL learners to ELF users
Part III ELF from business and wider research perspectives
9 English as a lingua franca (ELF) in international business contexts: key issues and future perspectives
10 ‘Language is only a tool’: Japanese expatriates working in China and implications for language teaching
11 English language skills that companies need: responses from a large-scale survey
12 Attention, please! A linguistic soundscape/landscape analysis of ELF information provision in public transport in Tokyo
Part IV ELF and pedagogic concerns
13 Competence and capability: rethinking the subject English
14 Large-scale assessments of English for academic purposes from the perspective of English as a lingua franca
15 Using pragmatic strategies for effective ELF communication: relevance to classroom practice
Index

Citation preview

Exploring ELF in Japanese Academic and Business Contexts

This book investigates the theoretical, empirical and pedagogical issues to help us better understand what is happening with English as a lingua franca (ELF) communication and to activate this knowledge in respective communicative contexts. It focuses specifically on Japanese contexts and also includes theoretical and practical sections pertinent to all ELF researchers, practitioners and students, irrespective of their national or regional differences. It further attempts to connect this new field of research to established fields of linguistics and applied linguistics such as communication, assessment and multilingualism by exploring them from an ELF perspective, which is challenging but essential for the development of the field. Exploring ELF in Japanese Academic and Business Contexts: Conceptualization, research and pedagogic implications includes chapters about: • • • • •

English in a global context Own-language use in academic discourse English as a lingua franca in international business contexts A linguistic soundscape/landscape analysis of ELF information provision in public transport in Tokyo Using pragmatic strategies for effective ELF communication: relevance to classroom practice.

This book will be of interest to scholars and postgraduate students working in the fields of Applied Linguistics/TESOL. It will also engage researchers studying the growing influence of English around the world. Kumiko Murata is Professor at the School of Education and the Graduate School of Education, Waseda University, Japan.

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Exploring ELF in Japanese Academic and Business Contexts Conceptualization, research and pedagogic implications Edited by Kumiko Murata

First published 2016 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2016 Kumiko Murata for selection and editorial matter; 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 Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Exploring ELF in Japanese academic and business contexts: conceptualisation, research and pedagogic implications/ Edited by Kumiko Murata. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. English language – Study and teaching (Higher) – Japanese speakers. 2. English language – Business English – Study and teaching (Higher) – Japanese speakers. 3. English language – Social aspects – Japan. 4. Japanese students – Japan. I. Murata, Kumiko, 1952 – II. Title: Exploring English as a Foreign Language in Japanese academic and business contexts. PE1068.J3E97 2015 428.0071′052–dc23 2015000460 ISBN: 978-1-138-84107-9 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-315-73248-0 (ebk) Typeset in Galliard by Florence Production Ltd, Stoodleigh, Devon

To Professor Henry Widdowson in his 80th birthday year for his major, lasting contributions to the field of applied linguistics and language teaching

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Contents

1

List of illustrations List of contributors

ix xi

Introduction: researching ELF in academic and business contexts

1

KUMIKO MURATA

PART I

Conceptualizing ELF

15

2

17

ELF: English in a global context BARBARA SEIDLHOFER

3

English as a global lingua franca: changing language in changing global academia

29

ANNA MAURANEN

4

The unmarking trend in language changes and its implications for English as a lingua franca

47

YASUKATA YANO

PART II

ELF and its research in academic contexts 5

Own-language use in academic discourse in English as a lingua franca

57 59

JULIANE HOUSE

6

The use of unmitigated disagreement in ELF casual conversation: ensuring mutual understanding by providing correct information MAYU KONAKAHARA

70

viii Contents 7 Analysing interruption sequences in ELF discussions

90

KEIKO TSUCHIYA

8 Dynamics of ELF communication in an English-medium academic context in Japan: from EFL learners to ELF users

111

MASAKAZU IINO AND KUMIKO MURATA

PART III

ELF from business and wider research perspectives 9 English as a lingua franca (ELF) in international business contexts: key issues and future perspectives

133 135

SUSANNE EHRENREICH

10 ‘Language is only a tool’: Japanese expatriates working in China and implications for language teaching

156

RYUKO KUBOTA

11 English language skills that companies need: responses from a large-scale survey

180

HAJIME TERAUCHI AND TAMAO ARAKI

12 Attention, please! A linguistic soundscape/landscape analysis of ELF information provision in public transport in Tokyo

194

PETER BACKHAUS

PART IV

ELF and pedagogic concerns

211

13 Competence and capability: rethinking the subject English

213

H G WIDDOWSON

14 Large-scale assessments of English for academic purposes from the perspective of English as a lingua franca

224

YASUYO SAWAKI

15 Using pragmatic strategies for effective ELF communication: relevance to classroom practice

240

JAGDISH KAUR

Index

255

Illustrations

Figures 2.1 4.1 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 6.6 6.7 9.1 10.1 11.1 11.2 11.3 11.4 11.5 12.1 12.2 12.3

Computer corpora of English (in around 2010) English as the numerator–denominator relation Excerpt 1, line 4: GR’s finger lift and raising of her chin Excerpt 1, line 6: GR’s finger tapping with her left hand Excerpt 1, lines 6–7: GR’s finger tapping with left hand and then with right hand Excerpt 2, line 7: MX’s hand waving Excerpt 2, line 7: MX’s hand movement toward ES Excerpt 2, line 11: MX’s gesture of crossing her hands in front of her chest and outstretching them MX’s hand gesture of holding her left hand up, palm upward ‘A major trajectory of repertoire construction’ from Räisänen (2013: 145, Figure 8) Qualities required for border-crossing communication Destination regions of long-stay business experience by the respondents (N = 280) English proficiency of questionnaire respondents (N = 6651) Comparison of actual TOEIC score and ideal score (N = 6651) Frequency estimates of difficulty perception in business negotiations (N = 6640) Importance judged by Japanese businesspeople on business skills other than language-related ones (N = 7354) No Smoking Keep to the Left No Smoking again

22 55 77 78 78 81 82 83 83 145 168 184 185 185 188 189 203 205 206

Tables 6.1 7.1 7.2

Functions of the two types of disagreement observed in the data A list of participants Summary of Group 1

74 95 96

x

List of figures and tables

7.3 7.4 7.5 7.6 7.7 7.8 7.9 7.10 7.11 9.1

10.1 11.1 11.2 11.3 12.1 12.2 12.3

Summary of Group 2 Summary of Group 3 Forms of interruption Forms of interruption in Group 1 Forms of interruption in Group 2 Forms of interruption in Group 3 Functions of interruption Cooperative interruption Intrusive interruption ‘Locating English in the domain of international business’ from Ehrenreich (2011a: 29, Table 1, adapted from Schneider 2007: 56) Participants Profiles of the respondents (N = 7354) Four skills depending on the level of content (N = 7354) Keywords in descriptive answers by respondents of different TOEIC score bands Announcements and languages Station names containing /ɾ/ pronunciation in English announcements English imperatives

96 97 99 99 100 101 101 102 105

144 161 183 186 189 197 198 204

Contributors

Tamao Araki is Associate Professor, Language Education Centre, University of Miyazaki Peter Backhaus is Assoicate Professor, Faculty of Education and Integrated Arts and Sciences, Waseda University Susanne Ehrenreich is Professor, Applied Linguistics and English Language Education, Technical University of Dortmund Juliane House is Emeritus Professor, Universtiy of Humberg Masakazu Iino is Professor, Faculty of Interanational Liberal Arts, Waseda University Jagdish Kaur is Senior Lecturer, Department of English Language, Faculty of Languages and Linguistics, University of Malaya Mayu Konakahara is Lecturer (part-time), Faculty of Education and Integrated Arts and Sciences, Waseda University Ryuko Kubota is Professor, Language & Literacy Education, Faculty of Education, University of British Colombia Anna Mauranen is Professor, Department of Modern Languages, Faculty of Arts, University of Helsinki Kumiko Murata is Professor, Faculty of Education and Integrated Arts and Sciences, Waseda University Yasuyo Sawaki is Professor, Faculty of Education and Integrated Arts and Sciences, Waseda University Barbara Seidlhofer is University Professor, University of Vienna Hajime Terauchi is Professor, Faculty of Commerce, Takachiho University Keiko Tsuchiya is Associate Professor, Foreign Language Centre, Tokai University

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Henry Widdowson is Honorary Professor, University of Vienna, Emeritus Professor, University of London Yasukata Yano is Emeritus Professor, Faculty of Education and Integrated Arts and Sciences, Waseda University

1

Introduction Researching ELF in academic and business contexts Kumiko Murata

With the acceleration of globalization, particularly in the past 10 or 15 years, the scene of communication among people who are active across borders, be it academic or business and work-related, has drastically changed, English being used as a means of communication increasingly among those who do not share the language as their first language, i.e. communication in ELF (English as a lingua franca). The situations in Asia are no exception. In Japan as well, situations surrounding the use of ELF both by Japanese companies and universities have drastically changed, and the change has been even more rapid in the past few years. For example, more and more companies are employing international students, not only those graduating from Japanese universities but also directly from overseas as their workforce, and the ratio is on the increase. This is a change towards global mobility and greater diversity compared to the situation even a few years ago, when most new employees hired by Japanese companies were born and bred in Japan, graduating from Japanese universities (see The Nihon Keizaii Shimbun (hereafter, The Nikkei) 16 May, 18 July, 15 September, 15 and 26 October, 3 December 2011, 5 January, 2 April 2012, 29 January, 9 February, 21 April, 5 May 2013). At the same time, increasing numbers of Japanese companies are adopting English as their corporate language (The Nikkei 31 October, 3 and 18 December 2011, 5 January, 22 March, 9 June 2012, 9 January 2013). Even in the past few years, more companies have decided to choose English as their offical language at work (e.g. The First Retailing, Rakuten, inter alia) (The Nikkei 22 June, 31 October, 18 December 2011, 5 January, 22 March 2012). In addition, many other companies have been running their board meetings in ‘English’ (e.g. Nissan, Toshiba) for some time now (The Nikkei, 10 October 2011). The main reason for this is companies need to diversify the backgrounds of their employees, partly due to the recent tendency and need for globalization of their corporate marketing strategies as their customers are increasingly more those living abroad, particularly those in newly developed or developing countries such as BRICs and VISTA, i.e. Vietnam, Indonesia, South Africa, Turkey and Argentina, and also partially because of the need to globalize their production strategies to cope with the imminent shortage of labour in the future

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owing to a declining birth rate and an ageing population. There is also a need to reduce labour costs to survive price wars with these newly developing countries. Companies are, therefore, transferring their factories and employees to overseas, where labour costs are still relatively reasonable, as well as hiring employees from varying linguacultural backgrounds and also sending relatively young employees overseas to educate them to be more globally-minded, competitive business people (The Nikkei, 18 January, 16 May, 18 July, 11 and 15 September, 7, 15 and 26 October, 3 December 2011, 5 and 25 January, 20 February, 22 March, 2 April 2012). All this recent drastic change is to cope with the expansion of the global market, which is becoming increasingly borderless. Thus, not only in corporate but also in academic settings, increasingly more universities and colleges in Japan have decided to use English as a medium of instruction (EMI) in running their courses (The Nikkei, 28 February, 24 October 2011, 9 January, 20 February, 21 and 24 May 2012, 13 March 2013), which is also encouraged by the government under the name of the Global 30 Program (MEXT 2011; see also Iino 2012, and Iino and Murata, Chapter 8, this volume). Under this programme or even independent of it, increasing numbers of universities have started offering courses conducted in English to attract more international students, in order to diversify student populations to create stimulating learning environments where both Japanese and international students study together, exchanging opinions and nurturing the sense of intercultural and cross-cultural understanding (see also Mauranen 2012 and Jenkins 2014 on the increase in EMI courses in Europe and worldwide) as well as to give impetus to Japanese students to improve their global communicative ability or capability (see Seidlhofer 2011, and Widdowson, Chapter 13, this volume, for insightful discussions on communicative capability). For some universities, it is also a strategy to secure the number of students by recruiting international students in order to cope with the declining home student population in general. The Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) also encourages universities to ‘internationalize’ or more recently ‘to be globalized’ (MEXT 2011; see also Iino 2012; Kubota 1999). Despite this increasing tendency to encourage the use of English as a lingua franca (ELF) on campus and at work, not very much research on what is really happening in actual situations of its use in Japan has been conducted nor has it been understood that it is ELF that these business people and students are mainly using in their communication in respective business and academic contexts. The current volume, therefore, aims to investigate the actual use of ELF communication in these contexts in Japan or in the context where Japanese users of ELF are involved and to illustrate the gap between the reality of actual use and language pedagogy and policies. On the basis of detailed investigation and descriptions of what is really going on in these interactions, the volume ultimately aims to contribute to a better understanding of ELF use in actual situations, raising awareness of the nature of ELF interaction, to explore more plausible targets for improving or nurturing

Introduction: researching ELF 3 ‘ELF’ communicative ability, and to plan or reconsider educational policies or curriculum and/or syllabus designs that accommodate the need of ELF users in both academic and business contexts. In sum, this volume focuses on ELF communication in academic and business contexts and both theoretically and pedagogically explores what is going on in the use of ELF in these contexts. Furthermore, it also aims to introduce an ELF perspective to the neighbouring research fields of linguistics and applied linguistics to lead them to a new development of research from an ELF perspective. We shall now briefly review the theoretical background to this research. The recent progress and prominence of ELF research (see works by Jenkins 2000, 2007, 2014; Mauranen 2012; Seidlhofer 2011; and those by their colleagues and research students, among many others) is remarkable, and it has brought about a completely new perspective and paradigm for the study of language, interaction and language teaching, which has long been constrained and shaped by native speaker norms. ELF research investigates communication in ELF as autonomous, legitimate, and competently and collaboratively conducted interaction, where interactants use ELF as their own and often only choice of the medium of communication with others who do not share the same language with them (see Seidlhofer 2011, and Chapter 2, this volume). This can frequently be observed in increasing numbers of business transactions conducted in ELF worldwide. The same is also true of academic settings because an increasing number of universities the world over (not necessarily limited to those located in what Kachru (1985, 1992) terms the ‘Inner’ and ‘Outer’ Circles) have started giving courses via the medium of English (EMI) with an increasing global flow of students and faculty, although people involved are not necessarily well informed or aware that their interactions in these circumstances are in fact taking place in ELF. Here, ELF is used as a tool for the achievement of users’ communicative purposes whether they are business or academic-orientated. The priority here is placed on the success in achieving their respective goals, and whether their use of English is conformed to native speaker norms or not is not a big issue or rather irrelevant. They confidently use their own version of English and participate in meaning making and sharing by cooperatively co-constructing meaning among themselves, often creatively utilizing original expressions in English, exploiting them and adjusting them for their own purposes in the process of interaction and negotiation (see Seidlhofer 2011; Seidlhofer and Widdowson 2009). Active ELF research both in academic and business contexts has been conducted particularly in European contexts, where, in the case of the former, partially because of the ERASMUS exchange project, the mobility of students is very high. The representative work has been conducted by Mauranen (2012, and Chapter 3, this volume), who, with her colleagues, has compiled a corpus of academic ELF (English as an academic lingua franca – ELFA) and has conducted a detailed and extensive investigation on ELF use in these contexts. Similarly, House has also been working on ELF in academic contexts, where she focuses on the analyses of discourse-pragmatic features of ELF in academic

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advisory sessions between German advisors and international students in communicating in ELF (see House, Chapter 5, this volume, among others). Other scholars who have been working on ELF in academic contexts include Bjorkman (2009, 2011, 2012), Kaur (2009, 2011), Shaw et al. (2009), Smit (2009), Smit and Dafouz (2012), and most recently Jenkins (2014), to name a few. However, with the exception of Kaur, all are working on ELF use in European academic contexts (but see the most recent publication by Jenkins 2014, which explores ELF in international universities worldwide although more focus is placed in the UK). This also applies to those researching business contexts, such as Cogo (2012) and Ehrenreich (2009, 2011, 2012), both being based in Europe and researching business conduct in this context. It can therefore be said that not only research on ELF in general but also the one on the use of ELF in academic and business contexts is also most vigorously conducted in European contexts and that very little is known about what is happening in the use of ELF in Asian academic and business contexts (but see Kirkpatrick 2010; Kaur 2009, 2011; and Seidlhofer, Chapter 2, this volume). In these circumstances, this volume has two specific aims. One is to deepen understanding on the nature of ELF and ELF interaction from a theoretical perspective in general. This is mainly covered by three chapters in Part I, by Seidlhofer, Mauranen and Yano, which very aptly introduce the concept of ELF and recent progress in ELF research (Seidlhofer), the historical development of English and its relation to characeristics of ELF with its focus mostly on academic contexts (Mauranen), and the changing nature of language use and preference for the use of ‘unmarked’ lexico-grammatical systems in ELF communication (Yano). Another aim is to introduce ELF empirical research which is ongoing, particularly in academic (Part II, Chapters 5–8) and business settings (Part III, Chapters 9–11), and also to introduce an ELF perspective into the existing research paradigm and reconsider it from this perspective (Part III, Chapter 12, and also Part IV, Chapters 13–15). Part IV introduces the perspective into language pedagogy, which starts with Widdowson’s convincing differentiation between the teaching of NS-norm-based competence and more-ELF-based capability, and its implications for language pedagogy (Chapter 13). Part IV also includes implications of testing and pragmatic research for ELF pedagogy, respectively contributed by Sawaki (Chapter 14) and Kaur (Chapter 15). As briefly stated above, the current volume places specific emphasis on academic and business contexts, in particular, in Japan. The volume, however, interprets research in Japanese contexts broadly, and it includes research conducted on the use of ELF in academic and business contexts, but not necessarily limited to data collected in Japanese academic and business contexts (see Chapter 5 by House, who elaborates on academic sessions in German contexts and also Chapter 9 by Ehrenreich, who also illustrates German business contexts as examples although references are also made to Japanese business contexts). These also include Konakahara (Chapter 6) and Tsuchiya’s

Introduction: researching ELF 5 (Chapter 7) contributions, which analyse ELF use by international students, including Japanese, in academic settings in Britain. By contrast, Iino and Murata’s Chapter 8 deals with ELF use in a Japanese university setting, where English is formally designated as a medium of instruction. On the other hand, Kubota’s contribution (Chapter 10) deals with Japanese business people in interaction with Chinese business people in subsidiaries of Japanese companies in China, while Terauchi and Araki (Chapter 11) report on a large-scale survey administered to Japanese business people. Furthermore, Kubota broadens the perspective of ELF in this volume by introducing the perspective of multilingualism, whose researchers often mistakenly regard ELF research as hegemonic, promoting English as a ‘global link language’. Kubota’s chapter therefore opens up a good forum for disentangling this misunderstanding. Another contribution that also appears, on the surface, to have very little to do with ELF research, is the one by Backhaus (Chapter 12), who explores linguistic landscape and soundscape in Tokyo’s public transport from an ELF perspective. Although Backhaus’s investigation and data have nothing to do with an academic or business context, it is worthwhile to include this contribution as it includes an exploration into public signs (written ELF) and announcements, which thus far have received relatively little attention by ELF researchers with the exception of Mauranen, who also investigates written ELF. In dealing with ELF in academic contexts, assessment is always a thorny but important issue. In this volume, we are lucky to have a contribution by a testing specialist, Sawaki (Chapter 14), who reviews two major international academic tests, TOEFL and IELTS, from an ELF perspective. Kaur’s contribution (Chapter 15) is also invaluable, as the chapter incorporates the findings from her ELF pragmatic research into language pedagogy. The above research areas, in particular linguistic landscape (and recently, soundscape) and assessment had traditionally been very much associated with native speaker (NS) norms, and still are, to a large extent, in respective main research areas. It is, however, important to collaborate with researchers from different research traditions for the healthy development of ELF research as its values or ways of thinking are expected to become standard practice in language education in the future (hopefully). Researchers and practitioners then surely have to deal with the issue of language assessment, and acquisition for that matter, as well as the ways in which we construct our linguistic landscape and soundscape with an ELF perspective in mind. In the following, each of these 14 contributions will be introduced in more detail.

Contributions to this volume The book is divided into four parts as stated above. Seidlhofer’s and Mauranen’s chapters constitute the first theoretical part (Part I) of the volume and strengthen the understanding of the conceptualization and characteristics of ELF. First, in Chapter 2, Seidlhofer, starting with the meaning of an adjective ‘English’, demonstrates the notion of native-speakerness and the ownership of

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English and persuasively differentiates ‘English’ from English as a lingua franca (ELF). In so doing, she also characterizes the distinct features of ELF in comparison with other types of ‘Englishes’, including ENL and ESL, which she further divides into WE and EFL, depending on the degree of institutionalization. After emphasizing the necessity for a ‘conceptualization of ELF’ as ‘global English’, Seidlhofer also emphasises the importance of furthering research on ELF, and then introduces the recent development of ELF research, including her own VOICE (The Vienna Oxford International Corpus of English) project. On the basis of some examples from the VOICE data, Seidlhofer offers a very convincing argument that the ‘E’ of EFL should consider more the ‘E’ of ELF not the ‘E’ of ENL. This statement is pedagogically significant as despite the recent drastic change in the characteristics of global communication, language pedagogy in general seems to be still very eager to conform to ‘native’ speaker norms however unrealistic it is from the perspective of global communication (see also Jenkins 2014). Finally, she briefly introduces the ACE (The Asian Corpus of English) project, which is modelled after the VOICE project and is ongoing in the Asian context with the initiative of Prof. Andy Kirkpatrick. In Chapter 3, starting with the description of how English in the process of its contact with other languages has incorporated their influences in its development by giving examples historically from the canon of English literature, Mauranen emphasizes that it is natural that ELF brings new forms into its features as it is used as a lingua franca by people from various linguacultural backgrounds. With this convincing introduction, she elaborates on ELF features at various levels, including lexico-grammatical, discourse and interactional, by giving examples from her own ELFA corpus, comparing them where necessary with the ENL data of MICASE. In particular, she details on the ways in which intelligibility is secured in ELF communication. On the basis of these examples, Mauranen reiterates the changing nature of languages, English in particular. In a similar vein, Yano, in Chapter 4, explores the changing nature of languages, focusing particularly on the English language, although a brief mention has also been made of Japanese. In so doing, he first lists some examples of irregularity and particularity of the English language and then discusses the changes that have already taken place or are ongoing. On the basis of these observations, Yano predicts, albeit speculatively, that in ELF communication in particular what he calls ‘unmarking’ use will prevail with the spread of global communication using English as a lingua franca. Part II comprises four chapters (Chapters 5–8) all based on empirical research. In Chapter 5, House’s contribution deals with a European academic context, focusing on the detailed analysis of German academic advisory sessions between advisers and international students, in which she elaborates on discoursepragmatic aspects of ELF communication. As a researcher who has also been dedicated to an intercultural aspect of communication, House particularly focuses on L1 influence in the use of discourse-pragmatic markers in ELF

Introduction: researching ELF 7 communication. As ELF users are from various linguacultural backgrounds, it is useful to know what kind of discourse-pragmatic strategies/features they effectively utilize in ELF communication and for what purposes they do so. In line with House’s detailed analysis of discourse-pragmatic features, Konakahara (Chapter 6) more specifically focuses on one aspect of conversational management, namely, disagreement sequences in ELF interaction. Using data from the informal conversations of international postgraduate students collected at UK universities, she first reviews in detail the existing work on disagreement in conversation in general, and then the same type of work by ELF researchers. She then specifically focuses on how these international students use disagreement sequences, in particular what she terms unmitigated disagreement, employing conversation analytic and politeness perspectives. Konakahara claims that participants utilize unmitigated disagreement to secure mutual understanding and that this, in turn, also makes the ongoing conversation explicit, leading to more efficient communication. In a similar vein, Tsuchiya (Chapter 7) also analyses data collected at a UK university, in which international students were having discussion sessions using English as a lingua franca while attending a pre-sessional EAP course. She specifically focuses her attention on conversational behaviours, namely interruption used by the participants, but particularly by Japanese students. In so doing, she utilizes both a corpus-driven quantitative analysis and a more qualitative conversation analytic approach. Tsuchiya analyses interruption both from its forms, i.e. intra-turn and turn-initiate interruptions according to her classification, and functions, which are divided into cooperative and intrusive. These are then further subdivided into four (the former) and two (the latter) types of interruption respectively. Her results show that Japanese ELF speakers use fewer interruptions and, moreover, when they do, they tend to use the more cooperative nature of interruption. This, however, seems to vary according to which group with what different ELF lingua-cultural backgrounds the participants belong to as there is a tendency that they accommodate their conversational behaviours to the behavioural norms of their interactants. As Tsuchiya is also keenly aware, more research is needed in this area as well since the data set is limited. So far, the chapters introduced above have data collected in European contexts. By contrast, Iino and Murata’s chapter (Chapter 8) is based on the data collected in a Japanese university context, where English is formally used as a medium of instruction (EMI) among Japanese and international students. The former are further divided into three groups according to the students’ own emic categorization. Of these, the chapter pays special attention to the Japanese students, who are categorized as jun-Japa, and to the process in which they, with collaboration with other types of students, come to be confident ELF users during their four-year undergraduate study. The chapter explores what is actually happening in this recently started EMI course at a university in Tokyo. In so doing, it employs two different methods of analysis, one that is based more on discourse and conversation analytic approaches, and another

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more on an ethnographic approach with participant observations and interviews. The results show the complex nature of students’ identity formation, while simultaneously showing the ways in which they become confident ELF users in collaboration with their ELF peers. Part III expands the scope of ELF to a business context and other fields of linguistics, namely linguistic landscape and multilingualism. Ehrenreich’s contribution in Chapter 9 is, as she also puts it, a ‘state-of-the-art overview’ of research on ELF in business settings (BELF) and a thorough review of research conducted in the field to date, introducing also individual BELF researchers and their research. She first starts with describing ‘the characteristics of BELF use in multi-national corporations’, making it clear that BELF is not native speaker English and that it is highly variable. Ehrenreich also points out that BELF settings are quite often bi- or plurilingual, which has also been clearly demonstrated in her own research into the use of BELF by a business manager in a German multinational corporation (MNC) by shadowing him for an entire day. Ehrenreich analyses in great detail the ways in which this manager frequently code-switches from BELF to other languages and also selects the language to be used out of his repertoire of languages according to his interactants inbetween the use of BELF, thus demonstrating that plurilinguality is natural in this kind of setting. It would be of interest to investigate, as Ehrenreich is also aware, whether this practice is also applicable to other BELF settings outside Europe, such as Japan or other Asian countries (see also Kubota, Chapter 10, this volume, for the description of the use of other languages among Chinese and Japanese co-workers). Finally, Ehrenreich introduces the opinions of German professionals about Japanese business counterparts and concludes that it is important to take contexts of interaction into consideration when analysing BELF interaction, in particular in MNCs as it is a meeting site of diverse lingua-cultures. Chapter 10, by Kubota, contributes to the expansion of the paradigm and deepening the understanding on the nature of ELF in that it is not directly written from an ELF perspective, but rather with some ambivalence about it, thus provoking further discussions. That is, on its very basis, there is some doubt or scepticism of the author, who advocates multilingualism, about the ‘taken for granted’ notion of English as a ‘global link language’. It is, however, clear from the works of ELF researchers that they are not against multilingualism or promoting ELF as the sole ‘global link language’ (see Seidlhofer 2011). What they are doing is focusing on the description and theorization of the nature of ELF interaction from various perspectives, including lexicogrammatical, functional, pragmatic and attitudinal as well as reconsidering hitherto taken-for-granted ‘native speaker norms’ on assessing the performance of ELF users and considering the achievement target for future ELF users, thus providing a completely new paradigm or way of thinking towards language pedagogy. Although ELF researchers pay attention exclusively to ‘English’ as a lingua franca as the term indicates, their way of thinking can in principle be applicable to ‘any language’ as a lingua franca. This seems to be a dimension

Introduction: researching ELF 9 often misunderstood by some advocates of multilingualism and multiculturalism as another form of ‘linguistic imperialism’ (Phillipson 1992), hegemonically promoting ELF as the sole global lingua franca (but see Seidlhofer’s (2011) insightful counter-argument on this). Accordingly, Kubota’s contribution to this volume is invaluable in that it introduces a slightly different reality of those who do not own ELF and thus who need to find other ways of communicating. In Chapter 10, Kubota focuses on such a situation, where Japanese and Chinese business people interact in the subsidiaries of Japanese companies based in China. She investigates business people’s use of a lingua franca, mostly based on interview data and finds that in this specific East Asian context, the main lingua franca is either Chinese or Japanese, but not English, although it is occasionally used when interaction involves business people from other lingua-cultural backgrounds, which is often the case in ELF interaction. Thus, Kubota concludes that although English is often regarded as the sole global lingua franca, there are many cases where other languages play its role. This, however, does not contradict what ELF researchers have to say as stated above. The contribution by Kubota in a sense acts as a catalyst for solving the misunderstandings on ELF by those who advocate multilingualism and opens a forum for further discussions to deepen understanding on ELF, its position and attitudes towards it. The new way of dealing with and thinking of this ELF phenomenon will surely lead lingua franca users, whichever lingua franca it is, to empowerment and liberation (see Seidlhofer 2011) as they own their own means of communication, not constrained by native speaker norms, but rather LF serving as an efficient means of communication. Terauchi and Araki report in Chapter 11 the results from a large-scale questionnaire-based survey conducted by Terauchi, Araki and their colleagues for a research project on EBP (English for business purposes) completed a few years ago. Although their original research did not include an ELF perspective but employed the CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages) as its gauge, which seems to assume native speaker norms (see also Seidlhofer, Chapter 2, this volume), the information on what kind and level of proficiency business people are aspiring to is very useful when considering their needs in ELF contexts as well. On the other hand, Backhaus’s Chapter 12 is an exploration into both linguistic landscape and soundscape in Tokyo’s public transport from an ELF perspective, focusing, in the former, on traces of FLF in mostly prohibition/ request signs, and in the latter, on spoken announcements. Despite the findings that both are mostly based on a North American inner circle model, some characteristics which are also found in the existing ELF research are observed, such as the use of simpler, more explicit expressions at lexico-grammatical and pragmatic levels, which could increase intelligibility and explictness of the message. Bilingual signs and announcements in both English and Japanese are obviously targeted not only at ENL but also ELF users as visitors and foreign nationals residing in Japan are not limited to NSEs. Accordingly, it is worth

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further exploring the use of ELF in linguistic landscape/soundscape, which has so far received little attention and which will become very important as more visitors from overseas are expected with the approach of the next Olympics to be held in Tokyo in 2020 as Backhaus himself is also keenly aware of. The final part, Part IV, consists of three chapters that are closely related to the issue of how ELF perspectives should be connected to the traditional areas of applied linguistics and linguistics such as assessment and pragmatics both in terms of research and language pedagogy. Widdowson, in Chapter 13, firmly bases his argument on language pedagogy, but his discussion, by its very nature, is very theoretical. He starts the chapter with the discussion on what is meant by ‘English’ when it is taught as a subject in a language classroom and moves on to the one on the difference between the ‘E’ in ENL and the ‘E’ in ELF and critically points out how learners are required to acquire NS-based ‘communicative competence’ and the ‘authentic usage of NS’. Widdowson then convincingly discusses how ETFL (English taught as a foreign language) is different from ELFL (English learned as a foreign language) and how actually the latter ‘contain[s] ELF’ in its nature. To illustrate this he gives an example of ELF use by one of the most prominent ELF users in the world, Ban Ki-Moon, the Secretary General of the UN, and elaborates how effectively he uses ELF, which is not ETFL but ELFL, and how communicatively capable he is despite the fact that he lacks NS competence. Thus Widdowson persuasively argues for the reconsideration of the imposition of NS norms in language pedagogy, which inhibits learners from developing their ELF capability, which enables ELF users to be creative in exploiting available resources in communicating with their interactants in the globalized world. Sawaki (Chapter 14), on the other hand, tackles the issue of the assessment of ELF communication. As a specialist who used to work for the ETS, she has the first-hand knowledge of TOEFL. It is thus invaluable to have her contribution in considering a further development of ELF research and pedagogy, particularly in relation to testing, which has traditionally been very much associated with NS norms as often pointed out by ELF scholars (see Jenkins 2006, 2014; Mauranen 2012; Seidlhofer 2003, 2011; see also McNamara 2012). With her expertise, Sawaki first carefully reviews the issue from the viewpoints of both testing specialists and ELF researchers, and examines what features of ELF communication are reflected in the two influential academic tests of TOEFL and IELTS. This is essential in considering what should be changed or done regarding the existing tests to accommodate to the assessment of ELF communication. Her detailed study reveals that although both tests recently seem to be emphasizing communicative effectiveness and intelligibility more, the underlying assumption seems to be that even this ‘intelligibility’ is regarded as ‘intelligible’ to NSs as TOEFL raters are still exclusively NSs. Although Sawaki points out that IELTS includes ‘outer-circle NNS raters’, they are not necessarily typical representatives of ELF communicators (see Kachru, 1985, 1992). It therefore still seems to be a great challenge to devise a test from an ELF perspective that simultaneously satisfies such assessment criteria as

Introduction: researching ELF 11 reliability, validity and fairness. However, Sawaki’s careful investigation reveals that it is unrealistic to cling to native speaker norms both at test-making and assessment levels with greater mobility of students and faculty members alike even within traditional inner-circle academic contexts. The final contributor in this section, and indeed this volume, is Kaur (Chapter 15), who directly tackles the issue of ELF pedagogy on the basis of her extended research on the use of pragmatic strategies among ELF interactants (Kaur 2009, 2011). She first focuses on the use of these strategies in ELF interaction and how they are used to ‘[pursue] mutual understanding’, examples of which are the use of repetition, reformulation, paraphrasing as well as selfrepair to enhance communicative clarity. On the basis of her previous research, Kaur first introduces the use of these strategies in actual ELF interactions and then suggests that their use be incorporated in learning activities, although she refrains from suggesting how exactly these activities should be conducted or run, leaving the decision to individual practitioners in their local contexts, which shows her understanding of and sensibility to local realities. To sum up, this volume introduces ELF research both from theoretical and practical perspectives. The former is represented by Seidlhofer, Mauranen and also joined partially by Yano. The nature of ELF capability and how it can be developed has become much clearer thanks to special contributions, particularly by Seidlhofer and Widdowson. Although Widdowson’s contribution (Chapter 13) is classified into Part IV, entitled ‘ELF and pedagogic concerns’, he combines theory and pedagogy in a most balanced and persuasive manner under the very tradition of applied linguistics, of which he is one of the most influential and prominent founders. The empirical and practical perspective includes Parts II to IV, which introduce examples of current academic and business ELF use, focusing mainly on Japanese ELF users but not exclusively, as Part II, for example, includes analyses of data collected in European and British contexts as well as Japanese ones. Parts III and IV also widen the perspective of ELF by including other established research fields of linguistics and applied linguistics viewed from an ELF perspective. By including these differing perspectives it is hoped that this volume plays a role in deepening understanding of ELF and shifting paradigms from NS norms to lingua franca users’ own creative capability and further promotes ELF research in Japan, Asia and the world over.

References Bjorkman, B. 2009. From code to discourse in spoken ELF. In A. Mauranen and E. Ranta (eds), English as a Lingua Franca. Studies and Findings. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 225–251. Bjorkman, B. 2011. Pragmatic strategies in English as an academic lingua franca: Ways of achieving communicative effectiveness? Journal of Pragmatics 43, 950–964. Bjorkman, B. 2012. Questions in academic ELF interaction. Journal of English as a Lingua Franca 1(1), 93–119. Cogo, A. 2012. ELF and super-diversity: a case study of ELF multilingual practices from a business context. Journal of English as a Lingua Franca 1(2), 287–313.

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Ehrenreich, S. 2009. English as a lingua franca in multinational corporations – exploring business communities of practice. In A. Mauranen and E. Ranta (eds), English as a Lingua Franca: Studies and Findings. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 126–151. Ehrenreich, S. 2011. The dynamics of English as a business lingua franca: A language contact perspective. In A. Archibald, A. Cogo and J. Jenkins (eds), Latest Trends in ELF Research. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 11–34. Ehrenreich, S. 2012. English as a lingua franca today: evolving perspectives. Journal of English as a Lingua Franca 1(1), 181–184. Iino, M. 2012. Eigo de tsunagu sekai no kouto-kyouiku – SILS no kesu wo chushin ni (English as a lingua franca connecting higher education in the world – a case from SILS, Waseda University). In K. Murata (ed.), Waseda Working Papers in ELF, Vol. 1. Tokyo: Waseda ELF Research Group, pp. 33–41. Jenkins, J. 2000. The Phonology of English as an International Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jenkins, J. 2006. The spread of EIL: A testing time for testers. ELT Journal 60(1), 42–50. Jenkins, J. 2007. English as a Lingua Franca: Attitude and Identity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jenkins, J. 2014. English as a Lingua Franca in the International University – The Politics of Academic Language Policy. Abingdon: Routledge. 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. Kachru, B. B. (ed.) 1992. The Other Tongue: English across Cultures, 2nd edn. Chicago: University of Illinois Press. Kaur, J. 2009. Pre-empting problems of understanding in English as a lingua franca. In A. Mauranen and E. Ranta (eds) English as a Lingua Franca. Studies and Findings. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 107–123. Kaur, J. 2011. ‘Doing being a language expert’: The case of the ELF speaker. In A. Archibald, A. Cogo and J. Jenkins (eds), Latest Trends in ELF Research. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 53–75. Kirkpatrick, A. 2010. English as a Lingua Franca in ASEAN: A Multilingual Model. Hong Kong: University Press. Kubota, R. 1999. Japanese culture constructed by discourses: Implications for applied linguistics research and ELT. TESOL Quarterly 33(1), 9–35. McNamara, T. 2012. English as a lingua franca: the challenge for language testing. Journal of English as a Lingua Franca 1(1), 199–202. Mauranen, A. 2012. Exploring ELF: Academic English Shaped by Non-Native Speakers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. MEXT 2011. An Interim Report of the Council on Promotion of Human Resource for Globalization Development, available at: www.kantei.go.jp/jp/singi/global/ 110622chukan_matome.pdf (Japanese) and www.kantei.go.jp/jp/singi/global/ 1206011interim_report.pdf (English). Phillipson, R. 1992. Linguistic Imperialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Seidlhofer, B. (ed.) 2003. Controversies in Applied Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Introduction: researching ELF 13 Seidlhofer, B. 2011. Understanding English as a Lingua Franca. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Seidlhofer, B. and H. G. Widdowson 2009. Accommodation and the idiom principle in English as a lingua franca. In K. Murata and J. Jenkins (eds), Global English in Asian Contexts: Current and Future Debates. Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 26–39. Shaw, P., T. Caudery and M. Petersen 2009. Students on exchange in Scandinavia: Motivation, interaction, ELF development. In A. Mauranen and E. Ranta (eds), English as a Lingua Franca. Studies and Findings. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 178–199. Smit, U. 2009. Emic evaluations and interactive processes in a classroom community of practice. In A. Mauranen and E. Ranta (eds), English as a Lingua Franca. Studies and Findings. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 200–224. Smit, U. and E. Dafouz 2012. Integrating content and language in higher education: An introduction to English-medium policies, conceptual issues and research practices across Europe. In U. Smit and E. Dfouz (eds), Integrating Content and Language in Higher Education. Gaining Insights into English-Medium Instruction at European Universities. AILA Review, Volume 25, pp. 1–12.

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Part I

Conceptualizing ELF

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2

ELF: English in a global context Barbara Seidlhofer

The term ‘English’ can (like the term ‘Japanese’) refer both to a language and to a people. As far as ‘English’ is concerned, this can cause confusion, which I hope this chapter will help to dispel. We can begin by looking at how the dictionary defines the term. If we look it up in the Oxford English Dictionary (online edn), we find the following entry: English, adj. (and adv.) and n. A. adj. (and adv.) 1. 2.

Of or belonging to England (or Britain) or its inhabitants. Designating animals and plants native to or originating in England or Britain, esp. to distinguish them from similar or related species encountered elsewhere. 3. a. Of or relating to the West Germanic language spoken in England and also used in many varieties throughout the world (of words, idioms, grammar, etc.) belonging to the English language; (of literary compositions, speeches, etc.) written or spoken in the English language. b. With modifying word, as North English, Southern English 4. Characteristic of or marked by the behaviour of an English person; possessed of virtues or failings regarded as peculiar to English people. The third entry here makes reference to the English language, and because the first entry defines the adjective as denoting something that belongs to England, or Britain, or its inhabitants, one must suppose that the language too is defined as the property of these people. There is a recognition that there are ‘many varieties throughout the world’ but these, it is said, belong to the English language, which in turn belongs to the English people. The assumption that lies behind this dictionary definition is that not only does the English language originate in England, but it still remains its property. The implications of this are spelled out in a later part of the dictionary entry: The noun ‘English’ is

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Barbara Seidlhofer Occasionally (as is the case with most language names) used more restrictively to identify a particular variety of English as having greater perceived authority or authenticity, such as English spoken in England as opposed to English spoken in other countries, or standard English as opposed to other varieties, or what is perceived as plain English as opposed to jargon, etc.

So the English of the English (or other people who are native speakers of the language) is perceived as having a special authority or authenticity. It is this perception, which is very widespread, that I want to challenge. ‘English’, then, is usually taken to mean ‘the language of the English (-speaking people/nations’) – ‘English as a first or Native Language’ (ENL), which non-native speakers can learn as a second language (ESL). In linguistics, too, the native speaker has traditionally been accorded special status as the default point of reference: the speaker whom the linguist is concerned about is invariably claimed to be a native speaker. He is the one who can legitimately supply data, and his language is what grammatical analyses are meant to account for. Thus, nativeness is the only universally accepted criterion for authenticity. (Coulmas 1981: 5, emphasis added) The native speaker of a language has been given great status by both structuralist and generative linguistics, in both theoretical and applied linguistics. The notion of ‘native speaker’ is highly problematic, though this has largely gone unnoticed. (Bauer 2007: 76) That the notion of the ‘native speaker’ is highly problematic, especially for English, has also largely gone unnoticed in language teaching and assessment, as is evident from the currently most influential institutional specifications that have achieved global currency in recent years, namely the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR), which, in spite of its name, has been widely adopted outside Europe, including Japan. True, in the introductory chapter outlining the political and educational context of the CEFR, we are told that: the aim of language education is profoundly modified. It is no longer seen as simply to achieve ‘mastery’ of one or two, or even three languages, each taken in isolation, with the ‘ideal native speaker’ as the ultimate model. Instead, the aim is to develop a linguistic repertory, in which all linguistic abilities have a place. (Council of Europe 2001: 5) However, as soon as we look at specific descriptors of the common reference levels (A1 to C2), which have been pretty much universally adopted as an

ELF: English in a global context 19 expediency in teaching and testing worldwide, the ‘native speaker’ looms large. This may be appropriate for some foreign languages (see below), but it is certainly questionable for English, whose most widespread role in the world is that of an international lingua franca (see also McNamara 2012; Hynninen 2014). Thus we find the following foci detailed for level B2: . . . e.g. . . . converse naturally, fluently and effectively; . . . interact with a degree of fluency and spontaneity that makes regular interaction with native speakers quite possible without imposing strain on either party; . . . sustain relationships with native speakers without unintentionally amusing or irritating them or requiring them to behave other than they would with a native speaker. (Council of Europe 2001: 35, italics in original, bold added) To take the example of pronunciation, we find, under ‘phonological control, A1’: Pronunciation of a very limited repertoire of learnt words and phrases can be understood with some effort by native speakers used to dealing with speakers of his/her language group. (Council of Europe 2001: 117, emphasis added) And for the question ‘How should learners be expected/required to develop their ability to pronounce a language?’ the following suggestions are offered: a) simply by exposure to authentic spoken utterances; b) by chorused imitation of i) the teacher; ii) audio-recorded native speakers; iii) video-recorded native speakers; c) . . . (Council of Europe 2001: 153, emphasis added) Finally, the following Can-Do statement is suggested for C2 level writers: I can write so well that native speakers need not check my texts. (Council of Europe 2001: 232, emphasis added) There has, of course, been a recognition for some time that there are varieties of English other than those of native speakers – varieties that have derived from ENL, as colonized people in what Kachru refers to as the ‘Outer Circle’ have appropriated the language for their own purposes and which have been given the status of World Englishes (WE). The term ‘English as an International Language’ (EIL) is often used to refer to these WE varieties, essentially used as a local intra-community means of communication. These then are conceived

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of as belonging to these communities, as Englishes of their own that can therefore be accorded the status of authenticity. But English is also international in a different sense – as a global means of inter-community communication. This globalized English as an international language is not accounted for within the other ‘Englishes’ that I have mentioned. It is not English as a native language (ENL) or English as a second language (ESL), either institutionalized as a world English (WE) or taught as a foreign language subject (EFL). It is something different – it is English as a lingua franca. This we can define as: any use of English for communication among speakers of different first languages for whom English is the communicative medium of choice, and often the only option. (Seidlhofer 2011: 7) Over recent years there has been a rapid and quite unprecedented spread of this use of English as a lingua franca as both cause and consequence of globalization. And such an unprecedented phenomenon calls for similarly unprecedented ways of thinking about the language. As Brumfit has pointed out: The major advances in sociolinguistic research over the past half century indicate clearly the extent to which languages are shaped by their use . . . Statistically, native speakers [of English] are in a minority for language use, and thus in practice for language change, for language maintenance, and for the ideologies and beliefs associated with the language – at least in so far as non-native speakers use the language for a wide range of public and personal needs. (Brumfit 2001: 116) The ‘ideologies and beliefs associated with the language’ need to be revised in the light of this radically changed role and status of English as it is shaped by international use. It is no longer tenable to persevere with conventional assumptions about (native) language, (native) speech communities, (nativespeaker) competence, the (native) language-culture nexus, (native) speaker rights, and (native-speaker) ownership. A genuinely new conceptualization of ‘global English’ is required: a conceptualization of English as a lingua franca (ELF). And yet, and as yet, this phenomenon of ELF has generally not given rise to any ‘major advances in sociolinguistic research’ and has not been considered worthy of linguistic description. With the development of electronic technology, other manifestations of English have been extensively described by corpus linguistics, but not ELF. Corpus-based descriptions of so-called ‘real’ ENL usage now form the basis of current grammars and dictionaries, and corpora have also been assembled of regional WE varieties, and of EFL learner language,

ELF: English in a global context 21 but until recently such advanced technology for linguistic description has not been applied to ELF (Seidlhofer 2001). The assumption underlying this neglect would seem to be that because the users of English as a lingua franca do not constitute a well-defined community, and the linguistic features of its use are not so systematic as to constitute a distinct variety, ELF cannot claim any authenticity and so can be dismissed as simply the random and expedient performance of ‘incompetent users’ who have failed to learn the proper language. Although there has been a recognition of the need to think in terms of a sociolinguistics of globalization (see, for example, Blommaert 2010; Canagarajah 2013), this has generally speaking remained at a theoretical level and has not been followed through by descriptions of the most obvious sociolinguistic aspect of globalization, the spread of English as an international lingua franca. As with sociolinguistics, so with language pedagogy: there is an awareness of ELF as a global phenomenon but a reluctance to consider its implications for the study of English. Indeed, the idea that it has any implications at all is often strenuously resisted on the grounds that ELF simply represents an inferior and incorrect version of the language. The assumption again is that the only real or proper English is that which conforms to established native speaker norms. Although it would seem obvious it is ELF that is the reality for most users of English in the world, the idea that there is something essentially and uniquely real about ENL is deeply entrenched. One reason for this, one might suggest, is that people’s attitude to English is likely to be influenced by their attitude to their own language. For Japanese learners and teachers, for example, their own first language is so inextricably bound up with their own distinct sociocultural identity that to speak Japanese is to be Japanese. Here it makes sense to say that the language is owned by its native speakers, that real Japanese is what the Japanese speak and so to learn it properly as a foreign language involves conforming to native speaker norms. It is therefore not surprising if Japanese learners are inclined to think that the same applies to other languages – that the only ‘real’ language is that which conforms to such norms (Murata and Jenkins 2009; Seargeant 2009, 2011). But the point of course is that English is not like Japanese – indeed not like any other language. It has long ceased to be uniquely associated with England or any distinct culture or community. Many different communities in Kachru’s Inner and Outer Circles claim ownership of the language as a primary means of intra-communal communication and the expression of socio-cultural identity. But it is not only that there are now different varieties, legitimized versions of the language, different World Englishes but the language has been appropriated as a lingua franca resource for interaction across different communities on a global scale and here the concern is to make the language real as an effective means of communication for the immediate purpose, and whether or not it conforms to native speaker norms is irrelevant.

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Teachers may acknowledge this reality, but at the same time often cannot rid themselves of the belief that all the same ENL has a unique authenticity – a belief that is all the more persistent when it is sanctioned by educational policy and orthodox approaches to teaching and testing. So it is that many English teachers are ambivalent about ELF, and dealing with this ambivalence will be a major challenge in the future for English teacher education. According to Backhaus (2007: 146), ‘Japan’s monolingual worldview is challenged by the power of English as the default language for all sorts of international communication . . . and as the most prestigious foreign language domestically’. So, from both a sociolinguistic and a pedagogic perspective, English as a native language (ENL) in Kachru’s Inner Circle has long been taken into account, as has English as a second language (ESL) of communities in Kachru’s Outer Circle and, rather more recently, the English that learners produce, e.g. in tests (EFL); English as a lingua franca (ELF), the globally most widespread use of the language, has generally speaking been disregarded and left in limbo. The situation might be shown as in Figure 2.1. ENL

vast language corpora, e.g. BNC, Bank of English, CANCODE: ‘Real English’

ESL

corpora of regional varieties, e.g. International Corpus of English (ICE) – ‘New Englishes’

EFL

Learner Corpora, e.g. ICLE/LINDSEI – ‘Learner English’

ELF

until recently: Ø

‘English’

Figure 2.1 Computer corpora of English (in around 2010)

The situation, however, has been changing. Apart from the empirical data that have been used in research theses and articles to describe particular features of ELF usage, larger-scale corpora have also been assembled. The corpus of English as a Lingua Franca in Academic settings (ELFA) in Helsinki is one example (www.helsinki.fi/englanti/elfa/elfacorpus.html; see also Mauranen 2012). Another is the Vienna-Oxford International Corpus of English (VOICE), which was compiled in an eight-year research project which I myself directed (https://www.univie.ac.at/voice/). The most recent addition to ELF corpora is the Asian Corpus of English, ACE (http://corpus.ied.edu.hk/ace/index.html). This corpus consists of

ELF: English in a global context 23 transcribed spoken interactions among speakers who are ‘English-knowing’ multilinguals from ‘ASEAN + 3’ (China, Japan, Korea), including English L1 Singaporeans, Filipinos, etc. ACE online was released in autumn 2014 and is now freely available; further modifications and additions to the online interface have been announced. The project leader and principal investigator is Andy Kirkpatrick (Griffith University, Australia), supported by project co-investigator Wang Lixun (The Hong Kong Institute of Education). The project teams are located in, and provided data from, nine different countries, including Japan. The Japanese team is headed by Professor James D’Angelo at Chukyo University; the other teams are in Hong Kong, China, Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Philippines, Vietnam and Taiwan. ACE will make it possible to research ELF as it is used in Asia, and what is more, the data can be compared to those in VOICE, as ACE was compiled with the same specifications as VOICE, used essentially the same transcription conventions and software and has roughly the same size and the same architecture as VOICE. As Kirkpatrick (2010: 13) emphasizes: it is essential that, like the VOICE corpus, the corpus of Asian ELF should: be a spoken corpus; be interactive, capturing ELF speakers engaged in communicative events; be naturally occurring; include a range of participant relationships; include a range of ‘complete’ speech events. As it is also being transcribed and tagged using the same transcription software as the VOICE corpus, this will allow researchers to compare not only the linguistic features of the two corpora, but also the presence and effect of cultural and pragmatic norms in both corpora. As we shall see, data from these corpora provide convincing evidence of how effective communication can be achieved in using the resources of English without having to conform to the norms of ENL. Moreover, to quote Kirkpatrick (2010: 15) again, such research can: help create an understanding that English is indeed an Asian language for which its multilingual speakers can feel a sense of ownership and identity. As Honna (2008) has noted for Japanese learners of English: ‘knowledge of English as a multicultural language really helps them understand what they can do with English at international settings’, and, ‘once Japanese business people recognise the legitimacy of Asian varieties of English, they become interested to learn why Asian people speak English the way they do. Consequently the stigma long put on indigenized

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Barbara Seidlhofer Englishes and other EIL varieties is wearing itself out in some important sections of Japanese society.’ (p. 174). Our hope is that the corpus of Asian ELF will help in changing these attitudes across Asia.

To come back to VOICE: this is the first general corpus of transcribed spoken ELF interaction, free online access to which has been established since May 2009. It consists of over 1 million words, representing transcripts of about 111 hours of recordings of 151 speech events; in addition, the audio files of 23 speech events can also be listened to online. The speech events in VOICE are samples of naturally occurring spoken interactions involving 1261 speakers. Since early 2013 (and followed by a couple of corrected updates), VOICE has also been available with part-of-speech (POS) tagging for both the online and the downloadable XML. VOICE is the first publicly accessible corpus of spoken ELF interactions to have attempted POS tagging, in the hope to make the corpus more user-friendly for researchers worldwide. Further details of the corpus and how it was compiled can be found on the website: www.univie. ac.at/VOICE There are two kinds of insight we can gain by a consideration of the interactions recorded in the corpus. One of them concerns the attitude of the speakers to the English they are using. Other research has shown that ELF users, and EFL learners, are ambivalent about the language, schooled as they are in the belief that the only ‘real’ or ‘proper’ English is that which is in conformity with the standard language and generally assumed, as I have already pointed out, to be the preserve of native speakers. Data from VOICE provide evidence that some ELF users at least realize that such conformity is not a necessary condition for effective communicative use, and that they can quite legitimately appropriate the language and claim it as their own. Consider, for example, the following extracts from the corpus: S17 (L1: bul-BG) : xx (.) xxxx i think here comes the question of quality. what (.) level e:r (.) of (.) a- what ability of speaking the language should we HAVE . and i think that the MOST important thing is to have a ce:rtain level of understanding. since we understand us who cares about the rules. let british speak their british english let let america speak their american english and LET us speak OUR english in which we have a certain level of understanding. S18: = completely agree with you first of all (.) e:rm (1) YOU talked about offending. S23: @ S23: yeah = S18: = offending the british s:peak- er the british native s:peakers or the (.) americans

ELF: English in a global context 25 S23: yes yes the native speakers = S18: = exactly. and i think (.) BY : DIVIDing (1) ... S18: english as a lingua franca and native english that’s the way we do not OFFEND them they should keep THEIR SX-21: xx SX-f: english S18: their na- their english. as their native language. (.) with their culture connected to that. (1) we have our OWN (.) then it’s not THEIRS any more A second kind of insight that can be gained from the corpus concerns how ELF speakers actually use the language in their interactions, what strategies they use in exploiting what they know of English as a resource for expressing themselves and getting their meaning across. One such strategy is what we can call regularization. This involves extending the application of a coding rule beyond its conventional domain in standard ENL. Thus in ENL certain verbs of Romance origin take a particular morphological form, for example communicate, educate, investigate, negotiate. But there are other verbs that do not: conspire, confirm, examine, finance, pronounce. These are sometimes ‘regularized’ in ELF by applying the regular morphological convention in unconventional ways to produce, for example, conspirate, confirmate, examinate, financiate and pronunciate. These are forms possible in English in the sense that there is a morphological convention which allows for their formation, but it just happens that the possibility has not been realized in Standard ENL. Here are some examples: S14 [L1=fin-FI]: that will be then set up for different disciplines S12 [L1=ger-AT]: yes and also financiated {financed}

(VOICE 2009: POwgd325) S5 [L1=por-PT]: it’s completely different and people can’t even pronunciate {pronounce} it (VOICE 2009: POmtg439) S3 [L1=nor-NO] and then i was sitting e:r later i was sitting at this schizophrenic e:r woman’s apartment (.) listening to her talking about the war (.) that was going on outside and all the people that were e:r con conspirating {conspiring} (VOICE 2009: LEcon560)

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Sometimes we find that such morphological possibilities are exploited to distinguish between parts of speech categories. In ENL the possibility of marking parts of speech in a consistent way is not realized: many nouns and verbs, for example, take the same form. The word increase is a case in point. In VOICE, on the other hand, we find the following: S1 [L1=ger-DE]: you get (.) EACH YEAR (1) an increasement {increase} of your salaries. (.) which is paid by the company. (.) (VOICE 2009: PBmtg27) S5 [L1=spa-ES]: which for the time being is not big issue? (.) so (.) i don’t know what you want to try to develop afterwards you gonna be increasive by a hundred per cent or two hundred per cent (VOICE 2009: PBmtg27) Another strategy that ELF speakers make use of involves not the exploitation of encoding possibilities to be more explicit, but the disregard of explicit distinctions that are communicatively unnecessary. Thus, the relative pronoun who is in Standard ENL marked for the semantic features of +human, and which is not. In ELF usage, however, we find examples such as: S1 [L1=ger-DE]: . . . we have er i think a good good team there and we can cover france easily (.) i spoke to some german stations and erm (.) yeah there is ONE branch who HAS (1) two or three (.) people which i also would trust in (VOICE 2009: PBmtg27) S8 [L1=spa-ES]: hh the people which are booking with you huh? (VOICE 2009: PBmtg300) S3 [L1=lav-LV]: and they told something about the laws too that e:r (.) the only language who are allowed are english and so o:n so (.) hh it’s erm (.) okay it’s not so (1) erm: aggressive but e:r still (.) when you have law (.) that you (.) can’t do that or that (.) so it’s s:ome kind of: er erm (4) S4 [L1=ita-IT]: kind of loss of freedom (VOICE 2009: EDwgd241) These extracts from VOICE show ELF users exploiting the language as a communicative resource (for more examples and further discussion see Seidlhofer 2011). It will be interesting to see how far findings emerging from research based on ACE reveal the same strategic use of the language. The forms interlocutors produce frequently do not conform to ENL norms and can, of course, be seen as lexically and grammatically ‘deviant’ and stigmatized as errors that call for correction. But there is no virtue in conformity for its own sake:

ELF: English in a global context 27 the only reason to conform is because it is communicatively effective to do so. What comes across very clearly from ELF interactions is that communicative effectiveness can be achieved without conformity, and indeed seems to be best achieved by making non-conformist creative use of the inherent possibilities in the language. So it is important to note that the processes of regularization in the creation of new words I have illustrated here, together with the exploitation of grammatical redundancies, and other features of ELF usage, are functionally motivated. They come about as a natural consequence of the collaborative interaction that ELF users are engaged in. Like all other natural language users, ELF speakers have to find ways of negotiating meaning and establishing relationships with their interlocutors, reconciling the need to accommodate to others with the expression of individual and social identity. Communication as a mode of social interaction is no different among ELF users from what it is with any other users of language, including Japanese. It is only that they need to draw on linguistic resources differently in order to achieve it. So ELF speakers quite naturally as users give priority to communicative effectiveness rather than formal correctness. The crucial importance of such effectiveness as the prime consideration in international uses of English needs to be acknowledged: what matters is not whether users conform to expectations that they typically do not share anyway but how effectively they get their meanings across, how successful, or satisfactory, the outcome is from the perspective of the interlocutors – whether this be a business transaction or the diplomatic negotiations involved in conflict resolution. It simply does not matter whether a Japanese businessperson conforms to the model of correct English that they were taught at school, on the unrealistic assumption that the German or Russian or Chinese client they are doing business with conforms to the same prescribed model. What matters is how effectively they can make expedient use of linguistic resources to achieve a successful communicative outcome. Conformity to standard English or the norms of native speaker usage are, on the contrary, more likely to inhibit effective communication. There is no reason why they should defer to the authority of native speakers, or to recognize the unique authenticity of their ENL English – indeed, as I hope I have indicated, there are good reasons why they should not. If this is so, and given that ELF has undoubtedly become the most widespread means of global communication, then this should surely lead us to at least ask questions about what it is we teach in the name of the subject ‘English’, and whether it is appropriate to continue to define the E of EFL with unique reference to the E of ENL without taking the E of ELF into account.

References Backhaus, P. 2007. Linguistic Landscapes: A Comparative Study of Urban Multilingualism in Tokyo. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Bauer, L. 2007. The Linguistics Student’s Handbook. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Blommaert, J. 2010. The Sociolinguistics of Globalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Brumfit, C. J. 2001. Individual Freedom in Language Teaching: Helping Learners to Develop a Dialect of Their Own. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Canagarajah, S. 2013. Translingual Practice: Global Englishes and Cosmopolitan Relations. New York and Abingdon: Routledge. Coulmas, F. (ed.) 1981. A Festschrift for Native Speaker. Berlin: Mouton. Council of Europe 2001. Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Learning, Teaching, Assessment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Honna, N. 2008. English as a Multicultural Language in Asian Contexts: Issues and Ideas. Tokyo: Kuroshio Publishers. Hynninen, N. 2014. The Common European Framework of Reference from the perspective of English as a lingua franca: what we can learn from a focus on language regulation. Journal of English as a Lingua Franca 3(2): 293–316. Kirkpatrick, A. 2010. English as a Lingua Franca in ASEAN: A Multilingual Model. Hong Kong: University Press. McNamara, T. 2012. English as a lingua franca: the challenge for language testing. Journal of English as a Lingua Franca 1(1), 199–202. Mauranen, A. 2012. Exploring ELF: Academic English Shaped by Non-Native Speakers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Murata, K. and J. Jenkins (eds) 2009. Global Englishes in Asian Contexts: Current and Future Debates. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Seargeant, P. 2009. The Idea of English in Japan: Ideology and the Evolution of a Global Language. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Seargeant, P. (ed.) 2011. English in Japan in the Era of Globalization. Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Seidlhofer, B. 2001. Closing a conceptual gap: the case for a description of English as a lingua franca. International Journal of Applied Linguistics 11, 133–158. Available at: www.univie.ac.at/voice/documents/seidlhofer_2001b.pdf Seidlhofer, B. 2011. Understanding English as a Lingua Franca. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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English as a global lingua franca Changing language in changing global academia Anna Mauranen

In early January 2012, a few international newspapers devoted headlines to a change in the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature, no longer compelling botanists to provide a Latin description of a new species. New plants could now be described in English, although Latin species names are still used. This small alteration in the practices of a discipline that for centuries had adhered to Latin as its international language is an apt indication of the status of English in science today. As the Washington Post put it: ‘For the world’s botanists, Latin is no longer their lingua franca.’ We can find evidence of the special status English has acquired among the world’s languages in many other ways. It is by any account the most widespread language on the globe ever. Its journey around the world began in earnest in the sixteenth century, during the reign of Elizabeth I, but it had already secured a foothold as far as Africa in the fourteenth century. The expansion that followed is well charted by many researchers, and there is no doubt that the economic and political power exercised by the British Empire and subsequently the USA have been the principal agents in establishing this. However, we have reached a stage where other political powers and rising economies are gaining ground over the English-speaking nations. Still, the English language shows no signs of getting smaller. The number of speakers is growing, as are the domains and regions where it is used. Today it spreads under its own steam: everyone speaks English because everyone else does. An important moment about 20 years ago was the onset of the Internet: it connected the world in a single network of communication, principally based on English. The result was explosive globalization and expansion in the use of English. All this makes English unique among languages. This unprecedented expansion of English presents intriguing questions for linguists: what happens to a language when it spreads around the globe and gets into contact with virtually all other languages in the world? We know for instance that in times of high population mobility, languages tend to change at an accelerated speed; what is happening to English in our extremely mobile world? We can look at the questions from different perspectives. One is the theoretical linguistic interest: what are the consequences to a language when

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it gets into an unusually complex language contact situation? The second type of interest, essentially a descriptive one, concerns the language itself: how does English in particular change – how might its immensely widespread use as the default lingua franca in many walks of life influence the language as a whole? And finally, there is the applied interest: what do these changes mean to the language professional? How should language professionals respond, as educators, evaluators and translators, for example, and finally, what does this mean for those who educate language professionals? This chapter seeks to address these questions, albeit briefly. The primary focus is on descriptive issues of English as a lingua franca, as the basis that feeds into theoretical thinking on language. At the same time, descriptive findings can help illuminate the path forward to pedagogical thinking and devising new solutions for language professions, if we are to move onwards from merely raising awareness.

Common concerns about English as a lingua franca The rise of English into a dominant global position has not been received with equanimity everywhere. As awareness of the ubiquity of English has grown, debate around the desirability of this state of affairs has increased. While some writers object to the increasing use of English in any form (e.g. Phillipson 1992; Harder 2009; Jansson 2008), many others deplore its declining standards as it is used by non-native speakers as a lingua franca (e.g. Quirk 1985). Will English wipe out other languages? The first concern is, then, that the expansion of English will lead to a monolingual, homogenous world. Moreover, the argument goes, as language and culture are inextricably intertwined, the consequent spread of a homogeneous world culture, modelled on North America, will follow. This dystopia has been markedly present in Phillipson’s work, and groups in countries where English has become common in higher education have voiced growing concerns about this. In Europe, for instance in Nordic countries, many scholars have claimed that English threatens the existence of small national languages, or at the very least reduces their repertoire of genres (see, for example, Carli and Ammon 2007; Haberland 2005). Anxiety about the disadvantages non-native speakers of English may experience in academic publishing (Ammon 2007; Canagarajah 2002; Flowerdew 2008; Lillis and Curry 2010) has also been raised. It is of course undeniable that English as an academic language plays a central role in all domains where international concerns are at stake: publication, conferences, research projects, and most recently degree programmes in countries where English has no official status. As Gentil and Séror (2014: 18) put it, ‘the quasi-hegemony of English in scientific publications is now a fait accompli’.

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However, debates aside, some studies have presented evidence indicating that local language use has not been reduced as a consequence of English-medium instruction in higher education (Madsen 2008). Neither has a decline been attested in local language academic publications despite the growing number of publications in English (Bolton and Kuteeva 2012; McGrath 2014). Interestingly, the strongest fears about the detrimental effects of Englishmedium study programmes on learning have begun to abate over the last few years (Wächter 2008), possibly with growing familiarity and experience. As far as the global spread of English is concerned, a complex picture emerges. The best-known comprehensive model for describing English according to its status and function in different contexts was drawn up by Kachru (1985). He analyses the position of English in terms of three concentric circles. Very roughly, Kachru placed the ‘core varieties’ of English from a handful of countries (such as the USA, the UK and Canada) as the ‘Inner Circle’. Around this centre, in an ‘Outer Circle’, he set a larger group of varieties, mostly in former British colonies, where English has an official status and indigenized varieties to a certain extent. Examples of countries in this zone include India, Singapore, Nigeria and Kenya. The final, ‘Expanding Circle’, consists of countries where English is essentially a foreign language, such as Japan, Korea and most European countries. Kachru’s model has come under much criticism, which has led him to modify the model, for example in 1992, but the original concepts and labels remain in place and are widely known and quoted conceptualizations of the main grouping of Englishes today. From the present perspective, the principal shortcoming in this model is that it does not account for the use of English across boundaries of countries and regions, as a lingua franca between countries and regions. Disputes about where to classify which country are unimportant if we take into account the most notable use of English as a vehicle of communication across boundaries, in global networks. The model is also out-dated by today’s standards, because it has not taken on board the enormous changes instigated by the Internet. English is not the first extensive lingua franca. Lingua francas, contact languages used by speakers who do not share a first language, have been used for as long as we can trace back the history of languages. Some of the previously widespread lingua francas (see, for example, Weber 1997/2008) are now extinct, like Sanskrit, Sumerian or Latin, others have become small, such as Greek or Aramaic, but some live on as influential lingua francas, like Arabic. If the past is anything to go by, English is not likely to be the last significant lingua franca on Earth. From a different historical perspective, homogeneity among human languages is not a very plausible outcome. As evolutionary scientists Pagel and Mace (2004) have observed, the distribution patterns of human languages and of species show very close resemblances, with the densities of both peaking towards the Equator. The number of languages is thus highest where human populations are the most dense; we can take this as evidence of languages

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marking group boundaries and maintaining group identities. Languages therefore not only unite, they also separate. Findings such as these do not predict homogenization for human languages. Moreover, for endangered languages the enemy is usually the neighbouring large language, typically the national language of the country where the endangered languages are in a minority position. Lingua francas are employed for communicating across linguistic diversity, not for replacing it. Does ELF lead to degenerate English? Many people, largely laypersons, have expressed their apprehension about English being on its way to an impoverished, simplified language. For example, Jeff Yang in his Wall Street Journal blog ‘Is Proper English Dying? And Should Us Care?’ from late 2011 deplores the standards of English declining in the hands of hundreds of millions of people learning it as a foreign language. This is what he says: . . . Learning English isn’t the same as knowing English, and knowing English isn’t the same as being able to speak good, or even intelligible English. In this view, ‘good’ is higher up the scale than ‘intelligibility’, and no questions are raised about who might be the evaluator of this goodness – or this intelligibility. Later on it becomes clear that he only has his immediate environment in North America in mind, and the issue of intelligibility to the rest of the world has not crossed his mind: The problem is that while deficits in grammar, vocabulary and diction can be addressed with study and rote repetition, one language flaw is nearly impossible to fix with traditional training methods alone: Accent. Even the most fluent classroom-taught student is instantly recognizable as a ‘non-native speaker’. This time ‘good’ equals ‘native-like’ in the USA. Yet for people speaking English around the world the first priority may not be sounding as much like a native speaker of American English as possible, but communicating fluently with colleagues, friends or business partners. Whatever ‘good language’ ultimately consists of is a complex, often debatable, and always tightly contextbound phenomenon. The complexity of assessing good language is illustrated by a questionnaire study I ran a few years ago (Mauranen 2007). The participants were undergraduates from a variety of disciplines, including science and social science students and among others English Translation studies. Among the questions I asked was whether they preferred to read translations or foreign-language originals. Originals were preferred by a wide margin in all groups. The reasons

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given were essentially related to the notion of originality, which clearly was valued for its own sake; it was ‘authentic’, ‘original’, ‘the real thing’, unlike translations, where the translator acted as a mediator. However, translations had their merits, too: their value was seen in being more intelligible than original texts in a foreign language. The downside of originals, in turn, was their unintelligibility and the risk of non-understanding or misunderstanding in reading them. The point of this in the present context is that the ‘goodness’ of a text was not deemed as a higher level of ‘intelligibility’, but a different matter altogether; they were simply conceived of and evaluated on separate scales. This resonates with what Contrastive Rhetoric research has observed consistently: assessment of good text is highly variable according to cultural contexts. Different writing traditions give rise to different kinds of rhetoric and different textual preferences. As we undergo secondary socialization in local systems of education, we also get socialized into certain ways of seeing language and text. Thus, good text – and good language – are acquired tastes, and no objective, context-independent standards can be appealed to. Beauty, once again, is in the eye of the beholder. With English in mind, we have been socialized into seeing certain texts as valuable and as ideals to measure other texts against. This is part of established educational traditions in English, whether carried out in ‘Inner Circle’ school systems or ‘Outer Circle’ or ‘Expanding Circle’ educational institutions. But even these traditions cannot last in the face of change. Stopping for a moment to appreciate the effects of foreign influences, we might briefly glance at some quintessentially English texts and how they appear through history. The first example (1) is Beowulf, an Anglo-Saxon heroic poem from somewhere between the eighth and the eleventh centuries, considered one of the most important works of Old English literature. (1) Hwæt! We Gardena þeodcyninga, hu ða æþelingas Oft Scyld Scefing monegum mægþum, egsode eorlas.

in geardagum, þrym gefrunon, ellen fremedon. sceaþena þreatum, meodosetla ofteah,

However well we speak contemporary English, it will not enable us to make sense of this without specialized study. Although Scandinavian had clearly intermingled with the language here, present-day Scandinavian languages will not be of much help in deciphering this text. When only a few centuries had elapsed after Beowulf, the French had become a strong influence on English, and the language had become considerably friendlier to modern eyes (Example (2) is from the Canterbury Tales). (2) 1: Whan that aprill with his shoures soote 2: The droghte of march hath perced to the roote,

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This is already something we can read or make good guesses about on the basis of English today, and the simplification we can observe is undoubtedly occasioned by language contact, both from the Vikings and from the French. The final extract is from the heyday of English imperial power, 200 years ago, when English had come into contact with a great variety of languages for a few more centuries. Language contact is a crucial factor in language change, and it is reasonable to assume it had further influenced English during the Empire. This masterpiece from Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice) presents no difficulty to the modern reader (3). (3) “How despicably I have acted!” she cried; “I, who have prided myself on my discernment! I, who have valued myself on my abilities! who have often disdained the generous candour of my sister, and gratified my vanity in useless or blameable mistrust! How humiliating is this discovery!” In the light of these extracts, it is hard to put the blame on foreign influence for declining linguistic standards, if indeed there has been any. Clearly, English has done very well despite its contact with other languages. Yet we have not even touched upon celebrated authors in the canon of English literature who were not native speakers.

English as a lingua franca A lingua franca is a specific kind of language contact: lingua francas are vehicular languages, or contact languages, used when speakers do not share a first language. Similar definitions to this have been previously presented in Jenkins (2000) and Seidlhofer (2011), but some ELF scholars, like Firth (1996) or House (2002), have preferred definitions that exclude native speakers altogether. The present definition allows them to be included, which is an advantage in accounting for multi-party encounters with a mixture of native and second-language speakers. While lingua francas are kinds of contact languages, at the same time they are also sites of language contact, because speakers’ first and other languages are present as an influence, and often also drawn on as situational needs arise. When contemporary English is used as a lingua franca, it displays certain characteristics that derive from its current status as the default global contact language: speakers come from immensely varied language backgrounds. The different language backgrounds each tend to have their own, L1-influenced ways of speaking. These L1-based varieties, or lects, are sometimes nicknamed Spanglish, Swinglish or Dunglish, for example, reflecting their similarities in

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origin and identifiable features. I call these varieties, or lects, ‘similects’ for lack of a better term (Mauranen 2012). Although cross-linguistic influence results in similarities that are somewhat like dialect features, there is an important difference from dialects: similects are not used in speech communities for internal communication. A learned foreign language is not used as a community language among members of local speech communities for talking to each other. Therefore, these lects exist in parallel, as hybrids, and do not develop in their community contexts as dialects do. Neither do they evolve or diverge into sociolects. Similects, however, resemble dialects in one respect relevant to lingua francas: they constitute mutually comprehensible varieties. Swinglish and Spanglish speakers understand each other, and they use their English lects for mutual communication. English as a lingua franca is in effect a contact between these similects, and in this sense we can regard it as a second-order language contact. From this perspective, it is easy to see how ELF is a site of particularly complex language contact.

What is ELF like? In this section, I shall illustrate some prominent features of ELF. The data that I draw on comes from the corpus English as a Lingua Franca in Academic Settings (ELFA), compiled as part of the ELFA project at the University of Helsinki (www.helsinki.fi/elfa). The whole project itself comprises three parts, the other two being Studying in English as a Lingua franca (SELF) and most recently a written corpus (WrELFA), which is the first database of written ELF. ELFA also sports a blog by one of its researchers, Ray Carey (http://elfaproject. wordpress.com/). The ELFA corpus comprises a million words of academic speech events, recorded in four universities in Finland and in international conferences. The recordings are deliberately biased in favour of dialogic events, as it was felt that the negotiation of a lingua franca in interaction was the most interesting site of lingua franca features. As a result, two-thirds of the corpus consists of multi-party discussions between speakers from altogether 51 typologically diverse languages. Features and processes Language contact research has traditionally highlighted processes of simplification (e.g. Thomason 2001; Trudgill 1986, 2011), which is usually observed and debated in respect of structures and structural systems. Grammatical changes tend to be slow to take effect, with parallel forms lingering on sometimes for centuries. Present ELF-induced changes in English structures are only manifest as incipient tendencies at best. However, there is clear evidence that at least lexical simplification is taking place (Mauranen 2012). This is observable in a tendency towards concentration in vocabulary so that the most frequent

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words are proportionally even more common in ELF. This tendency parallels a similar observation from translation studies, which suggests that it may be a more general contact-induced phenomenon. It is far too early to try to demonstrate systematic structural alterations in English despite its massive use as a lingua franca. However, certain trends can be observed in support of ongoing structural changes. Some of the principal processes involve simplification as regularization of irregular forms. One is the tendency of irregular verb forms to be replaced by regular forms, such as teached for taught, losed for lost, or stucked for stuck. In an analogous fashion, uncountable nouns tend to acquire plural endings and thereby become regular plurals of countable nouns (offsprings, furnitures, cooperations). Articles and prepositions show non-standard uses quite frequently. Articles may be dropped (in Polish language), used superfluously (of the Wilson’s disease), or used differently from the standard (kind of a same process). Similarly, prepositions can be superfluous (discuss about) or missing (we’re dealing what is science), or they can deviate from standard use (obsession in). While there is not much detailed research into article use (but see Dewey 2006), some prepositional tendencies can be discerned: a certain trend towards simplification can be discerned so that in moves into the meaning domains of at (Mauranen 2012), and discuss about has become so common as to be attested in native English (ENL) speakers as well. A readily observable process is also the high productivity in morphology, which is not held back by convention as it is in more stable and established language communities. Forms such as the following abound in ELF use: insuitable; unuseful; territorical; maximalise; introducted; addictation. Some can be traced back to substitutions of semantic equivalents such as negative prefixes, to well-attested processes of change such as back-formation (introducted), others again confuse what often seem arbitrary conventions like -ic and -ical endings, which do not really distinguish meanings. Some solutions show ad hoc creativity: inspectionals, devaluarised, undevelopment countries, which helps solve immediate communication problems, often successfully. The most interesting process is perhaps approximation, the overall propensity to produce expressions that are close to the target, but not quite accurate. Examples in (4) illustrate this (with the assumed target forms in brackets). (4) . . . to er throw some lights in female deputies (‘throw light on’) . . . can’t talk about content without talking of a process and the same way around (‘the other way around’) . . . in fact behind the lines you could very well read that (‘between the lines/behind the scenes’) . . . it has also sense (‘it also makes sense’)

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These approximations are easily intelligible in their contexts, because they serve recognizable functions with a sufficiently similarity in form. We can also discern some elements maintained of the expression speakers presumably have in mind: the overall shape and length together with key lexical elements. The elements that change but do not seriously obscure the meaning seem dispensable. Therefore we can hypothesize that it is less salient, more redundant elements that loosen up in successful lingua franca communication. In brief, then, what these processes show is that in addition to the overarching tendency to approximate forms, both simplification and complexification are simultaneously going on. Simplification processes are observed in increasing regularity and in lexical concentration, and complexification can be seen in the increased variability and multiplicity of forms. The puzzling question that remains is that some of the most common nonstandard features are prepositions and articles, which are among the most frequent items of English. We know that frequent language items generally behave differently from less frequent items. They tend to be more resistant to change, retain irregularity, and carry little independent meaning. The question therefore arises as to how a language tolerates such fuzziness in its most frequent elements. How do we manage to communicate so successfully in ELF despite an apparent disregard for high-frequency items? To look for an answer, it may be worthwhile to raise our gaze above the clause and look at discourse. What do speakers do to ascertain mutual intelligibility in ELF? Common sense seems to assume that if people do not speak their first languages, they are prone to all kinds of miscommunication. In reality, ELF findings show that this is not the case. Misunderstandings are actually quite rare (House 2002; Kaur 2009; Mauranen 2006; Pietikäinen 2014). The publications so far have not provided quantified evidence, but I sampled six hours of recordings from the ELFA dialogues and found only two. More recently, Pietikäinen (2014) found 46 misunderstandings in over 24 hours of recorded dialogue among ELF couples. These figures support the qualitative findings. How do speakers manage this? What special things do they do to bring this off? Let us first look at some examples illustrating micro-level processes, and then move on to text and interaction. Processing at micro level First of all, it is useful to bear in mind that speakers need not do anything extraordinary to achieve communication in ELF. It is known from psycholinguistic studies that although ordinary speech contains much that might be regarded as ungrammatical on closer inspection in written text, ‘ill-formed sentences’ and morphosyntactic anomalies present little difficulty to hearers’ processing (Dabrowska 2004).

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Second, a very large proportion of all text, whether spoken or written, is covered by the most frequent items in a language. Therefore, if these are used as building blocks to a sufficient degree, we may expect communication to have fairly good chances of success. To see how this works out in ELF, I compared the most frequent trigrams, or three-word sequences, in ELFA and a comparable ENL corpus, The Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English (MICASE). As a result, it was found that the ten most frequent threeword units are virtually identical in an ELF corpus and an ENL corpus (MICASE) of academic speaking (5). We can see the same phenomenon continuing if we go down the rank order list, with bifurcation slowly increasing as we move down, as is normal in corpus data (Mauranen 2012). (5) ELF (ELFA) 1. I don’t know 2. a lot of 3. I think that 4. one of the 5. and so on 6. you have to 7. there is a 8. I think it’s 9. the the the 10. a little bit

ENL (MICASE) I don’t know a lot of one of the a little bit you have to this is the this is a in terms of I don’t think some of the

These trigrams are in essence conventionalized phraseological units, or in slightly different phrasing, multi-word units of meaning. They are important building blocks of discourse. They cut across the traditional division of vocabulary and grammar as they combine elements from lexis and structure in creating meaning. They are also frequent, and as for instance Wray (2002) has shown, contribute to fluency and predictability in ways that facilitate processing for both speakers and hearers. A third strategy that speakers engage in is approximation, already touched upon above. Approximations that are sufficiently close to their target may not pose too much difficulty for a hearer to construct the meaning from the elements that are there. This proximity can show in form, as in (6), or in meaning, as in (7). In other words, the approximation can rest on either semantic or formal grounds. (6) . . . the potentional clients may not have (‘potential’) . . . the new generation of youngers have been a force for changes (‘youth’) . . . and the town prouded them pri- prouded itself of prided itself of being an artists’ town (‘prided itself on’)

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(7) . . . the main impediment in front of the gender movement (‘impediment to’) . . . germany as one of the biggest members of course of the EU as the entrance gate for russian energy flows (‘gateway’) . . . electoral rights are not natural born rights of individuals (‘birthright’) . . . the war has finished now (‘ended’) Multi-word units play an important role in rescuing the comprehensibility of approximations. If the more dispensable elements do not quite fall into line with prescriptive rules of Standard English, they may still survive without difficulty embedded in multi-word units. Approximative items stand a good chance of being understood if they give a sufficient hint of what the target item might be. Take (8) as an example: (8) to put the end on it This expression did not stir up any communicative turbulence in its original context, and it is easy to see why. The unit is of equal length to an equivalent standard expression (‘to put an end to it’), the key vocabulary items (put and end) are the same and in the same order, and it appears in a suitable function. These factors combine to form an identifiable schematic whole, which enables an interlocutor to assign a meaning to it. Thus the minor elements can vary within the whole without disrupting communication. This process is very similar to that described in, for example, Wray (2002), even though she confines her discussion to well-formed formulaic expressions that ENL speakers prefer. The point here is that the match does not have to be perfect in order to work with the same effectiveness. This also contributes to understanding why such frequent items as articles and prepositions can become dispensable: they very often appear as part of multi-word units, and therefore come under the protection of the schematic whole. Therefore, they can vary more than one might expect on the grounds of their frequency and their nature as function words alone. Discourse and interaction Moving on beyond clause-internal phenomena, the first step upwards is the syntax of the sentence. The characteristic syntactic strategy in ELF speech is enhanced explicitness, which is manifest in the prominent use of certain structures, particularly those hearer-friendly strategies that throw the discourse topic into sharp relief, such as ‘headers’ or ‘left dislocation’ (9), and its mirror image, ‘tails’ or ‘right dislocation’ (10).

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Anna Mauranen (9) . . . wealthy people they are opposed to this monopoly insurance system . . . Pippi Longstocking she’s extremely strong (10) . . . and they are in very tight control those alcoholics . . . he says this is our greatest problem the the regional tensions

Both syntactic devices involve the moving of the lexical topic referent outside the clause for prominence, and replacing it within the clause structure by a pro-form. Together, these structural means could be referred to as ‘negotiating referent’ (Ford et al. 2003) or ‘topic negotiation’ (Mauranen 2012). Rephrasing and reformulation (11) are also effective means of boosting clarity and explicitness, and so is metadiscourse (12). (11) . . . because of the poor nutrition level this poor diet the whole standard of living was poor . . . (12) well i have another point or or observation rather that i think could be mentioned . . . Beyond the sentence is the broader context of text or interaction. The unfolding discourse provides clues for sense-making for conversationalists; we make hypotheses of what is to follow in discourse on the basis of what has been said up to that point. Such predictions need to be checked in the light of what actually does get said, but relatively little will suffice for confirming or disconfirming our guesses. In this way, processing languages that are less well entrenched in the speaker’s mind resembles listening in less than perfect conditions. Speakers cooperate to achieve mutual intelligibility and to co-construct coherent discourse, and many scholars have noted the pronounced propensity of ELF speakers to engage in cooperative behaviour. In (13) we see collaborative completion as an illustrative example of cooperation in ELF. (13) S6: yeah (S5: yeah) they could go yeah and also they increased the time for er parental [er] S1: [parental] leave S6: [yeah yeah and] (S1: [yeah yeah]) so for for for men [they] . . .

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Here S6’s hesitation (er) seems to trigger S1’s helping response, which completes the term (parental leave) S1 was apparently in need of. As a final step to wider contexts, ELF speech shows speakers making use of their shared cultural resources. Some of these are manifest in simple linguistic borrowing, as in (14), and in academic environments these borrowed items are often terms, such as here. (14) . . . if that m- mentalité if that s- social fabric surrounding it doesn’t work, then . . . this tradition of ostpolitik is that this really demands for steady erm talks dialogue and cooperation Sometimes the culturally transmitted resources point to older origins, with the same or similar expressions known in many cultures. In these cases (15), it is not so important to follow the exact conventional English form to share the meaning across speakers and linguistic resources. (15) . . . a way of controlling us sort of eh I don’t know divide and govern sort of a thing . . . I don’t know what’s the hen and what’s the egg As this section has illustrated, ELF features can be seen at many levels of language, and successful communication is clearly an outcome of the interplay of several different strategies that speakers draw on to achieve mutual intelligibility and to jointly construct communication. ELF speech shows that in terms of linguistic systems, processes of simplification and complexification are both at work, and there is no reason to assume that an overarching simplification of English will result from its expanding second-language use. However, we can expect further changes to take place. The typical approximations that are found in ELF have the effect of enhancing the inherent fuzziness in language processing, and it also serves to loosen up conventionalized units. Such loosening paves the way for new preferences. The next section illustrates how this may be taking place.

What does ELF contribute to English? It would seem that at the very heart of ELF-induced changes in English are phraseological sequences, or multi-word units of meaning. Their crucial role in holistic processing was already outlined above, and the current section illustrates with an example how new preferences arise in connection with units

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of this kind. A multi-word unit of meaning that is common in academic discourses, particularly in presentations, consists of the fixed unit let me and a verb of communication (let me + Vcomm), as in let me say a few words about the solution. A number of different communicative verbs can occupy the Vcomm slot, but some are preferred over others, or more frequent. In the ELFA corpus, the top frequency verbs are GO, ASK, SAY, TELL, PUT, BEGIN, and ADD, in this order. If we again make a comparison with the MICASE corpus, the verb list is the following: TELL, GIVE, ASK, SAY, LOOK, TAKE, and SHOW. What these preferences show is that a preference for TELL, ASK and SAY is shared. Moreover, in addition to these verbs, which in themselves carry communicative import, both lists also include generic verbs (GIVE, TAKE, and SHOW in MICASE and GO, PUT, and BEGIN in ELFA), which are more context-dependent, and have other senses in addition to the communicative. This finding goes against the assumption that more generic-sense verbs are used in ELF than ENL as tentatively reported in Seidlhofer (2004). Both corpora also manifest a number of one-off occurrences, which shows that both ELF and ENL speakers exploit the resources of English creatively for their purposes. Staying with the same example, let me say a few words about the solution, but moving to look at a different part of it, we can observe another characteristic tendency in ELF. This time let us look at ENL (MICASE) first. A corpus search of words about brings up a fixed cluster, as we can see in the concordance lines in (16). (16) gonna say a few words about why this problem is difficult let me say a few words about the solution. um . . . in my conclude with a few words about Hilbert and his problems just a few words about the planning committee solve, and a few words about the solution, and then In contrast, what we see in ELFA is more variety (17). (17) can be delay also in that er then a few words about the restrictions, you have parts of some some places er first few words about the background er this thanks well can you say couple of words about the sources or the reference you have you have done, then some words about the thickness of the book then if we open book er say some words about the nomenclature that you you are (xx) . (xx xx) okay er some words about the state of the art in verified with experiments and some words about er the aspects the contents influences of er the past , now some words about the problem (xx) er I’m at last I’m going to, say some words about the library information so way yeah most important then some words about app- theoretical approach

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But looking at (17), there is not only more variety showing the break-up of a fixed conventional ENL cluster, but also a new preference arising: some words about was the most frequent expression in the ELF data. Vetchinnikova (2014) has carried out an in-depth investigation of second-language users’ adoption of multi-word units of meaning, observing the processes of approximation and the settling on a particular alternative; she calls this tendency to settle on an expression ‘fixing’. The present instances come from different speakers on separate occasions and with vastly different first language backgrounds. This is an illustrative example of other similar cases in ELFA (Mauranen 2012); it shows how ELF ushers in new phraseological practices and expressions. In this way, through processes of approximation and fixing, we can assume English frequency patterns gradually undergo changes, with the effect of altering people’s perceptions of use. This presumably spreads new preference patterns among speakers.

Where is English going? In conclusion, this chapter has given a brief glimpse into the processes that English is currently undergoing in the hands of its major new speaker group, people using it as a lingua franca. The language contact that is involved was seen to be of an unusually complex kind, second-order language contact between similects, as was suggested. Despite certain crucial differences between similects and dialects, there are also distinct affinities: like dialect contact, similect contact also means contact between mutually comprehensible varieties, or lects. It can reasonably be assumed that contact of this kind is far less dramatic than contact between two different languages. The processes of dialect contact, such as simplification, dialect levelling and reallocation (Trudgill 1986) can be assumed to appear in ELF as well. Some indications of these were already perceptible, the clearest tendency being that of simplification, which presumably is the easiest to detect at early stages of contact. However, simplification was not without its counterpart, complexification, even in those morphosyntactic instances where it was discernible. Lexical simplification was somewhat surprising, and it certainly suggests further questions to be explored with regard to particular kinds and circumstances of language contact. It is reasonable to assume that dialect levelling, that is the loss of marked and minority forms, is likely to affect certain facets of Inner Circle Englishes, and that the first victim is likely to be opaque idioms. This is very hard to observe taking place, because what does not appear is obviously not detectable. Idioms are largely local and vary between Inner Circle countries as well, so that increasing contact between their varieties is in itself likely to result in levelling in this respect. Here we already saw plausible processes in operation that are likely to bring about change in currently conventionalized multi-word units of meaning: approximation and fixing. A facet of changing English that has been little researched hitherto is written text. Academic publishing is likely to exert a strong influence on the practices

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and changing perceptions of ‘good text’. For the moment, the biggest country in scientific publishing is the USA (Royal Society 2011), but close on its heels is China, which has already surpassed the UK, and Japan ranks fifth on this list, after Germany and followed by France. The fast risers are expected to come from rising economies. We shall soon be seeing a world of English as a lingua franca on a different footing in academic publishing. English will keep changing as it has done throughout its history, with second-language users as an increasingly important influence in the heavily globalized contemporary world. It is unlikely to supplant local languages in its function as a lingua franca, but to complement the linguistic diversity that lives on locally and regionally. The rate of change is harder to foresee – language change never takes place at constant speed – but one might surmise that the magic number of three generations, which holds for a variety of social changes, including language shift, might be something to go on in predicting major changes in the use and forms of English. At present, we are really talking about the first global generation of ELF, if we date it back to roughly the adoption of the Internet. The one thing we can predict with certainty is that English will keep changing.

References Ammon, U. 2007. Global scientific communication: Open questions and policy suggestions. AILA Review 20, 123–133. Bolton, K. and M. Kuteeva 2012. English as an academic language at a Swedish university: parallel language use and the ‘threat’ of English. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 33(5), 429–447. Canagarajah, A. S. 2002. The Geopolitics of Academic Writing. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh. Carli, A. and U. Ammon (eds) 2007. Linguistic Inequality in Scientific Communication Today. AILA Review, Vol. 20. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Dabrowska, E. 2004. Language, Mind and Brain. Some Psychological and Neurological Constraints on Theories of Grammar. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Dewey, M. 2006. English as a Lingua Franca: An Empirical Study of Innovation in Lexis and Grammar. Unpublished PhD thesis: King’s College, University of London. Firth, A. 1996. The discursive accomplishment of normality: On ‘lingua franca’ English and conversation analysis. Journal of Pragmatics 26, 237–259. Flowerdew, J. 2008. Scholarly writers who use English as an additional language: what can Goffman’s stigma tell us? Journal of English for Academic Purposes 7, 77–86. Ford, C. E., B. A. Fox and S. A. Thompson 2003. Social interaction and grammar. In M. Tomasello (ed.), The New Psychology of Language, Vol. 2. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, pp. 119–143. Gentil, G. and J. Séror 2014. Canada has two official languages – or does it? Case studies of Canadian scholars’ language choices and practices in disseminating knowledge. Journal of English for Academic Purposes 13, 17–30. Haberland, H. 2005. Domains and domain loss. In P. Preisler, A. Fabricius, H. Haberland, S. Kjærbeck and K. Risager (eds), The Consequences of Mobility: Linguistic and Sociocultural Contact Zones. Roskilde: University of Roskilde, pp. 227–237.

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Harder, P. (ed.) 2009. English in Denmark: Language Policy, Internationalization and University Teaching. Angles on the English-speaking World, Vol. 9. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press. House, J. 2002. Communicating in English as a lingua franca. In S. S. Foster-Cohen, T. Ruthenberg and M.-L. Poschen (eds), EUROSLA Yearbook 2, Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 243–261. Jansson, E. (ed.) 2008. Vetenskapsengelska – med sensk kvalitet? Stockholm: Språkrådet. Jenkins, J. 2000. The Phonology of English as an International Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 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. 2009. Pre-empting problems of understanding in English as a lingua franca. In A. Mauranen and E. Ranta (eds) English as a Lingua Franca. Studies and Findings. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 107–123. Lillis, T. and M. J. Curry 2010. Academic Writing in a Global Context. The Politics and Practices of Publishing in English. London: Routledge. McGrath, L. 2014. Parallel language use in academic and outreach publication: A case study of policy and practice. Journal of English for Academic Purposes 13, 5–16. Madsen, M. 2008. “Der vil altid være brug for dansk” – en undersøgelse af 11 naturvidenskabelige forskeres grunde til at vælge henholdsvis dansk og engelsk i deres arbejde. Københavnerstudier i tosprogethed, Bind 48. Copenhagen: København Universitet. Mauranen, A. 2006. Signaling and preventing misunderstanding in English as lingua franca communication. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 177, 123–150. Mauranen, A. 2007. Why translate if you can read the original? In R. Jääskeläinen, T. Puurtinen and H. Stotesbury (eds), Text, Processes and Corpora: Research Inspired by Sonja Tirkkonen-Condit. Joensuu: Publications of the Savonlinna School of Translation Studies, pp. 3–24. Mauranen, A. 2012. Exploring ELF: Academic English Shaped by Non-Native Speakers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pagel, M. and R. Mace 2004. The cultural wealth of nations. Nature 428, 275–278. Phillipson, R. 1992. Linguistic Imperialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pietikäinen, K. 2014. Avoiding and overcoming misunderstandings in private ELF conversations. Paper presented at ELF7, the Seventh International Conference of English as a Lingua Franca, Athens, Greece, 4–6 September 2014. Quirk, R. 1985. The English language in a global context. In R. Quirk and H. G. Widdowson (eds), English in the World: Teaching and Learning the Language and Literatures. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 1–6. Royal Society 2011. Knowledge, Networks and Nations. London: The Royal Society. Seidlhofer, B. 2004. Research perspectives on teaching English as a lingua franca. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 24, 209–239. Seidlhofer, B. 2011. Understanding English as a Lingua Franca. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Thomason, S. G. 2001. Language Contact. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Trudgill, P. 1986. Dialects in Contact. Oxford: Blackwell.

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Trudgill, P. 2011. Sociolinguistic Typology. Social Determinants of Linguistic Complexity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Vetchinnikova, S. 2014. Second-Language Lexis and the Idiom Principle. PhD thesis: University of Helsinki. Wächter, B. 2008. Teaching in English on the rise in European higher education. International Higher Education 52(3), available at: www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/soe/ cihe/newsletter/ihe_pdf/ihe52.pdf Weber, G. 1997/2008. The world’s 10 most important languages. Language Monthly, 3, 12–18. Available at: www.andaman.org/BOOK/reprints/weber/rep-weber.htm Wray, A. 2002. Formulaic Language and the Lexicon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Yang, J. 2011. Is Proper English Dying? And Should Us Care? Wall Street Journal, October 29, 2011. Available at: http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2011/10/29/ is-proper-english-dying-and-should-us-care

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The unmarking trend in language changes and its implications for English as a lingua franca Yasukata Yano

Language is irregular and particular Language is notoriously complex and illogical with irregularity and particularity in form, meaning and function. In English, for example, shortbread is not bread but biscuit or cookies, sweetmeats are not meat but candies, and sweetbreads are not sweets nor bread but the thymus or the pancreas of a calf or sheep, eaten as food. Not all plural suffixes are –(e)s. The plural form of knife is knives, that of man is men, that of mouse is mice, that of ox is oxen and that of sheep is sheep. The spelling of the agentive suffix also varies – that in avatar, beggar and liar are spelled –ar and actor, editor and visitor are spelled –or while their regular form is –er. A word can be regarded both as singular and plural depending on how it is conceptualized. When jury is thought of as a court function, it is singular as in The jury has finally reached its conclusion, but when twelve laypersons at the court are referred to, it is plural, as in The jury have returned a verdict of guilty. There are many reasons why particularity and irregularity have arisen. One is that we acquire and use language along with social norms and cultural traditions which are uniquely shared by members of the community and which are reinforced through the family, the school and the workplace (Yano 2010: 135). Particularity is abundantly observed in culture-specific set phrases such as idioms and metaphors. The expression not cricket in Their treatment of staff is definitely not cricket, for example, is hard to understand unless you are well acquainted with the old British cultural tradition. A piece of cake in Getting rid of him will be a piece of cake, is also difficult to figure out unless you are familiar with American culture. English spread to other regions and developed into uniquely local varieties. Even among English-as-a-mother-tongue regions such as Britain, North America and Australia, different words and phrases are used to express the same concepts and entities, as is shown below, where potato crisps in British English is potato chips in American English and potato chips in British English is French fries in American English. Pavement in British English is sidewalk in American English, and footpath in Australian English (Yano 2010: 139):

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Yasukata Yano BrE lift potato crisps potato chips sheep pavement beer friend field scrounger woman vest

NAmE elevator potato chips French fries sidewalk

undershirt

AustralE

jumbuck footpath amber fluid mate paddock bludger Sheila singlet

In the regions where English is used as a second language, a lot more varieties of expressions are in use as is shown below. Informally an insignificant person is small beer in British English, small potatoes in American English, but small radishes in South Asian English. In Southeast Asian English, being sensitive is onion-skinned, gender is brought in as cousin brother or cousin sister (Honna et al. 2002). In African English, the article is omitted as in go to cinema and uncountable nouns are changed into countable as furnitures, informations and luggages (Kachru and Nelson 2006). Native speaker English Non-native speaker English small beer/small potatoes small radishes (Asian E) sensitive onion-skinned (Asian E) have butterflies in one’s stomach have a mouse in the chest (Asian E) cousin cousin brother/sister (Asian E) Please repeat it. Come again. (Asian E) make one’s body hot heaty (Asian E) live put up (Asian E) go to the cinema/movies go to cinema (African E) furniture, information furnitures, informations (African E) (based on Honna et al. 2002 and Kachru and Nelson 2006) Another cause of chaotic and inconsistent irregularity and particularity is that language has enriched its lexicon by borrowing from other languages, especially languages like English that have had frequent and massive contact with other languages for centuries. A cursory look at the English lexicon tells us that the language has a German skeleton but international flesh, as is shown below (Yano 2013a: 111). symposium sky ballet Dachshund

Classic Greek/Latin Scandinavian Italian/French German

The unmarking trend in language changes 49 shish kebab jumbo perestroika intifada sushi orangutan

Turkish Gullah (Gola tribe in Liberia in West Africa?) Russian Arabic Japanese Malay

Among words imported from French, word-final [t] of restaurant is pronounced while that of ballet and beret is not. Meat such as beef, pork and mutton could have been regularly expressed as cow meat, pig meat and sheep meat if we did not have the massive inflow of Old French into English after the Norman Conquest. Still another cause is that language changes in the course of time. The word nice, for example, currently means ‘pleasant, enjoyable or attractive’ and it is hardly offensive to say ‘Oh, you are a nice person’, unless it is used in a specifically ironical context. Its origin, the Latin escium (‘ignorant’) came into English through Old French around 1300 as nyce, changed to nice, but still meant ‘simple, stupid, dull’. We had to wait until the eighteenth century for the word to come to mean what we know today (Kenkyusha’s New EnglishJapanese Dictionary, 5th edn, 1980, henceforth Kenkyusha’s). The word gay, coming from Old French, began to be used in English at the beginning of the fourteenth century in the meaning of ‘happy and cheerful’ but in the 1950s the word also came to mean ‘homosexual’. Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edn, 1989 (henceforth OED) entered the homosexual meaning as slang (originally US), but the editions that were revised in the twenty-first century of dictionaries such as the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, 6th edn, 2007 (henceforth SOED), the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, 8th edn, 2010 (henceforth OALD), the COBUILD English Dictionary for Advanced Learners, 3rd edn, 2001 (henceforth COBUILD) and the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English for Advanced Learners, 6th edn, 2014 (henceforth LONGMAN), placed the homosexual meaning first and labelled the original ‘happy and cheerful’ meaning ‘old-fashioned’. Yet another cause is scientific/technological innovations that require new or modified expressions and meanings for newly created concepts and entities. Aerospace technology has sent astronauts to the space station for decades. Eventually, earthrise and earthset will join the set of sunrise, sunset and moonrise, moonset when space travel becomes common. A blue rose was a symbol of impossibility because no specialist had been able to produce roses of that colour. In 2004, however, Japanese firm Suntory genetically created a blue rose by using a pansy’s blue pigment after 14 years of experiments. The blue roses were on the market in November 2009 (International Herald Tribune, 25 June 2013). When they become common, they no longer will symbolize impossibility. The spread of mobile phones added new meanings and functions such as the noun text, written messages sent by mobile phone, as in Send a text to this number, please and the verb text, the act of sending written messages

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by it, as in Kids seem to be texting non-stop these days. This new use was not included in the OED but is in the editions revised after 2000 such as SOED, LONGMAN and OALD. These editions also enter e-mail, Facebook, SMS (Short Message Services) and Twitter both as noun, meaning messages sent by the Internet and social networking services as in Send me an e-mail/Facebook/ SMS/Twitter, and as a verb, the act of sending messages by these services as in He e-mailed/Facebooked/SMSed/twittered or tweeted me.

Unmarking trend in language changes As has been observed above, irregular and particular exceptions have been made in the spatiotemporal changes. At the same time, there have been forces working to make language regular and general because language is essentially rule-governed. Regularity implies the existence of rules, which native speakers internalize and through which they use the language while non-native speakers learn those rules and on whose conscious knowledge they use the language. I call the regularizing and generalizing forces the ‘unmarking’ trend that is observed both in English and Japanese (Yano 1984; 2013b; 2014). In this unmarking process, the ‘marked’ (irregular and/or particular) forms, semantic meanings and functions gradually change to those of the ‘unmarked’ (regular and/or general) ones after a certain period of transition. The unmarking is generally seen in informal and innovative contexts such as advertising, commercial and other fields of mass media while the marked tends to remain in use in formal and conservative contexts such as academic and scientific/ technological circles. Compare the American spellings with those of British as shown below. For example, we notice that the former is more unmarked than the latter from the perspective that the primary function of spelling is to visually record speech sounds as faithfully as possible. The spelling did not catch up with sound changes in the history of the language and the gap between the two is wide; even the educated native speakers cannot spell every speech sound automatically (Yano 2013a: 114). BrE spelling centre, theatre honour, labour programme realise

NAmE spelling center, theater honor, labor program realize

A similar unmarking trend can be found in the spelling in such words as hifi for high fidelity, hi-jack for high jack and hi-tech for high-technology, where the silent gh is deleted. The OED recognizes them as standard with the note that it is frequently used in advertising and commercial slogans. The OED also takes up nite for night and notes that the spelling is ‘an arbitrary respelling of NIGHT and a widespread vulgarism’, while the SOED simply refers to it as

The unmarking trend in language changes 51 ‘colloquial, chiefly North America’, indicating the change of recognition of new spellings in the intervening 18 years after the publication of the OED. Thru for through in THRU TRAFFIC is already a well conventionalized spelling as a highway sign in North America. The COBUILD enters thru with a note ‘it is sometimes used as written abbreviation for through [mainly American]’, the SOED as ‘non-standard’ and the LONGMAN and the OALD as ‘North American, informal’. We can see that unmarked spellings are increasingly accepted over the course of time. The plural suffix also shows interesting changes. A mass of people who are not necessarily familiar with grammatical correctness help regularize forms, at times overriding the correct usage of the time. A vegetable pea, for example, is a back formation in the early seventeenth century from pease by mistakenly taking the –se as the regular plural suffix (Kenkyusha’s and the OED). The –s of biceps also tends to be taken by mistake as the plural suffix and used as plural as in Your biceps are the large muscles at the front of the upper part of your arms (COBUILD). More recently data and media, the plural forms of datum and medium of Latin origin are taken, again by mistake, as singular because they do not end with the regular plural suffix –(e)s. Regarding data, the OED simply says it is the plural form of datum, but takes up media and notes that it is used erroneously as singular and gives two sentences from American Speech III. 26 (1927): It was finally decided to allot a definite media to each member. One of the best advertising medias in the middle west. The LONGMAN, OALD and SOED, which have been revised in this century, suggest that data is used as a singular noun in informal everyday English, as in This data was collected from 69 countries (OALD), but as plural in conservative formal and academic English, as in These data show that most cancers are detected as a result of clinical follow-up (OALD). Regarding media, these dictionaries simply refer to the fact that it is used both as singular and plural, as in The media was/were accused of influencing the final decision (OALD). As in the case of pea and biceps, ordinary people apply the regular plural suffix –(e)s in interpreting and using words with such irregular suffixes and eventually this regularization will penetrate into formal and academic uses of English (see also Mauranen, Chapter 3, this volume). This unmarking transition can be observed in the marked plural suffix of Greek/Latin origin shown below (Yano 2007: 40; 2013a: 115): sg. corpus formula syllabus symposium

pl. (old) corpora formulae syllabi symposia

pl. (new) corpuses formulas syllabuses symposiums

The OED does not include the new regular plural suffix with a note in parenthesis (rarely symposiums), but the SOED includes both old and new

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suffixes, indicating that regularization advanced during the intervening years since the OED was published. The OALD also enters both old and new plural suffixes and in the case of formula and syllabus, the new form (formulas and syllabuses) comes first, with a note that formulae is especially in scientific use and syllabi is less frequent. The LONGMAN indicates that the new regular form is more widely used by placing the new form first, as in corpuses or corpora, formulas or formulae, and symposiums or symposia (there is no mention of the plural form of syllabus). Because dictionaries are compiled on the basis of a corpus of language of the time and give definitions and accounts of meanings and uses, they faithfully reflect the language changes in form, semantic meaning and function. Dictionaries, therefore, give us clues to predict that in the future such orthography as high and through, which does not reflect the present pronunciation, will be replaced by unmarked spellings such as hi and thru. The irregular agentive suffix –ar and –or will also be regularized into –er. Such irregular plural forms as fish, knives, lice, men, oxen and sheep will also be regularized into fishes, knifes, louses, mans, oxes and sheeps for ease of use, but how long the transition will take remains to be seen. The irregular singular forms datum and medium will become obsolete some time in the future. Data and media are already widely used as singular nouns. Recently revised editions of dictionaries have deleted such notes as ‘North American’ and ‘informal’ and that indicates the unmarked form is penetrating into formal, academic, and all phases of language use and also beyond regional varieties such as British, North American and Australian Englishes. We will find datas and medias as new regular plural forms sooner than we expect. For generations to come, however, we will have a period of transition when new unmarked forms tend to be used in informal speaking and writing and for such proper names as those of new products, events and matters as corpuses, syllabuses, nite, thru and Walkmans, while conventional ones will be kept in academic, scientific and technological and other specialized fields as corpora, syllabi, night and through. The unmarking trend also has generalizing forces, i.e. semantic and functional changes from particular to general. For example, proper names and trademarks of particular products such as BAND-AID, Kleenex, Scotch tape, Sellotape and Xerox are now common nouns indicating any medical bandage for a small wound or cut, any kind of tissue, any kind of plastic tape to stick things together, and any copying machines. Such words as terribly and terrific also broadened their meanings from ‘frightening’ and ‘terrifying’ to indicate just a degree of intensity. Terrific in She’s doing a terrific job doesn’t mean a horrible job and terribly in I’m terribly happy to see you doesn’t mean I am terrified to see you. What is noticeable lately is what can be called the ‘countabilization’ of such uncountable nouns as advices, baggages/luggages, documentations, educations, evidences, findings, furnitures, informations, medias, recognitions, spendings. It is debatable whether this phenomenon is a part of unmarking, but there are

The unmarking trend in language changes 53 a number of reasons to believe it is. First, the countabilization is observed in non-native speaker Englishes in Africa (Kachru and Nelson 2006), in Asia (Kirkpatrick 2010) and in Europe (Seidlhofer 2011). Non-native speaker Englishes are inevitably under the influence of their mother tongues and if we can prove that these concepts and entities, which are expressed by uncountable nouns in native speaker English, are expressed by countable nouns in the majority of non-native English speakers’ mother tongues, we can argue that counting is unmarked, i.e. basic or possibly universal. Countabilization is also increasingly observed in native speaker English. One reason is the influence of non-native Englishes spoken by foreign people living or staying in English-speaking countries. Young people tend to accept nonnative speaker Englishes easily, such as the fixed tag isn’t it, as in You are happy, isn’t it? and pluralized advices, evidences, furnitures, informations, and so on as is referred to by Jenkins (2009). In London, for example, young people pick up South Asian English at electric shops on the Tottenham Court Road, where shop clerks are mostly from South Asia (the writer’s personal experience). Similarly pluralizing the uncountable nouns is reported among teenagers in Michigan (The New York Times, 21 September 2002). It can be the influence of non-native speaker Englishes spoken by immigrants and students from Africa, Asia and Europe. Another reason is the desire and need for brevity of expressions. In daily conversations we often hear such utterances as ‘Shall we have a beer?’, ‘Two coffees, please’ and ‘I got three advices from Prof. Brown on thesis writing this semester’. In these utterances, counters such as a glass of, two cups of, three pieces of are deleted and uncountable nouns such as beer, coffee and advice take over the counting role of deleted counters. The words such as beer, coffee and advice are mainly used as uncountable nouns, but their pluralization has spread too widely to brush away as an error. In fact brevity is essential in newspaper articles and advertising, and it is common to shorten such phrases as ‘make something commodities’ to commodify as in We commodified the English language. Some frequently appearing examples are digitize/digitalize, economize, energize, majoritize, mobilize, prioritize, privatize and wallpaper (‘So, how long until we can wallpaper the entire bedroom with business cards?’, The Japan Times, 11 May 2014). Changing other lexical categories to verbs for brevity takes place mostly from nouns to verbs, but occasionally other categories are involved. For example, ‘being made best’, the passive of ‘make something best’ is changed to bested, ‘make something better’ is changed to better, ‘make something ready’ to ready, and ‘shoot some flying object down’ to down as in: Bested in the living room, . . . (International New York Times, 5 December 2013) COMBINED OUR INSIGHTS NOT ONLY INFORM THE WORLD BUT ALSO BETTER IT (International Herald Tribune, 7 October 2013)

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Yasukata Yano Japanese troops demonstrated their skills readying the missile on Okinawa as part of a huge drill across the country that rattled China and ramped up tensions between Asia’s two largest economies. (The Japan Times, 8 December 2013) A couple of jet fighters were downed during the five-week rebellion. (COBUILD)

Still another reason is the shift of conceptualization between specific countable entities and general uncountable entities. In her presentation, ‘Hybridity in structure: Re-examining Singapore English grammar’, Lubina Alsagoff (World Englishes 2012, Hong Kong/Guangzhou, 6–8 December 2012) argued that which to use – uncountable equipment and furniture or countable equipments and furnitures – depends on how the speaker conceptualizes the entity and the conceptualization often shifts. The countabilization of uncountable nouns is penetrating into the day-to-day use of native and non-native speakers, and it will be recognized as ‘correct’ usage in the near future.

Unmarking trend and English as a lingua franca As English spreads to the world, regional varieties such as American, Indian and Nigerian Englishes have developed to meet the local needs. When the age of globalization comes, people of different linguistic, social and cultural backgrounds constantly interact with each other using English either face-toface, by telephone, TV conference system or Internet. Such uses of English as a global lingua franca have increased due to the unprecedented development of transportation and communication systems. In such interactions, unmarked features of language work as a shared common ground to make communication easy. Not only symposiums rather than symposia and media/medias rather than medium/media are easier to use because they are regular, not fair and it’s quite easy to do are easier to understand if you know the literal meaning of the words used (i.e. high semantic transparency) rather than not cricket and it’s a piece of cake, which are marked for the specific British and American cultures. What we communicate is communicable because it refers to shared linguistic forms, semantic meanings, functions as well as a stock of knowledge about the world that we share with other people (Yano 2010: 135). To borrow terms from a mathematical fraction, the modifiers American, Indian, Nigerian (marked) are the numerator with their respective uniqueness while the modified English (unmarked) is the denominator, which all those varieties share as the common basis as is illustrated in Figure 4.1 (Yano 2010: 143; 2013a: 117). In the use of English as a global lingua franca, each interaction varies depending upon the background of the interactants – regional, political, social, educational, lingua-cultural or whatever, yet what is shared as unmarked features

The unmarking trend in language changes 55

American, Indian, Nigerian, …

NUMERATOR (marked) culture-specific, local literacy

English

DENOMINATOR (unmarked) culture-general, global literacy

Figure 4.1 English as the numerator–denominator relation

of English helps to communicate better. On the other hand, culture-laden idioms and metaphors and other marked idiosyncrasies may not. English used as a global lingua franca has become the property of all users, not just of native speakers alone. Non-native speakers as well as native speakers need to contribute to regularizing and generalizing the English language so that it becomes the better means of international and cross-cultural communication. It will be significant, therefore, to collect data of unmarked features of both native and non-native speaker Englishes for pedagogical implications.

References COBUILD English Dictionary for Advanced Learners, 3rd edn. 2001. New York: Harper Collins. Honna, N., T. Tajima, T. Enokizono and T. Kawahara (eds) 2002. Ajia-eigo Jiten (Sanseido Dictionary of Asian Englishes). Tokyo: Sanseido. Jenkins, J. 2009. World Englishes: A Resource Book for Students, 2nd edn. London: Routledge. Kachru, Y. and C. L. Nelson 2006. World Englishes in Asian Contexts. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. Kirkpatrick, A. 2010. English as a Lingua Franca in ASEAN: A Multilingual Model. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. Kenkyusha’s New English–Japanese Dictionary, 5th edn. 1980. Tokyo: Kenkyuusha. Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English for Advanced Learners, 6th edn. 2014. London: Pearson Education. Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary, 8th edn. 2010. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edn. 1989. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Seidlhofer, B. 2011. Understanding English as a Lingua Franca. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Shorter Oxford University Dictionary on Historical Principles, 6th edn (two volumes). 2007. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Yano, Y. 1984. Eigo no Daimeishika to Nihongo no Zero-daimeishika: Sono Heikosei (Pronominalization in English and Zero-pronominalization in Japanese: Their Parallelism). Gakujutsu Kenkyu: Gaikokugo Gaikokubungaku-hen (The Scientific Researches: Foreign Language and Literature). Tokyo: Waseda University, XXXIII: pp. 57–69.

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Yano, Y. 2007. English as an international language: Its past, present, and future. In M. Nakano (ed.), On-Demand Internet Course Book: World Englishes and Miscommunications. Tokyo: Waseda University International, pp. 27–42. Yano, Y. 2010. Culture-specific or culture-general? Cultural differences in English expressions. Philippine Journal of Linguistics 41, 135–151. Yano, Y. 2013a. Universal language change: Toward more regular and more general. In English Teachers’ Association-Republic of China (ed.), Selected Papers from the Twenty-second International Symposium on English Teaching. Taipei: Clane Publishing, pp. 110–120. Yano, Y. 2013b. Honyaku ni okeru Fuka to Sakujo (Addition and deletion in translation). Nihongo to Jendaa (Japanese Language and Gender) Vol. XIII, 46l. X Yano, Y. 2014. Nihongo no Eiyaku ni miru Shououshi no Atsukai: Hoshi Shin’ichi Nokku no Oto ga (Treatment of anaphorics in translation: From Shin’ichi Hoshi There was a Knock). Nihongo to Jendaa (Japanese Language and Gender) Vol. XIV, 2–3.

Part II

ELF and its research in academic contexts

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Own-language use in academic discourse in English as a lingua franca Juliane House

Introduction A very large part of international communication in many domains of contemporary life is conducted today in English in its role as a global lingua franca (for recent overviews of the emergent field of English as a lingua franca (ELF), see e.g. Jenkins 2007; Seidlhofer 2011; Mauranen 2012; Cogo and Dewey 2012; Cogo and House 2014). One of the characteristics of ELF is its spread across many geographic, social and cultural areas and its openness to forms from other languages, particularly the mother tongues of ELF users. ELF users differ widely in terms of proficiency, background, motivation and purpose of using ELF. One might even go as far as saying that with every combination of speakers of German, Italian, Greek, French, etc. who make use of ELF in interactions of various kinds, a unique community of practice will be established. The most important feature of ELF is thus its immense variability (Firth 2009). The enormous formal and functional flexibility of ELF use coupled with its worldwide spread has led to another remarkable feature: that the number of non-native speakers of English is now substantially larger than its English native speakers, a tendency that is growing. English can therefore no longer be said to be ‘owned’ by its native speakers (Widdowson 2003). The importance of ELF interactions is constantly growing, but ELF users frequently maintain their differing national, regional, local and individual cultural identities as well as their L1 communicative preferences. In this way, ELF can be said to be used mainly as a medium for communication (House 2003), ELF users’ L1s being retained for identification and other purposes. In this chapter, I will summarize a case study that examines one of the consequences of the nature of ELF as a mere tool for communication, namely that such use opens the door for native language influence on ELF use. In what follows, I list the hypotheses underlying the study, the data, the method of analysis, the findings and their interpretation and discussion. Finally I will draw some conclusions.

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Hypotheses 1 2 3

In the ELF interactions to be investigated, transfer from interactants’ L1 will occur. L1 transfer will preferentially occur in the case of specific pragmatic markers, their forms and functions. Code-switching will not occur in these ELF institutional academic interactions.

Data The data for the current study stem from the Hamburg ELF project funded from 2008 to 2012 by the Volkswagen Foundation as part of its Germanywide study ‘Mehrsprachigkeit und Multikulturalitaet im Studium (MuMiS)’ (Multilingualism and Multiculturalism in the University). The Hamburg ELF project focuses on discourse pragmatics (see, for example, Baumgarten and House 2007, 2010; House 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014; House and LevyToedter 2010). The data consists of 47 dyadic and/or triadic ELF interactions between German academic advisors (professors (P) and their assistants (A)) and their international students (S) in the context of office hours lasting from 10 to 30 minutes. The data is audio-taped (with the researcher not being present) and transcribed using EXMARaLDA. When granted, post hoc interviews for collaborative interpretation were also conducted with the interactants on the basis of the audio data and the transcriptions.

Method of analysis Discourse analysis was used with particular reference to Edmondson’s (1981) model for the analysis of spoken discourse, Edmondson and House’s (1981) interactional grammar of English and the categories developed in the framework of the Cross-Cultural Speech Act Project (CCSARP) (Blum-Kulka et al. (eds) 1989).

Findings An examination of the presence of German as L1 of several of the interactants in the data has revealed the following: 1 2 3 4

The three variants yes/yeah/ja are used with consistently differing functions. The marker so is used by speakers of German as L1 with German pronunciation in text-structuring and connecting functions. L1 communicative preferences and conventions are found to influence interactants’ use of ELF. Code-switching does occur and is found to be prevalent in certain discourse phases.

I will now elaborate on each of the above four findings in the following.

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Finding 1: The use of three variants yes/yeah/ja in ELF talk The three variants yes/yeah/ja are used with consistently differing functions. The German L1 pragmatic marker ja tends to be used as both an uptaker and a back-channel marker. Here are some examples of the functional variation in the use of the pragmatic marker yes/yeah/ja. Excerpt 1 P: okay next thing you know on the fourteenth of Ju June there is a German AUTag just for your [information] S: [AUTag nee] P: it’s where you are coming here S: it’s here at the TU? P: yes yes yes once a year there is a so-called AUTag . . . Excerpt 2 P: then you should also state this erm within your CV S: but it’s it’s also in my CV I mean (0.5) I don’t have any other erm records and erm what about for example do I need reference letters? P: yes if you ha:ve of course As we can see in data excerpts 1 and 2 above, the token yes seems to be preferred for use as a marker of agreement. On the other hand, the token yeah is used in this data much more regularly and in many more varied positions than the token yes. Of the three major functions of yeah in ELF talk suggested by Spielmann (2007) – agreeing, discourse structuring, backchannelling – it is the discourse structuring function via the use of yeah that predominates in the office hours data examined in this study. Yeah tends to be used in order to monitor and organize speakers’ own contributions to the talk, simultaneously taking up and taking in what their interlocutors have said, rather than to agree with their interlocutors’ moves. When using yeah, ELF speakers seem to be more self-oriented, i.e. they try to gain time both for coming to terms with their interlocutors’ move and for getting on with their own discourse planning and production. In Excerpt 3, yes is used to signal agreement and yeah to structure the discourse turn-initially. Excerpt 3 P: and we will send it erm to the man who is er supporting (soft) this (soft) S: under your name? P: yes S: so that will be be (0.5 sec) your okay endorsement P: yes this is my my my support yeah my recommendation S: allright that’s @@ that’s better

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Juliane House P: @@ S: yeah then erm well I just was talking to erm

In Excerpts 4 and 5 yeah is also used to fill perceived gaps and structure the discourse turn-internally and turn-finally. Excerpt 4 P: there there is uh one week where the building companies come to to to the university and they make some presentation and = S: = ahh this week yeah P: this one week erm yeah but I cannot do it I have to go (0.5 sec) here this week S: yeah the week of civil engineering yeah Excerpt 5 S: P: S: P:

because then it will be a very heavy heavy weight producter @@ erm yeah but erm you mentioned before a four level bridge no that wasn’t me yeah no what what you mentioned erm what subject in the past you have erm had in mind . . .

In Excerpt 5, the immediate juxtaposition of yeah and no shows that yeah is here not used to indicate simple agreement. Rather it acts as an uptaking and discourse structuring device. Over and above using the tokens yes and yeah, interactants in this office hours data are also found to fall back onto the use of their German native language ja. They use ja as a backchannel signal, or a so-called Go-on (Edmondson 1981), i.e. a marker with which the speaker tells his/her interlocutor that s/he is free to ‘go on talking’ because there will be no claim made on her/his turn by the speaker. Consider Excerpt 6: Excerpt 6: P: S: P: S: P: S: P: S:

you send the pdf file I think erm in pdf I read erm okay in computer but I don’t print the printing is is wrong only the printing or? I think only the printing [because] [jajaja] in my file is okay strange in in your file is okay in computer?

In Excerpt 6, the production by P of multiple German ja clearly functions as a backchannel marker, because S is undeterred by P’s insertion and continues with his move.

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Excerpt 7 S: erm I have currently I have prepared them in English= P: =ja S: and I also want send them too in German which I’ve not yet sent anywhere cause I’ve just prepared them with help of some [friends] P: [ja] S: and colleagues= P: =ja S: I should give a copy of that copy P: yes In Except 7, P’s use of the German token ja again shows that he is not challenging S’s turns but just signals to S that he should continue talking. So ELF speakers in this office hours talk seem to undertake a clear functional variation in the use of the tokens yes, yeah and code-switched German L1 ja. They use yes with maximal attention and awareness when they want to signal agreement, often in question–answer sequences. They use yeah with less awareness. Yeah can be said to indicate a speaker’s more automatic focus on the discourse progression monitoring his/her own utterance and signalling uptake to his/her interlocutor. And a speaker’s relapse into his/her L1 in producing the German token ja seems to be an indication of a heightened degree of automaticity, i.e. a state of relative ‘non-thinking’. All three variants can be said to index connectivity: they structure the discourse and provide linkage across and inside turns. While yes as a signal of agreement is mainly alter-oriented marking intersubjectivity, yeah acts as a self-prompt and an uptaker, and ja functions as a signal of L1 identity and an expression of solidarity with interactants who speak the same L1. Clearly, interactants in this academic consultation talk possess an important ‘slice’ of strategic competence in ELF talk. These findings are also supported in other ELF work (House 2010, 2011, 2013, 2014). Finding 2: The use of the marker so in ELF talk In this ELF data, the marker so is used by speakers of German as L1 with German pronunciation in text-structuring and connecting functions. So collocates overridingly frequently with pauses and hesitation markers in this data. Despite their morphological similarity, English so and German so seem to differ in their syntactic behaviour. English so is often used as a discourse marker, German so functions as an inferential and verificative connective. ELF speakers examined in this study were found to use so in connection with self-attentive matters. So is therefore not used with a strong interpersonal function, but rather acquires a predominantly text structuring and selfsupporting function, also acting as a stop-gap ‘fumble’ (Edmondson 1981), helping the speaker bridge emergent formulation problems. ELF speakers in

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the data on hand seem to employ so when they need a self-monitoring filler to prevent conversational breakdown. So thus tends to follow hesitation markers erm or hmm, or pauses of varying lengths. Interestingly, so also often collocates with the connector and. These co-occurrences can be taken as evidence for the use of so as a self-prompting strategy showing that the speaker closely monitors his/her output, marking his/her resumption of speech after hesitations and pauses both turn-initially and in mid-turn. Consider for example Excerpts 8 and 9: Excerpt 8 S: I actually better take some notes P: mhm (1sec) so: there is ONE one man er he is working for erm for [company 1] S: [mhm] P: [and] erm so he is erm in the erm working in (.) with the erm design and calculation of [company 1] P’s use of so in both his turns in Excerpt 8 is clearly not back-referenced to S’s announcement that he will take notes during their talk. Rather, following the hesitation signal mhm and the pause, the connector and and the hesitation marker erm, P seems to use so to ‘get himself going again’ and resume the train of thought expressed in his previous move: Excerpt 9 S: and ja I also have a question about that I mean I think erm (1.5) the erm procedures are a little different in Germany how do you generally apply to erm firms like this for [Diplomarbeit] P: [mhm mhm mhm] S: or master thesis P: okay S: is it just erm= P: =it should be at first a letter erm where you erm you are stating erm WHO who you are and what you are doing so you are studying at this university and in this in this program and erm so within this program you have a a module in composites and so you are interesting in the subject and you are asking erm erm for a a a a a subject a a a master thesis subject in this= S: =in this field yeah In his first use of so in Excerpt 9, P uses so in mid-turn, initiating an elaboration of the previous phrase ‘what you are doing’, i.e. using so to egg himself on with his explanation. In its second occurrence, so follows a hesitation marker, and in the third occurrence it follows the connector and – in both these cases so introduces further elaborations and explanations.

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Finding 3: The influence of communicative preferences and conventions on the interactants’ use of ELF L1 Communicative preferences and conventions are found to influence interactants’ use of ELF. This is evident in the following examples. Excerpt 10 Rejecting a Request S: Erm so it would be better if I had some erm feedback from some of the professors I was thinking but= P: =erm so you mean it should be helpful to have a letter? S: yees P: From me? S: (3 sec) P: NO it’s not usual to do so S: okay so P’s rejection of S’s (carefully formulated) request in the form of a raw negation NO is very direct, and this directness is in line with German communicative preferences, but not with Anglophone ones (House 2006). Here is another example of a transfer of L1 communicative preferences into ELF. Excerpt 11 Initiating a request A: So now your question? S: I need a statement stating my graded in erm (name of section) modules erm I already asked you last week A: YAAH but erm the problem always is that I have NO response from professor S: Oh yes A’s initiation of the request in Excerpt 11 is very direct, again showing transfer of German communicative norms into his use of ELF. Finding 4: The use of code-switching in ELF talk Code-switching does occur and is found to be prevalent in certain discourse phases, i.e. the phatic, routinized opening and closing phases of the interaction. Here is an example of code-switching which occurs in the opening phase of an advising session. Excerpt 12 A: also jetzt koennen wir dann ja mal anfangen (So now we can start) yeah okay so now let’s start

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Juliane House S: erm I want to ask you erm some questions about the new semester and how to erm get it together A: if I remember we have discussed about this before [and] S: yeah but I am not very sure I have understood all of it

In Excerpt 12, the assistant automatically launches into German at the very beginning of the advising session, but in the middle of his turn he switches – one can almost say ‘dutifully’ – into ELF, the institutionally prescribed code. And here is an example of code-switching in the closing phase of an advising session. Excerpt 13 P: Mister (name) has made some publication in Germany about this how he comes to this number this is for example the big discussion the be the debate about this number (.) it is something which must be in your thesis S: (fast) ja P: okay? For this YES and erm haben Sie noch was? Nee des is der erste Teil war fertig (is there something else? No this the first part is finished) S: ja In Excerpt 13, we can see that the professor code-switches into his native German at the end of the office hours interaction. In fact, through the act of code-switching he manages to effectively signal to the student that he now wishes to end the official (institutionally prescribed) English language interaction; the code-switched stretch thus functions as a pre-close.

Discussion 1

2

Hypothesis 1 is confirmed; hypothesis 2 is also confirmed for occurrence of German forms used as functional variants of English ones; hypothesis 3 is not confirmed: code switching does occur, and it does not occur randomly, but seems to be preferentially used in the routinized, phatic opening and closing phases of the interactions. Why should L1-related transfer cluster around pragmatic markers such as ja and so? The answer to this question might be found when one has a closer look at the nature of these pragmatic markers. Pragmatic markers are routinized linguistic items employed more or less automatically, without much conscious control, but more often than not expressing affective stance, and signalling inter-subjectivity and solidarity with co-L1 speakers present in the interaction. Given the nature and expression potential of pragmatic markers, it does not come as a surprise that they are especially prone to L1 transfer. Fall-back onto the L1 is also in line with the hypothesis that while ELF is used as a useful means for communication,

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4

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L1 functions as a fall-back language of identification, full of emotional and affective shadow meanings (Chafe 2003). Why should communicative preferences such as conventions of directness, politeness or explicitness be liable to be transferred from L1 to ELF? Such conventions are routinized, automatically operating below consciousness, which makes them open for transfer. Why should the occurrence of code-switching cluster around opening and closing phases? Both these phases are well known for their routinized, phatic character. Resorting to the L1 for a sort of Malinowskian ‘phatic communion’ seems thus a natural option. As with the type of ‘management talk’ that occurs at the beginning and at the end of instructional units, where foreign language teachers often code-switch from the foreign language into the L1 shared with their students (Edmondson and House 2011), in these ELF interactions, too, beginnings and endings of the talk are most likely to feature code-switching.

Conclusion Given the above results and discussion, it becomes clear that ELF speakers as in principle multilingual speakers are capable of making good use of their multilinguality by creatively drawing on their L1(s) in certain specifiable environments. As a case of multilingual discourse, ELF talk can be said to reveal an underlying complex, dynamic multilingual system (Larsen-Freeman 2012) that is essentially hybrid. Hybridity in ELF discourse is to be seen as something essentially positive, as border-crossing or even border-erasing. ELF hybrid discourse is made up of multiple voices revealing an ‘inner dialogicity’ and a type of Vygotskyan ‘languaging’, pointing to the ‘multicompetence’ of ELF users (Bassetti and Cook 2011: 171), and generally highlighting the reality of the cognitive-linguistic continuum that underlies any multilingual individual’s overt language use. Note: The transcription used in this chapter is simplified here for better readability. Capitals = [] ()

(. . .) (.) @ ?

emphasis latching overlap or translation into English of foreign language items description of verbal and non-verbal behaviour, length of pauses in seconds, translations of non-English utterances unclear very short pause laughter rising intonation

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: Bold highlighting

vowel lengthening phenomenon under discussion

Proper names are anonymized.

References Bassetti, B. and V. Cook 2011. Relating language and cognition: The second language user. In V. Cook and B. Bassetti (eds), Language and Bilingual Cognition. New York: Psychology Press, pp. 143–190. Baumgarten, N. and J. House 2007. Speaker stances in native and non-native English conversation. In J. ten Thije and L. Zeevaert (eds), Receptive Multilingualism. Linguistic Analyses, Language Policies and Didactic Concepts. Amsterdam: Benjamins, pp. 195–216. Baumgarten, N.and J. House 2010. ‘I think’ and ‘I don’t know’ in English as a lingua franca and native English discourse. Journal of Pragmatics 42(5), 1184–1200. Blum-Kulka, S, J. House and G. Kasper (eds) 1989. Cross-Cultural Pragmatics. Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Chafe, W. 2003. The translation paradox. In N. Baumgarten, C. Boettger, M. Motz and J. Probst (eds), Uebersetzen, Interkulturelle Kommunikation, Sprachenlernen und Sprachvermittlung. Festschrift fuer Juliane House zum 60. Geburtstag. Zeitschrift fuer Interkulturellen Fremdsprachenunterricht 8(2), 1–10. Cogo, A. and M. Dewey 2012. Analysing English as a Lingua Franca: A Corpus-Driven Investigation. London: Continuum. Cogo, A. and J. House, 2014. Intercultural pragmatics. In Routledge Handbook of Pragmatics. London: Routledge. Edmondson, W. J. 1981. Spoken Discourse: A Model for Analysis. London: Longman. Edmondson, W. J and J. House 1981. Let’s Talk and Talk About It. A Pedagogic Interactional Grammar of English. Müenchen: Urban & Schwarzenberg. Edmondson, W. J. and J. House 2011. Einfuehrung in die Sprachlehrforschung, 4th edn. Tuebingen: Francke (UTB). Firth, A. 2009. The lingua franca factor. Intercultural Pragmatics 6(2), 147–170. House, J. 2003. English as a lingua franca: A threat to multilingualism? Journal of Sociolinguistics 7(4), 556–578. House, J. 2006. Communicative styles in English and German. European Journal of English Studies 10(3), 249–267. House, J. 2010. The pragmatics of English as a lingua franca. In A. Trosborg (ed.), Handbook of Pragmatics, Vol. 7: Pragmatics across Languages and Cultures. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 363–387. House, J. 2011. Global and intercultural communication. In K. Aijmer and G. Andersen (eds), Handbook of Pragmatics, Vol. 5: Pragmatics of Society. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 363–390. House, J. 2012. Subjectivity in English lingua franca interactions. In N. Baumgarten, I. Du Bois and J. House (eds), Subjectivity in Language and Discourse. Bingley: Emerald Publishing, pp. 137–156. House, J. 2013. Developing pragmatic competence in English as a lingua franca: Using discourse markers to express (inter)subjectivity and connectivity. Journal of Pragmatics 59(Part A), 57–67.

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House, J. 2014. Managing academic discourse in English as a lingua franca. Functions of Language 21(1), 50–66. House, J. and M. Levy-Toedter 2010. Linguistic competence and professional identity in English medium instruction. In B. Meyer and B. Apfelbaum (eds), Multilingualism at Work. From Policies to Practices in Public, Medical and Business Settings. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 13–45. Jenkins, J. 2007. English as a Lingua Franca: Attitude and Identity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Larsen-Freeman, D. 2012. Complex, dynamic systems: A new transdisciplinary theme for applied linguistics? Language Teaching 25(2), 201–214. Mauranen, A. 2012. Exploring ELF: Academic English Shaped by Non-Native Speakers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Seidlhofer, B. 2011. Understanding English as a Lingua Franca. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Spielmann, D. 2007. English as a Lingua Franca: A Simplified Code? M.A. thesis: Universitaet Hamburg. Widdowson, H. 2003. Defining Issues in English Language Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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The use of unmitigated disagreement in ELF casual conversation Ensuring mutual understanding by providing correct information Mayu Konakahara

Introduction This chapter investigates how a face-threatening act of disagreeing is sequentially organized in casual conversation between international students studying at British universities. In the era of globalization, English is one of the dominant means of international communication in various settings today, British universities being one of the typical examples. Britain is the second most preferred country for studying abroad (Graddol 2006), and students come from various countries such as China, India, Nigeria and Germany (Higher Education Statistics Agency 2013). In such a lingua-culturally diverse setting, students – not only international but also British – construct mutual understanding and develop interpersonal relationships, using English as a lingua franca (ELF). A great deal of research into ELF interactions has revealed strategic language use of ELF speakers. For instance, it has been found that ELF users exploit a wide range of practices, such as repeating, rephrasing, utterance completion, backchannels, clarification and confirmation requests, in order to display agreement and cooperation with conversational partners, show engagement in the ongoing interactions, make themselves understood, and secure and ensure mutual understanding (Björkman 2011; Cogo 2009; Cogo and Dewey 2012; Firth 1996; House 2002a,b; Kalocsai 2011; Kaur 2009, 2011; Kordon 2006; Lichtkoppler 2007; Mauranen 2006, 2007, 2011; Meierkord 2000). Although a variety of practices such as mentioned above and their interactional functions have been revealed to a great extent, little is known about a practice of disagreeing in ELF interactions. On the other hand, research into conversation between Jewish-Americans (Schiffrin 1984) and Greeks (Tannen and Kakava 1992) demonstrates that disagreeing can also be used to display solidarity and intimacy between the interactants. Given a paucity of the investigation into such an aspect in ELF interactions, it is worth examining how ELF users from diverse lingua-cultural backgrounds exploit a practice of disagreeing to develop mutual understanding and interpersonal relationships with each other. In line with this argument, this chapter explores how disagreement is organized in ELF casual conversation, taking a conversation analytic approach.

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In what follows, I will firstly review and point out problems in previous studies on disagreement in ELF interactions and then briefly review theoretical underpinnings of the research on disagreement from politeness and conversation analytic perspectives. After introducing the present data, I will present and discuss two excerpts in great detail in order to illustrate how one type of unmitigated disagreement, i.e. the one produced without mitigation devices (Bjørge, 2012), contributes to the development of mutual understanding in ELF casual conversation.

Previous studies on disagreement in ELF interactions A great deal of research on ELF has repeatedly reported that ‘ELF interactions often are consensus-oriented, cooperative, and mutually supportive’ (Seidlhofer 2001: 143). This, however, does not mean that ELF interactions always are consensus-oriented. A few studies have reported the use of disagreement in ELF interactions although their findings are somewhat contradictory. For instance, Bjørge (2012) conducted a comparative study of linguistic forms for disagreeing in simulated business group meetings between graduate students in a Norwegian university and those appearing in business English textbooks. It was found that as a whole, the conversational data involved more use of mitigated disagreement, i.e. the one accompanied by delaying elements (e.g. yeah but, I’m sorry but, etc.) and supporting arguments (Bjørge 2012: 419–421), than unmitigated disagreement, i.e. the one taking the form of blunt contradictions frequently preceded by but (Bjørge 2012: 421–423). Bjørge’s (2012) research is the only study that specifically focuses on disagreement in ELF interactions. However, how various forms of the un/mitigated disagreement are interactionally used and what functions they serve in interactions remain unclear, her main interest lying in the investigation of linguistic forms for disagreeing, as also admitted by herself (Bjørge 2012: 425). In contrast House (2002a), in her discourse analytic research on ELF group discussion among four students in a German university, found the frequent use of unmitigated disagreement in addition to other findings such as idiosyncratic coherence between speakers’ turns.1 It was found that the interactants in her data rarely used discourse strategies such as disarming (e.g. I hate to contradict you . . . but) (Edmondson and House 1981; House 1996), but tended to employ ‘raw negation, addition, rejection and disagreements shunning delay, mitigation and other strategic, face-saving means’ (House 2002a: 254). Observing the same data set, House (2002b) argues that ELF users lack what she calls pragmatic fluency, i.e. they are unable to tell their intended meaning in an effective and coherent manner (House 2002b: 262). However, the pragmatic fluency here seems to be implicitly based on native-speaker norms, which results in viewing the performance of ELF users as deficit (i.e. what Kachru (1991), referring to Quirk’s position, terms deficit linguistics).2 Instead of assessing the performance of ELF users in light of the prefabricated native-speaker norms, it is crucial to examine whether un/mitigated

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disagreement (and other practices) causes any communication problems for interactants by examining a sequence of interactions. A conversation analytic approach, which incorporates a participant’s view in its analysis, seems suitable for this purpose. Another study that reports the use of disagreement in ELF interactions was conducted by Wolfartsberger (2011). In her conversation analytic study of simultaneous talk in ELF business group meetings in Vienna, Wolfartsberger found that the interactants showed strong disagreement by interrupting the current speaker’s talk. It was argued that in business negotiations, disagreement should be articulated instantly, not later, by the interactants because the argument would be irrelevant in the interactions otherwise (see also disagreement interruption in Murata 1994). To put it another way, the need for disambiguity rather than interpersonal alignment is a primary concern in business negotiation (Firth 2009; Wolfartsberger 2011), and thus, disagreement is an expected action among the interactants. Findings of this kind suggest that ELF users are not uncritically consensus-oriented, but efficient negotiators who can express their disagreement according to their emergent communicative needs. The above ELF studies only examined disagreement observed in outcomeoriented interactions such as (quasi-)business meetings and focus group discussion. This does not, however, mean that disagreeing only occurs in such interactions. It can occur even in less purposeful interactions such as casual conversation (i.e. phatic communion in Malinowski 1923). The use of disagreement is indeed observed in the present data of ELF casual conversation. Given that face negotiation is an important aspect of communication in addition to transmission of information (i.e. transactional and interactional functions of communication in Brown and Yule 1983), it is crucial to examine how a face-threatening act of disagreeing is carried out in casual conversation. This chapter, therefore, explores how a practice of disagreeing is sequentially organized and what interactional functions it serves in ELF casual conversation. A focus of this chapter is not on forms for disagreeing per se, but on interactional functions of such forms in talk-in-interaction (Seidlhofer 2009).

Theorizing disagreement: politeness and conversation analytic perspectives Agreement and disagreement have also been studied in the field of politeness. According to Brown and Levinson (1987), agreement is one of the positive politeness strategies, with which the speaker claims common ground with the conversational partner. Disagreement, on the other hand, is a face-threatening act (FTA) that threatens the hearer’s positive face (Brown and Levinson 1987: 66), and the speaker claims different points of view, opinions, attitude, knowledge or antipathy to the hearer. The degree of FTA of disagreeing can be softened by the use of mitigation devices such as token agreements, white lies or hedging opinions (Brown and Levinson 1987: 113–117).

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However, disagreement does not always convey negative connotations; its interpretation depends on the speech situation in which it occurs (Locher 2004). For example, disagreement is expected once the frame of argumentation is established in disputing (Kotthoff 1993), or it can be used to create intimacy in casual conversation between young speakers (Georgakopoulou 2001). This observation suggests that it is crucial to analyse in what kinds of situation disagreement occurs and what functions it serves in its interactional sequence (Angouri and Locher 2012). On the other hand, agreement and disagreement have also been extensively explored in accordance with Pomerantz’s (1984) notion of preference structure from a conversation analytic perspective. This notion is closely associated with adjacency pairs, which are sequences of two utterances that are ‘adjacent’, ‘produced by different speakers’, ‘ordered as a first part and second part’ and ‘typed, so that a particular first part requires a particular second (or range of second parts)’ (Levinson 1983: 303). The notion of preference does not mean psychological desires but structural likelihood of second pair part (SPP) of some adjacency pairs (Yule 1996: 79). SPPs that are oriented to as invited are referred to as preferred next actions, and their alternative, dispreferred next actions (Pomerantz 1984: 63). In the case of assessment, for instance, agreement is a preferred next action while disagreement is a dispreferred next action. Dispreferred responses are delayed between, within and/or across turns, which are signalled by dispreference markers, or mitigation devices, such as silence, clarification requests, partial repeats, hesitations (e.g. uh and well), weak agreements (e.g. yes but . . . ), accounts, and declination components that express declination of the first part of the pair in an indirect or mitigated manner (Levinson 1983; Pomerantz 1984; Schegloff 2007). However, it is also important to bear in mind that disagreement is not always a dispreferred response. For instance, in the case of self-deprecation, agreement is dispreferred while disagreement is preferred (Pomerantz 1984). This suggests that it is crucial to carefully examine how disagreement is sequentially organized by interactants on a moment-by-moment basis. In line with this argument, close attention will be paid to the verbal and non-verbal behaviours of interactants in the following analysis, examining how they treat disagreement within the interactions.

This study Method, participants and data The present data are part of the larger study that investigates casual conversation between international students studying at British universities. Participants of the present data (N=30) are from 14 different lingua-cultural backgrounds: Chinese (N=3), Greek (N=1), Iranian (N=1), Iraqi (N=1), Japanese (N=7), Libyan (N=1), Mexican (N=1), Pakistani (N=1), Polish (N=1), Spanish (N=1), Syrian (N=1), Taiwanese (N=6), Thai (N=4) and Vietnamese (N=1). The data

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comprise ten sets of audio and video recorded conversation, two of which were not video recorded at the request of the participants. The conversational data were collected during free conversation sessions, which were arranged as informal social gatherings or lunch breaks between two to four friends or acquaintances. This means that these data are not naturally occurring as preferred in conversation analytic research. Yet the researcher’s involvement and recordings were made as unobtrusive as possible (ten Have 2007) by choosing free conversation and recording it while the current author was a non-participant observer. Additional efforts made to ensure a relaxing and enjoyable atmosphere were grouping friends and acquaintances together and serving snacks and beverages. Indeed, some participants said that they had enjoyed talking after the recordings. In addition, the content of the conversation and the participants’ demonstrated orientation toward the context were natural in terms of how they interacted during recordings (Speer 2002; Speer and Hutchby 2003; ten Have 2007). Each session lasted 30 to 50 minutes. The data were transcribed using transcription conventions with standard orthography, which are frequently used in conversation analytic studies (e.g. Hepburn and Bolden 2013) (see Appendix A). In addition, information on gaze orientations and embodied actions, such as facial expressions and gestures, was incorporated when available and crucial for the analysis of the phenomenon in question (Heath and Luff 2013; Rossano 2013). Approximately 55 per cent of the recorded data were examined for the present analysis (225 minutes of 407 minutes). Findings and discussion Two types of disagreement were identified in the present data of ELF casual conversation. One is mitigated disagreement, which is produced with mitigation devices, and the other is unmitigated disagreement, which is produced without such devices (the terms adopted from Bjørge 2012). Table 6.1 summarizes functions of the two types of disagreement. Table 6.1 Functions of the two types of disagreement observed in the data

Agreement preferred

Agreement dispreferred

Mitigated disagreement

Unmitigated disagreement

A. To reject the suggestion offered by the prior speaker B. To supply an alternative view to the prior speaker’s assessment

C. To supply what s/he believes to be correct information that is different from the prior speaker’s D. To supply a positive assessment to the prior speaker’s self-deprecating assessment

Note: Types A, B and D in Table 6.1 are produced in line with Pomerantz’s (1984) notion of preference structure. On the other hand, Type C is not produced in line with the notion.

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It was found that whereas many instances of disagreement were produced in line with Pomerantz’s (1984) notion of preference structure, some instances of unmitigated disagreement did not conform to it. In the former case, when disagreeing, where agreement is ‘preferred’, a speaker mitigates the degree of FTA that derives from the rejection of the prior speaker’s suggestion or the denial of her/his assessment (i.e. Mitigated Disagreements A and B respectively in Table 6.1). When disagreeing, where agreement is ‘dispreferred’, a speaker immediately denies the prior speaker’s self-deprecation without using mitigation devices (i.e. Unmitigated Disagreement D in Table 6.1). These types of disagreement were produced in a face-saving way by mitigating the degree of FTA of disagreeing or by supplying a positive assessment to the self-deprecation. On the other hand, in the latter case, when disagreeing, where agreement is ‘preferred’, a speaker immediately denies what the prior speaker has said without using any mitigation devices and supplies what s/he believes to be correct information (see disagreement interruption in Murata, 1994) (i.e. Unmitigated Disagreement C in Table 6.1). Although this type of unmitigated disagreement does not conform to the preference structure, it is produced in line with the maxim of quality in Grice’s (1975) cooperative principle; it thereby serves to ensure mutual understanding by providing correct information. Due to space limitation, this chapter focuses on the latter type of unmitigated disagreement by presenting and discussing two excerpts in great detail. Excerpt 1 involves an example of unmitigated disagreement, which supplies correct information that is different from the prior speaker’s. Here, the interactants, GR, JP7 and LY, are course mates doing PhDs in different linguistic domains. From several turns prior to the excerpt, they have been talking about one of the former course mates of GR during her MA programme at the current university. As GR talks along, it is revealed that LY and JP7 are also acquainted with GR’s former course mate. In the following excerpt, they start to talk about his educational background. In the excerpt, a horizontal arrow next to the line number indicates the turn containing the disagreement in question (see Appendix A for the transcription conventions). Information on gaze orientation is shown as diagrams above individual talk (Rossano 2013) (see Appendix B), which are alphabetically labelled in each line where there is more than one diagram. The illustration of gestures is supplemented by photos (Heath and Luff 2013). These pieces of information are supplied only if they are crucial for the analysis. The interactants JP7, LY and GR are sitting from left to right in this order (see Excerpt 1). Here, an instance of unmitigated disagreement is observed in lines 6–7. GR corrects what LY has said about the former course mate’s educational background. What exactly LY says in line 3 is unfortunately inaudible due to the fast pace of the speech and the overlapping talk. Yet GR stops what she is saying (i.e. ‘but he was doi-’ in line 4) and starts to prepare for the imminent disagreement: she quickly breathes in, raises her chin, and lifts her left index finger after a click sound (i.e. ‘tch!’) followed by a micro pause (see Figure 6.1). In the next turn, LY and GR simultaneously start their turns

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Excerpt 1 Unmitigated disagreement supplying correct information GR’s former course mate [G(1); 4:51; 69-87 / GR, JP7, LY] 1

GR : so it was me and this two guys.

2

(0.5)

3

LY : [>(who’s he) [(****)

4

GR :

5

LY : [[because-]

6

GR : [[>n-no:::] no=no< he was a master studen=

7 8

students (**)fast< (talk) (***)

((info))

Double left-hand square brackets mark simultaneous starts. A single left-hand square bracket marks the onset of the overlapping talk. A single right-hand square bracket marks the end of overlapping talk. An equals mark indicates latching. A hyphen marks an abrupt cut-off. A dot in round brackets indicates micro pauses (0.1 to 0.2 s). The length of pauses of more than 0.2 s is specified in round brackets. A colon marks elongated sounds. Underlined fragments indicate speaker emphasis. A vertical upward or downward arrow marks a corresponding sharp shift to high or low pitch. A dot marks falling intonation. A question mark indicates a rising intonation. An inverse question mark indicates a slightly rising intonation. An underlined element followed by a colon marks an up–down contour through the word. A colon underlined marks pitch movement sliding up through the word. A series of ‘h’s preceded by a dot marks audible inhalation. A series of ‘h’s not preceded by a dot marks audible exhalation. Pound marks enclose utterances produced in smiley voice. ‘Tch’ followed by an exclamation mark indicates the sound of lip smacking. Degree signs enclose utterances produced softly. Signs of inequality enclose utterances produced in a fast rate of speech. Utterances in round brackets indicate uncertain hearings. Asterisks in round brackets indicate unrecoverable speech. The number of asterisks indicates the number of syllables involved where possible. Double round brackets enclose notes of contextual information and/or non-verbal behaviours.

Appendix B: Diagrams for gaze orientation Following Rossano’s (2013) conventions, gaze orientation is marked above the line of talk with arrows. Ovals symbolize individual interactants involved in the exchange of gaze. The names of the interactants are marked in the ovals. Some examples are listed below:

Disagreement in ELF casual conversation A

B

Mutual gaze.

A

B

A and B are looking down in front of them.

A

B

A looks at B. B looks down in front of her/him.

A

B

A turns toward B who is looking down in front of her/him.

A

B

B turns toward A who is already looking at B.

A

B

A raises gaze toward B who closes her/his eyes.

87

References Angouri, J. and M. A. Locher 2012. Theorising disagreement. Journal of Pragmatics 44(12), 1549–1553. Bjørge, A. K. 2012. Expressing disagreement in ELF business negotiations: Theory and practice. Applied Linguistics 33(4), 406–427. Björkman, B. 2011. Pragmatic strategies in English as an academic lingua franca: Ways of achieving communicative effectiveness? Journal of Pragmatics 43(4), 950–964. Brown, G. and G. Yule 1983. Discourse Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brown, P. and S. C. Levinson 1987. Politeness: Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cogo, A. 2009. Accommodating difference in ELF conversations: A study of pragmatic strategies. In A. Mauranen and E. Ranta (eds), English as a Lingua Franca: Studies and Findings. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 254–270. Cogo, A. and M. Dewey 2012. Analysing English as a Lingua Franca: A Corpus-driven Investigation. London: Continuum. Edmondson, W. J. and J. House 1981. Let’s Talk, and Talk About It. A Pedagogic Interactional Grammar of English. München: Urban & Schwarzenberg. Firth, A. 1996. The discursive accomplishment of normality: On ‘lingua franca’ English and conversation analysis. Journal of Pragmatics 26, 237–259. Firth, A. 2009. The lingua franca factor. Intercultural Pragmatics 6(2), 147–170. Georgakopoulou, A. 2001. Arguing about the future: On indirect disagreements in conversations. Journal of Pragmatics 33(12), 1881–1900. Goodwin, C. 1979. The interactive construction of a sentence in natural conversation. In G. Psathas (ed.), Everyday Language: Studies in Ethnomethodology. New York: Irvington Publishers, pp. 97–121. Graddol, D. 2006. English Next. London: The British Council.

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Grice, H. P. 1975. Logic and conversation. In A. P. Martinich (ed.), Philosophy of Language. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 165–175. Haddington, P. 2006. The organization of gaze and assessments as resources for stance taking. Text & Talk — An Interdisciplinary Journal of Language, Discourse Communication Studies 26(3), 281–328. Heath, C. and P. Luff 2013. Embodied action and organizational activity. In J. Sidnell and T. Stivers (eds), The Handbook of Conversation Analysis. Chichester, West Sussex; Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 283–307. Hepburn, A. and G. B. Bolden 2013. The conversation analytic approach to transcription. In J. Sidnell and T. Stivers (eds), The Handbook of Conversation Analysis. Chichester, West Sussex; Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 57–76. Heritage, J. 1984. A change-of-state token and aspects of its sequential placement. In J. M. Atkinson and J. Heritage (eds), Structures of Social Action: Studies in Conversation Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 299–345. Higher Education Statistics Agency 2013. Non-UK domicile students (PR184, Friday 11 January 2013). Available from: www.hesa.ac.uk/index.php?option=com_content& task=view&id=2663&itemid=161 [accessed 2 November 2013]. House, J. 1996. Developing pragmatic fluency in English as a foreign language: Routines and metapragmatic awareness. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 18(2), pp. 225–252. House, J. 2002a. Communicating in English as a lingua franca. EUROSLA Yearbook 2, 243–261. House, J. 2002b. Developing pragmatic competence in English as a lingua franca. In K. Knapp and C. Meierkord (eds), Lingua Franca Communication. Frankfurt am Main: Lang, pp. 246–267. Jefferson, G. 2006. A sketch of some orderly aspects of overlap in natural conversation. In P. Drew and J. Heritage (eds), Conversation Analysis. London: Sage, pp. 93–110. Kachru, B. B. 1991. Liberation linguistics and the Quirk Concern. English Today 7(01), 3–13. Kalocsai, K. 2011. The show of interpersonal involvement and the bulding of rapport in an ELF community of practice. In A. Archibald, A. Cogo and J. Jenkins (eds), Latest Trends in ELF Research. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 113–137. Kaur, J. 2009. English as a Lingua Franca: Co-constructing Understanding. Saarbrèucken: VDM Verlag Dr. Mèuller. Kaur, J. 2011. Raising explicitness through self-repair in English as a lingua franca. Journal of Pragmatics 43(11), 2704–2715. Kordon, K. 2006. ‘You are very good’ – establishing rapport in English as a lingua franca: the case of agreement tokens. Vienna English Working Papers 15(2), 58–82. Kotthoff, H. 1993. Disagreement and concession in disputes: On the context sensitivity of preference structures. Language in Society 22(02), 193–216. Levinson, S. C. 1983. Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lichtkoppler, J. 2007. ‘Male. Male.’ – ‘Male?’ – ‘The sex is male.’: The role of repetition in English as a lingua franca conversations. Vienna English Working Papers 16(1), 39–65. Locher, M. A. 2004. Power and Politeness in Action: Disagreements in Oral Communication. Berlin, New York: M. de Gruyter. Malinowski, B. 1923. The problem of meaning in primitive languages. In C. K. Ogden and I. A. Richards (eds), The Meaning of Meaning. London: A Harvest Book, pp. 296–336.

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Mauranen, A. 2006. Signaling and preventing misunderstanding in English as lingua franca communication. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 177, 123–150. Mauranen, A. 2007. Hybrid voices: English as the lingua franca of academics. In K. Flottum, T. Dahl and T. Kinn (eds), Language and Discipline Perspectives on Academic Discourse. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, pp. 243–259. Mauranen, A. 2011. English as the lingua franca of the academic world. In D. D. Belcher, A. M. Johns and B. Paltridge (eds), New Directions in English for Specific Purposes Research. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, pp. 94–117. McNeill, D. 1992. Hand and Mind: What Gestures Reveal about Thought. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Meierkord, C. 2000. Interpreting successful lingua franca interaction. An analysis of non-native/non-native small talk conversations in English. Linguistik Online, available from: www.linguistik-online.com/1_00/MEIERKOR.HTM [accessed 6 July 2009]. Murata, K. 1994. A Cross-Cultural Approach to the Analysis of Conversation and its Implications for Language Pedagogy. Tokyo: Liber Press. Pomerantz, A. 1984. Agreeing and disagreeing with assessments: Some features of preferred/dispreferred turn shapes. In J. M. Atkinson and J. Heritage (eds), Structures of Social Action: Studies in Conversation Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 57–101. Rossano, F. 2013. Gaze in conversation. In J. Sidnell and T. Stivers (eds), The Handbook of Conversation Analysis. Chichester, West Sussex; Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 308–329. Schegloff, E. A. 1984. On some gestures’ relation to talk. In J. M. Atkinson and J. Heritage (eds), Structures of Social Action: Studies in Conversation Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 266–296. Schegloff, E. A. 2007. Sequence Organization in Interaction. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press. Schegloff, E. A., G. Jefferson and H. Sacks 1977. The preference for self-correction in the organization of repair in conversation. Language 53(2), 361–382. Schiffrin, D. 1984. Jewish argument as sociability. Language in Society 13(3), 311–335. Seidlhofer, B. 2001. Closing a conceptual gap: the case for a description of English as a lingua franca. International Journal of Applied Linguistics 11, 133–158. Available at: www.univie.ac.at/voice/documents/seidlhofer_2001b.pdf Seidlhofer, B. 2009. Common ground and different realities: World Englishes and English as a lingua franca. World Englishes 28(2), 236–245. Speer, S. A. 2002. ‘Natural’ and ‘contrived’ data: A sustainable distinction? Discourse Studies 4(4), 511–525. Speer, S. A. and I. Hutchby 2003. From ethics to analytics: Aspects of participants’ orientations to the presence and relevance of recording devices. Sociology 37(2), 315–337. Tannen, D. and C. Kakava 1992. Power and solidarity in Modern Greek conversation: Disagreeing to agree. Journal of Modern Greek Studies 10(1), 11–34. Ten Have, P. 2007. Doing Conversation Analysis, 2nd edn. London: Sage. Wolfartsberger, A. 2011. ELF business/business ELF: Form and function in simultaneous speech. In A. Archibald, A. Cogo and J. Jenkins (eds), Latest Trends in ELF Research. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 163–183. Yule, G. 1996. Pragmatics. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press.

7

Analysing interruption sequences in ELF discussions Keiko Tsuchiya

Introduction English as a lingua franca (ELF) has been defined in many ways, such as ‘a role of English in communication between speakers from different L1s (first languages)’ (Jenkins 2000: 11, also cited in Jenkins 2007: 3), which is redefined as ‘English when it is used as a contact language between people from different first languages (including native English speakers)’ (Jenkins 2014: 2), or ‘any use of English among speakers of different languages for whom English is the communicative medium or choice, and often the only option’ (Seidlhofer 2011: 7). Corresponding to increasing use of English in internationalized business and academic/pedagogic settings, the paradigm in English education has gradually shifted from the norms of English as a Native Language (ENL) to ELF since the 1990s (Canagarajah 2006; Graddol 2006; Kachru et al. (eds) 2009; Kirkpatrick 2010a; Mauranen et al. 2010; Murata and Jenkins (eds) 2009; Seidlhofer 2004; Yano 2009). Simultaneously, the urgent ‘needs for description’ of ELF was claimed in linguistic research (Seidlhofer 2001: 140). Several studies have uncovered creative features of ELF (Cogo and Dewey 2012; Dewey 2007; Jenkins 2000, 2007; Seidlhofer 2011). In other studies, local practices in ELF in academic and business contexts (Firth 2009; Hynninen 2011; Kaur 2011; Mauranen 2012; Tsuchiya and Handford 2014) and the process of creating local norms (House 2003), focusing on discursive practices such as ‘collaborative discourse production’ to show ‘solidarity’ among ELF users, were examined. The current study analyses interruption sequences in ELF discussions in a pre-sessional English for Academic Purpose (EAP) course at a university in the UK in relation to negotiation of behavioural norms in the local community. In investigating these features, a corpus-based approach has been applied as a research methodology, where authentic use of languages (Carter and McCarthy 1997; Sinclair and Coulthard 1975) rather than explaining linguistic features using abstract example sentences has been highlighted. Corpora of naturally occurring conversations in English have been developed since the 1960s (Carter and McCarthy 2006; Chafe et al. 1991; Greenbaum and Svartvik 1990). In contrast to these British/American English-based spoken corpora

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which mostly store English of native speakers,1 recently a limited number of ELF corpora have been developed: the Vienna-Oxford International Corpus of English (VOICE), which stores about a million words of spoken ELF (Seidlhofer et al. 2011), the Asian Corpus of English (ACE) (Kirkpatrick 2010b), the English as a Lingua Franca in Academic setting (ELFA) corpus (Mauranen 2012), which compiles a million words of academic ELF, and Corpus A and Corpus B (Cogo and Dewey 2012), which comprise about 60 hour-long conversations in total among international students at universities in London. Based on these recent studies with ELF spoken corpora, the current study has developed a thousand-word miniature corpus of group discussions in ELF. It specifically compares interruption sequences in a group of Japanese speakers with groups of different nationalities in order to examine behavioural norms in ELF conversations (Bamgbose 1998, see details in the following section), using a corpus-driven discourse and conversation analysis.

Behavioural norms in ELF As briefly touched on in the preceding section, ‘behavioural norm’ is defined by Bamgbose (1998: 2) as follows, his other norms in ELF being ‘code norm’ and ‘feature norm’: Behavioural norm: the set of conventions that go with speaking including expected patterns of behaviour while interacting with others, the mode of interpreting what is said and attitudes in general to others’ manner of speaking. (Bamgbose 1998: 2) Bamgbose (1998) points out the importance of the behavioural norm which includes pragmatic and discourse aspects of language, although he also points out the centrality of the feature norm, in other words, linguistic elements. On the other hand, Mauranen (2003) also draws her attention to norms in ELF discourse and states as follows: [P]articular discourse communities using ELF might plausibly develop their own norms of use, that is, standards of what is acceptable, comprehensible, and adequate for efficient communication more or less spontaneously. In other words, self-regulatory mechanisms operate in shaping the communicative practice of the discourse community. (Mauranen 2003: 518) ELF users develop their behavioural norms in situ as Mauranen (2012: 52) maintains that ‘cooperativeness’ is frequently observed in ELF spoken discourse. Several other studies also evidence a cooperative nature in ELF conversations: House (2003: 566–568) compares an ELF interaction (four international

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students who are German, Korean, Chinese and Indonesian) with a native English interaction and another ELF interaction (German and English as L1s). Her study shows that (i) transfer of L1 convention into the ELF discourse is observed, (ii) frequent use of ‘represent’ (Edmondson 1981), which is repetition of a part of the previous speaker’s utterance, is identified, and (iii) the participants demonstrate solidarity and ‘consensus-orientation’ in the Asian ELF discourse. House (2003: 569) considers ‘the community of ELF speakers’ as ‘a consortium that is always constituted anew in any ongoing talk’, while Cogo and Dewey (2006) compile a corpus of 13-hour long ‘small talk conversations’ of ELF users including four main participants (French, German, Italian and Japanese) and report ‘accommodation’ and ‘explicitness’ as pragmatic features in the ELF discourse. In addition to cooperativeness, strategies to achieve mutual understanding, such as clarification, are recognized as other behavioural norms in ELF interaction. In ELF in academic settings, Kaur (2010) stored 15-hour long naturally occurring ELF spoken discourse in a master course in Kuala Lumpur and identified four strategies for mutual understanding in ELF: repetition, paraphrase, request for confirmation of understanding and request for clarification. In another study, Kaur (2011) also focuses on the strategy of explicitness in ELF using self-repair. Similarly, Hynninen (2011) developed the Studying in English as a Lingua Franca (SELF) corpus and found ELF users’ strategies of ‘mediation’, which is defined as follows: ‘co-participant starts rephrasing another participant’s turn that was addressed to a third party’ (Hynninen 2011: 965). Based on these previous studies, behavioural norms, in other words discursive practices in ELF discussions focusing, in particular, on interruption sequences, are examined here. The following section will review existing research on interruption.

Forms and functions of interruption Phenomena of interruption in conversation have been described in many studies and the question – What is interruption? – is still a controversial issue in the disciplines of psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics in relation to power and dominance in politics and gender (Beattie 1982; Tannen 1990; West and Zimmerman 1983). It is not my intention to establish a finer definition of interruption in the current study; however, what I mean by interruption needs to be defined in order to use it as a parameter for the comparison of discursive practices in the ELF group discussions. For that purpose, the key issues in previous research on interruption are reviewed here. West and Zimmerman (1983) distinguish interruption from overlap, regarding the former as intentional violation of the previous speaker’s utterances before transition relevant place (TRP, Sacks et al. 1974) and the latter as unintentional simultaneous utterances between speakers. In social psychology, Beattie (1982: 100–103) categorizes interruption into four types: ‘simple interruption (speaker switch before the first speaker’s utterance completion with

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simultaneous speech)’, ‘overlap (speaker switch after the first speaker’s utterance completion with simultaneous speech)’, ‘butting-in interruption (simultaneous speech without speaker switch)’ and ‘silent interruption (speaker switch before the first speaker’s utterance completion without simultaneous speech)’ (also cited in Hutchby and Wooffitt, 2008 [1988]: 110). In conversation analysis, Murray (1985) considers contextual and habitual aspects in the use of interruption and suggests that simultaneous speech is not necessarily recognized as interruption. Jefferson (1986: 168) also identified cooperative overlap called ‘recognitional onset’, where the next speaker starts their turn near the completion of the previous turn (also cited in Hutchby and Wooffitt 2008 [1988]: 112). Sacks et al. (1974: 731) named the phenomenon where there is ‘no interval between the end of a prior and start of a next piece of talk’ as ‘latching’ (also cited in Jefferson 2004: 44; Tannen 1981: 138). Tannen (1990: 192) also suggests that ‘an overlap – two voices talking at once – is not necessarily an interruption, that is, a violation of someone’s speaking rights’, identifying cooperative overlap, in other words, overlap without interruption. At the same time, Tannen includes some examples where interruptions occur without overlapping. In terms of contrastive studies in the use of interruption and overlap between English and Japanese, R. Hayashi (1988) compares the use of interruption in English and Japanese and reports the frequent use of ‘simultaneous talk’ in Japanese conversation, which is also described under other names such as ‘anticipatory completion’ (Tanaka 1999), ‘co-participant completion’ (Lerner and Takagi 1999), and ‘joint utterance construction’ focusing on ‘projectability’ (M. Hayashi 2003). These are similar concepts to ‘cooperative interruption’ introduced in Murata (1994). In her study, interruptions were categorized into two types: ‘cooperative interruption’ and ‘intrusive interruption’, the latter being categorized into three subcategories: ‘topic-changing interruption’, ‘floor-taking interruption’ and ‘disagreement interruption’. Konakahara (2012) examined ELF group discussions where international students from East Asian countries had a casual conversation and found that the utterance-initial conjunction but, which was overlapped with a prior turn, led to floor-taking and topic-changing interruptions. In order to define such complex phenomena of interruption as objectively as possible, in the current study I consider forms and functions of interruption separately. In terms of the forms of interruption, I define interruption here as any utterances which are overlapped with or start immediately after the previous utterance without overlapping, which is called ‘latching’ in Sacks et al. (1974), because latching seems to share similar functions with overlapping as indicated in Tannen (1990), but exclude minimal response tokens which function as continuers such as yeah or mhm (O’Keeffe and Adolphs 2008; O’Keeffe et al. 2007). I term interruption without obtaining a floor intra-turn interruption (ITI), and interruption leading to speaker change turn-initiating interruption (TII). Speaker turns are simply defined as any utterances with more than or equal to three words.

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Based on Murata (1994), functions of interruption are also classified into two categories: cooperative interruption (CI) and intrusive interruption (II). However, subcategories of CI and II were redefined here: II includes topic change and disagreement. These two categories are the same as defined in Murata (1994), but I excluded floor-taking interruption from the categories of functions of interruption because it relates to the forms of interruption in my working category stated above rather than the functions. In so doing, it is hoped that more detailed descriptions could be added to an instance of interruption, which, for example, can be categorized as floor-taking interruption as its form, and at the same time, interruption for topic change as its function. I defined four subcategories for CI based on the previous studies and the observations on the current data: (i) co-completion, which is a similar concept to Jefferson’s (1986) ‘recognitional onset’, (ii) clarification, which is equivalent to ‘request for clarification’ in Kaur (2010), (iii) pedagogic, which also functions as co-completion but especially for language support, and (iv) exclamation, which is co-participants’ involvement by expressing their surprise to the previous utterance. The latter two categories were developed through the analysis. II is related to co-participant’s intentional violation to the current floor holder’s speaking right, in other words, intrusiveness, whereas CI does not violate the current speaking right, rather demonstrates cooperativeness among co-participants. With the definition of interruption described above, forms and functions of interruption used in the current ELF discussions were analysed using a corpusdriven approach. The following section explains the data sets and research methodologies applied to the current study.

Research methods and data A corpus-driven discourse and conversation analysis was conducted using a thousand-word mini-corpus. The data were collected in a pre-sessional EAP course at a university in the UK in 2006. I recorded a discussion of Japanese speakers of English and discussions with mixed nationality groups which included more than one Japanese student for comparison. Most participants were young adults aged 19 to 30 years. They had studied on the course together for at least 2 months and were going to join undergraduate or graduate courses at universities in the UK after another 2-month EAP course. They were in an upper-intermediate class, which is the best class on the EAP course. Group 1 is a group of three Japanese participants, Miho, Taka and Hide (see Table 7.1). Miho and Taka had been in the UK for 2.5 months, and Hide for 1 year. Group 2 consists of two Libyan students (Ibrahim and Ahmed) and Hide, and Group 3 has Miho, Taka, Ana (Venezuelan) and Yun (Korean). The participants’ names were anonymized. These three discussions were recorded in two lessons on the same day. The discussion in Group 2 (two Libyans and

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Table 7.1 A list of participants Participants

Discussion topic

Group 1

Miho (female Japanese) Taka (male Japanese) Hide (male Japanese)

Gun crime: giving opinion (students are asked to exchange their opinions about gun crimes in groups)

Group 2

Hide (male Japanese) Ibrahim (male Libyan) Ahmed (male Libyan)

Child education: comprehension questions (students are checking answers for comprehension questions in the reading task about child education)

Group 3

Miho (female Japanese) Taka (male Japanese) Ana (female Venezuelan) Yun (female Korean)

Hierarchy at work: sharing experiences (students are asked to talk about hierarchy at work in their home countries, sharing their experiences as a part-time/full-time worker)

Hide) was recorded first, then the discussion in Group 1 (Japanese group) was recorded later in the same lesson. Only Group 3 (two Japanese, a Venezuelan and a Korean) was recorded in the second lesson. Because these discussions were recorded during actual lessons, the topics and durations of original data sets vary and a British teacher’s utterances were included. So, in order to exclude the teacher’s utterances, I extracted the first parts of the discussions where only the students were discussing in groups and cut the length of each extract to 4 minutes for comparison. Three 4-minute long transcriptions from the discussion data were analysed quantitatively and qualitatively. The audio-recorded group discussions were transcribed and time-stamped using an annotation software tool, Transana (Fassnacht and Woods 2002). Transcription conventions used in CANCODE (Adolphs 2006) were applied to the transcriptions.2 The number of the participants’ utterances and the time lengths of their turns were measured using the time-aligned corpus to obtain the overview of the data (Tsuchiya 2013). This is a corpus-driven approach (Tognini-Bonelli 2007), which enables researchers to identify areas for the detailed qualitative analysis using approaches in discourse and conversation analysis. Interruption here, as stated, includes both overlaps and latches, and forms of interruption are categorized into two: (i) intra-turn interruption (ITI) and (ii) turn-initiation interruption (TII). In terms of functions of interruption, two types of interruption sequences with six subcategories were identified through the data observation: (i) intrusive interruption (II), which includes topic change and disagreement, and (ii) cooperative interruption (CI), whose subcategories are co-completion, clarification, pedagogic and exclamation.

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Results and discussion The numbers of turns and words in the discussions To have an overview of the three group discussions, numbers of turns, words and speaking time of each participant are summarized in Tables 7.2, 7.3 and 7.4. As shown in Table 7.1 in the preceding section, three Japanese participants, Miho, Taka and Hide, are engaged in discussion in Group 1. Table 7.2 shows that the word counts and the number of turns in Miho and Taka in the discussion are almost the same, while the contribution of Hide is much less than the other two. The total word count in this 4-minute discussion is 242 words, which is about one-half of the other discussions. Miho’s words per turn, which is calculated by dividing the total word count by the number of turns, is 4.38 words per turn, and her time per turn, which is a value from the division of the total speaking time by the number of turns, is 2.83 s. These are similar to those of Taka and about double the number and the length of Hide. These figures indicate that this discussion is quieter and consists of fewer words with a large amount of pauses compared to the other two discussions, as seen in Tables 7.3 and 7.4. Hide and two Libyan students, Ibrahim and Ahmed, discuss in Group 2 (see Table 7.3). Hide’s participation in this discussion is, again, less than the others.

Table 7.2 Summary of Group 1

Miho (Japanese) Taka (Japanese) Hide (Japanese) Pause Total

Turn

Word count

Time

Word/ Turn (word)

Time/ turn (s)

29 21 4 – 54

127 105 10 – 242

0:01:22 0:00:55 0:00:06 0:01:37 0:04:00

4.38 5.00 2.50 – –

2.83 2.62 1.58 – –

Table 7.3 Summary of Group 2

Hide (Japanese) Ibrahim (Libyan) Ahmed (Libyan) Pause Total

Turn

Word count

Time

Word/ Turn (word)

Time/ turn (s)

10 36 35 – 81

33 299 154 – 486

0:00:19 0:02:05 0:01:07 0:00:29 0:04:00

3.30 8.31 4.40 – –

1.94 3.48 1.92 – –

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Table 7.4 Summary of Group 3

Miho (Japanese) Taka (Japanese) Ana (Venezuelan) Yun (Korean) Pause Total

Turn

Word count

Time

Word/ Turn (word)

Time/ turn (s)

4 15 18 21 – 58

6 75 219 169 – 469

0:00:03 0:00:38 0:01:51 0:01:24 0:00:04 0:04:00

1.50 5.00 12.17 8.06 – –

0.63 2.56 6.02 3.99 – –

However, the result cannot be interpreted as being that Japanese students tend to be quieter than other nationalities in these ELF discussions because Hide also speaks less in Group 1 than the other Japanese students. In fact, Hide has more turns in the discussion in Group 2 than in Group 1. This seems to indicate that Hide changed his behaviours between these two settings, which might be interpreted as his attempts to accommodate the behavioural norms of the other participants in each discussion. The numbers of turns of Ibrahim and Ahmed are almost the same. However, Ibrahim talks longer and more than Ahmed because his words per turn is 8.31, twice as many as those of Ahmed, and his total speaking time is about 2 minutes in the 4-minute discussion. The last data is Group 3 (see Table 7.4), where two Japanese participants, Taka and Miho, and Yun (Korean) and Ana (Venezuelan) have a discussion about hierarchy in working places in their countries. As shown in the table, the total number of words in Group 3 is 469, similar to Group 2. The total amount of pauses is only 4 s compared to 1 minute 37 s in Group 1 and 29 s in Group 2, which indicates the group seemed to have an active discussion. Yun has 21 turns, which is the highest in the group, while Ana has 18. However, Ana’s total speaking time is 0:01:51, which is the longest in the group. Taka also has 15 turns in total, but each of his turns is shorter than Yun and Ana’s because his time per turn is 2.56 s. Miho’s participation in the discussion in Group 3 is limited, while Miho participates more actively in Group 1. A possible reason for this is the topic of the discussion. They are asked to talk about hierarchy at work in their own cultures in the discussion in Group 3, sharing their own experiences at work. Miho, who is the youngest in the group and has less working experience, listens to the others talk first, although she does actually talk briefly about her experience at a parttime job after this 4-minute extract. From the numbers of turns, word counts and lengths of speaking time shown in Tables 7.2, 7.3 and 7.4, overall features in the three discussions were obtained, such as longer pauses in Group 1, i.e. the Japanese group, than the other two groups, and differences in the behaviours of Hide and Miho when they talked in Group 1 and in the other groups.

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The following sections investigate the use of interruption in each group qualitatively in relation to the forms and functions of interruption in order to have a closer look at their behaviours in the discussions. Forms of interruption As described in the preceding section, two forms of interruption sequences are defined: (1) intra-turn interruption (ITI) and (2) turn-initiation interruption (TII). Extract 1 is the beginning of the discussion in Group 1, where the students were given an advertisement which included a world map and statistic data of gun crimes in several countries, and asked to give opinions about the advertisement. Extract 1 Intra-turn interruption in Group 1 1 Miho 2 Taka 3 Miho

It’s not a good advertisement. laugh I think+|

4 Taka

|Why not?

5 Miho

|+because (.) United States one thousand nearly two se= thousand […]

Miho started with the statement in line 1, ‘It’s not a good advertisement’. Taka responds with laughter and Miho continues in line 3, saying ‘I think’, and immediately after that, while Miho continues her speaker turn, Taka inserted ‘Why not?’ in line 4 without taking the floor. Thus, Taka’s utterance here is taken as ITI since there is no speaker change. Extract 2 includes an example of TII. Hide, Ibrahim and Ahmed in Group 2 were asked to read a text about child education and check the answers for comprehension questions in group. Ibrahim takes a turn in line 1, ‘Number five C’, and the other two respond to him in lines 2 and 3. Extract 2 Turn-initiating interruption in Group 2 1 Ibrahim

Number five C.

2 Hide

C.

3 Ahmed

C.

4 Ibrahim

C.

5 Ahmed

Ah.

6 Hide

From this |sentence=

7 Ibrahim

|Okay this was a great honour for such a younger doctor.

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Ibrahim confirms the answer again in line 4, ‘C’, and Ahmed utters ‘Ah’ in line 5, which is a change-of-state token (Heritage 1984), as he seems to notice something from the text. Then, Hide takes the floor in line 6, saying ‘From this sentence=’, which is overlapped and cut off by Ibrahim’s interruption in line 7. I take this as TII since Ibrahim takes the floor with this interruption from the previous speaker, Hide. The numbers of forms of interruption in these three groups are shown in Table 7.5. Few interruption sequences are observed in Group 1, the Japanese group: five ITIs and just one TII. In contrast, Group 2 of two Libyans and one Japanese includes eight ITIs and 17 occurrences of TII. Group 3, the Korean, Venezuelan and Japanese Group, has eight ITIs, which is the same as Group 2, but only five TII, which is fewer than that of Group 2. Thus, the participants in Group 2 seem to initiate speaker turns with interruptions more frequently than those in the other two groups. Tables 7.6, 7.7 and 7.8 show the numbers of forms of interruption in each participant. Miho and Taka use ITIs twice and three times respectively in the four-minute discussion in Group 1, and only Taka uses TII once as shown in Table 7.6. There is no occurrence of interruption sequences in the both forms in Hide in Group 1. Extract 3 shows the only one occurrence of TII in Group 1. Extract 3 Turn-initiation interruption in Group 1 1 Taka

Mm. Maybe let’s move on next question.

2

(2.0)

3 Taka

Statistics. with slightly different pronunciation.

4

(2.0)

5 Miho

I can’t say that.| |Statistics are unbelievable.

6 Taka

Table 7.5 Forms of interruption

Group 1 Group 2 Group 3

Intra-turn interruption

Turn-initiation interruption

5 8 8

1 17 5

Table 7.6 Forms of interruption in Group 1 Group 1

Intra-turn interruption

Turn-initiation interruption

Miho (Japanese) Taka (Japanese) Hide (Japanese) Total

2 3 0 5

0 1 0 1

100 Keiko Tsuchiya Taka suggests moving on to the next question about statistics in line 1, which is followed by a 2 s pause. After the pause, Taka says ‘statistics’ with slightly different pronunciation. After another 2 s pause, Miho changes topics, shifting from the current topic of statistics in the text they are reading to Taka’s pronunciation, and addresses the difficulty in pronouncing the word ‘statistics’, saying ‘I can’t say that’. However, Taka does not respond to Miho and goes back to the previous topic about statistics immediately after her utterance, stating his opinion about statistics in line 6, ‘Statistics are unbelievable’, pronouncing ‘statistics’ in a better way. This is an instance of latching, which is also regarded as an interruption in this study, initiating a speaker turn, and is the only case of TII in Group 1. As described here, there are only six occurrences of interruptions observed in Group 1, most of which are categorized as ITIs. There are two ITIs and one TII in Hide’s utterances in Group 2 as shown in Table 7.7, which seems to differ from his behaviours in Group 1. Both Ibrahim and Ahmed use TII more frequently than ITI, using the former eight times respectively, while Ahmed uses ITI five times and Ibrahim once. Extract 4 is the case of Hide’s TII in Group 2. Here, Ahmed and Ibrahim have an argument about the meaning of the word aphonic in the text. Extract 4 Turn-initiation interruption in Group 2 1 Ahmed 2 Ibrahim 3 Ahmed 4 Hide 5 Ahmed 6 Hide 7 Ahmed 8 Hide 9

Atphonic. ‘aphonic’ with different pronunciation. I think something about phonetic.| |No. |Phonic? I take |about= | It’s= |it’s= |Mm? | |It’s= it’s= it’s specifically connecting in er only this paragraph.

In line 1, Ahmed pronounces the word with different pronunciation, ‘Atphonic’, and then Ibrahim shares his opinion in line 2, ‘I think something about phonetic’. Ahmed expresses disagreement in line 3 immediately, saying ‘No’, which is overlapped with Hide’s utterance ‘Phonic?’ in line 4. Then, Ahmed tries to continue his speaking turn in line 5, saying ‘I take about=’, Table 7.7 Forms of interruption in Group 2 Group 2

Intra-turn interruption

Turn-initiation interruption

Hide (Japanese) Ibrahim (Libyan) Ahmed (Libyan) Total

2 1 5 8

1 8 8 17

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which is interrupted by Hide’s repetitive phrases, ‘It’s = it’s=’ in line 6. Ahmed responds to Hide in line 7 with ‘Mm?’, which is again cut off by Hide’s utterance in line 8, where Hide finally takes the floor. I count this Hide’s continuous attempts for floor-taking using interruptions in lines 6 and 8 as one TII sequence since he takes a speaker turn in line 8. More instances of ITI are observed than TII in Group 3 as summarised in Table 7.8. One ITI and one TII are observed in Taka, but no instances of interruption are observed in Miho in Group 3. The Korean student, Yun, and the Venezuelan student, Ana, use the both forms in almost the same amount. Ana uses ITI four times and Yun, three, while Ana uses TII twice, which is the same as Yun. Table 7.8 Forms of interruption in Group 3 Group 3

Intra-turn interruption

Turn-initiation interruption

Miho (Japanese) Taka (Japanese) Ana (Venezuelan) Yun (Korean) Total

0 1 4 3 8

0 1 2 2 5

This sub-section mainly examined the use of forms of interruption in the three groups quantitatively. Fewer instances of turn-initiation interruption (TII) were observed in Group 1 (the Japanese group) and Group 3 (two Japanese, a Korean and a Venezuelan) compared with Group 2 (a Japanese and two Libyans). Occurrences of interruption sequences are analysed more qualitatively in the next section in relation to the functions of interruption. Functions of interruption As stated in the preceding section, I have distinguished forms from functions of interruption and examined them separately to have finer descriptions of complex phenomena of interruption. I define functions of interruption into two types, co-operative interruption (CI) and intrusive interruption (II), based on Murata (1994) but with different subcategories, which was established through the observation of the data here (see the preceding sections for details of the categorizations of the forms and functions of interruptions). Table 7.9 shows the numbers of occurrences of CI and II in each group. Table 7.9 Functions of interruption

Group 1 Group 2 Group 3

Co-operative

Intrusive

5 10 11

1 16 2

102 Keiko Tsuchiya As seen in the table, most of the occurrences in Group 1 are categorised into CI and only one case is categorised into II. This chimes in with Murata’s (1994) results in comparison of the use of interruption in dyad conversations of Japanese – Japanese students (J-J), Japanese – British students (J-B) and British – British students (B-B), reporting the J-J conversations have fewer occurrences of intrusive interruption than the others. Groups 2 and 3 have almost the same numbers of CI. In contrast, Group 2 has 16 occurrences of II while there are only two IIs in Group 3. This seems to indicate that Groups 1 and 3 seem to share features of cooperativeness more than Group 2. Co-operative interruption Occurrences of CI in the three groups are counted using the four subcategories, compared in Table 7.10, and also described qualitatively here. The number in the brackets in Table 7.10 indicates the instance of CI by one of the Japanese participants. Group 1 includes one instance of co-completion, and Group 3, five, while there is no instances of co-completion in Group 2. Extract 5 is the first part of the discussion in Group 3 and includes an example of co-completion. The group members were asked to talk about hierarchy at work in their own cultures. Extract 5 CI (Co-completion) in Group 3 1 Yun

What do you think?

2

(2.0)

3 Ana

Erm=

4 Yun

Erm that I realized there are a lot of tables+

5 Ana

Yes.

6 Yun

+ and it’s four table, there is kind of manager table (.) and I’m= I’m= er I was part time job worker (.) so then I was a part of four ta= table. (.) So it’s like the= the four tables for manager= manager has four tables and four tables part time job |workers+ |workers

7 Ana

Yun asks a question in line 1, ‘What do you think?’, which is followed by a 2 s pause. After the pause, Ana shows hesitation with a soft voice in line 3, Table 7.10 Cooperative interruption Cooperative

Group 1

Group 2

Group 3

Co-completion Clarification Pedagogic Exclamation Total

1 4 0 0 5

0 6 4 0 10

5 1 2 (1) 3 11

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then Yun starts her talk in line 4. Ana gives a continuer response token in line 5 and Yun continues to talk about her experience at work. When Yun says the last word in the utterance, ‘workers’, Ana also offers the term, overlapping with Yun’s utterance, ‘workers’. Ana anticipates the word and says the exact word together with Yun, which can be interpreted as showing cooperativeness as observed in Mauranen (2012). I take this instance as co-completion in CI. Four occurrences in the second subcategory, clarification, are observed in Group 1, six in Group 2, and only one in Group 3. Extract 1 in the previous section includes an example of clarification. Extract 1 CI (Clarification) in Group 1 1 Miho 2 Taka 3 Miho

It’s not a good advertisement. laugh I think+|

4 Taka

|Why not?

5 Miho

|+because (.) United States one thousand nearly two se= thousand […]

In the extract, Miho takes the floor and Taka inserts ‘Why not?’ in line 4, which is taken as clarification here. Extract 6 is another example of clarification, this time in Group 2. Extract 6 CI (Clarification) in Group 2 1 Ibrahim 2 Ahmed 3 Ibrahim

Number five, I think it’s C.| |Mm?| |Number five.

This is the first part of the discussion in Group 2. Ibrahim shares his answer with Hide and Ahmed in line 1, saying ‘Number five, I think it’s C.’ Ahmed responds with a clarification, ‘Mm?’, in line 2 with a rising tone, which I distinguish from a continuer (minimal response token) (O’Keeffe and Adolphs 2008) because of its noticeable prosodic features, i.e. the use of the rising tone. This is followed by Ibrahim’s response in line 3. Thus, I take this as clarification interruption (see the preceding section for details of the definition of interruption). I labelled instances of co-participants’ language supports to the current speaker as pedagogic in CI. Four occurrences in this subcategory are observed in Group 2 and two in Group 3 (see Table 7.10). The Japanese student uses interruption with pedagogic function once in the discussion in Group 3. Extract 7 is the only case of Taka’s pedagogic use of interruption.

104 Keiko Tsuchiya Extract 7 CI (Pedagogic) in Group 3 1 Yun 2 Ana 3 Yun

+and then er another manager managed= a kind of manager= four tables for manager. Mhm. and then I don’t know how to say in English but= it’s kind of well-organized. I think it’s kind of hi= hiera= ?| |Hier|archy. 4 Taka 5 Ana |Hierarchy.

This is the continuous talk from Extract 5 and Yun talks about the arrangement of the desks at work in Korea in line 1. In line 3, Yun tries to describe the hierarchical organisation but she seems not to be confident to say the word ‘hierarchy’. Then Taka and Ana give language support to Yun to pronounce the word ‘hierarchy’ with overlapping in lines 4 and 5. I take this as a pedagogic interruption. It is also categorized as a self-initiate other-repair in Schegloff et al. (1977). The last category is exclamation, which is observed three times in Group 3. Extract 8 includes these three occurrences of exclamation in Group 3. Extract 8 CI (Exclamation) in Group 3 1 Taka

In my case, when I taught students in a cram school erm=|

2 Yun 3 Taka 4 Yun 5 Taka

|Really? Yeah.| |Ah laugh Four years. | |Ah!

6 Yun 7 Taka

laugh

8 Yun

I didn’t know that. |

9 Taka

|Yeah when I was a university student erm my ro= erm

10

teacher’s room, erm we had a teacher’s room and then the leader’s desk is

11

separate+

In line 1, Taka starts talking about his experience at a cram school, which is interrupted by Yun’s showing her surprise, inserting an exclamation ‘Really?’ in line 2 by hearing the fact that Taka taught at a cram school before. Although it is the midst of his talk, Taka confirms that by saying ‘Yeah’ in line 3. Yun expresses her surprise again with ‘Ah!’ in line 4 and Taka responds with ‘Four years’ in line 5, which is followed by Yun’s third exclamation, ‘Ah!’ and Taka’s laughter. These exclamations are again latches and do not function as continuer response tokens, therefore I include them into a subcategory of CI.

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Intrusive interruption Intrusive interruption (II) is divided into two categories although there are three subcategories in II in Murata (1994) (see the preceding section for the definition of II). The first subcategory is topic change. There is one instance of topic change in Group 1, two in Group 2 and one in Group 3 (see Table 7.11). Again, the numbers in brackets indicate the instances of interruption by the Japanese participants. Extract 9 includes an occurrence of topic change interruption in Group 2 where the Libyan student, Ahmed, takes the floor in line 10, interrupting Hide’s slightly longer turn. Extract 9 II (Topic Change) in Group 2 1 Ahmed

Okay number number one.

2

(2.0)

3 Hide

I think (.) A, absolute= absolutely A.

4

(1.0)

5Ahmed

Why, why?

6 Hide

Because it’s= it’s all about the organization for children er with developmental

7

problems. It’s all about for schools and what kind of schools, it’s school for=

8

it’s school just er for er special case for er children, not all children. (.)

9

Children who have er mental problems or something like |that.

10 Ahmed 11

|Okay, do you know what does mean er atphonic? ‘aphonic’ with different pronunciation.

In line 1, Ahmed initiates the topic, which is checking the answers for question number one in the reading comprehension task they are engaged in. After a 2 s pause, Hide gives his idea, saying ‘I think (.) A, absolute= absolutely A’, which is followed by a second pause. Responding to Ahmed’s clarification, ‘Why, why?’, in line 5, Hide provides some explanation why he chose the answer in lines 6 to 9, which is interrupted by Ahmed in line 10. Ahmed terminates Hide’s explanation before the completion of his utterance, using a discourse marker for closing ‘okay’ (Carter and McCarthy, 2006), and then initiates a Table 7.11 Intrusive interruption Intrusive

Group 1

Group 2

Group 3

Topic change Disagreement Total

1 0 1

2 14 (2) 16

1 (1) 1 2

106 Keiko Tsuchiya new topic – what the term ‘aphonic’ means. Here Ahmed secures the floor with II, changing topics simultaneously. This interaction continues to the part in Extract 4. Fourteen occurrences of disagreement interruption are observed in Group 2, one in Group 3 and none in Group 1. Extract 10 is an instance of disagreement interruption in Group 2. Extract 10 II (Disagreement) in Group 2 1 Ibrahim 2 Ahmed 3 Ibrahim 4 Ahmed 5 Ibrahim

Okay this was a great honour for such a younger doctor.| |Where is it? Ah this one. Yeah, such a younger |doctor. |Wait a minute. It was= How about this one here, if you read the last paragraph. Okay read it.

This is the interaction after the part in Extract 6, where Ibrahim and Ahmed have an argument about the answer for the question number five. Ibrahim starts reading a part of the text in line 1, then Ahmed gives a clarification interruption in line 2, ‘Where is it? Ah this one’. Ibrahim responds to Ahmed in line 3, saying ‘Yeah, such a young doctor’, which is again interrupted and overlapped by Ahmed’s disagreement in line 4, ‘Wait a minute. It was= How about this one here’. The results from the analysis on the functions of interruption also seem to construe cooperativeness in Groups 1 and 3, and intrusiveness in Group 2 because Group 2 has more occurrences of II than CI, which is different from the other two groups.

Conclusion How researchers and teachers perceive ELF in English language learning and teaching is still controversial. Widdowson (1997: 139) states that ELF is not ‘distributed’ as a form that native speakers established but ‘spread’ as an adopted language, and points out the conflict between them: the former implies ‘conformity’, while the latter ‘non-conformity’ (also quoted in Seidlhofer 2001). In recent discussions, Seidlhofer (2012: 404) suggests that ‘ELF users use the code of English as a kind of “Open Source”’, which is the term adapted from software development and refers to programmes open to all engineers in the cyber space to make, copy and improve. I take the concept of ELF that Seidlhofer suggests as does Widdowson (2012), and considers ELF as practices which are created and recreated in a ‘third place’ (Bhabha 1994). In relation to this, Cogo (2012: 209) also describes three features of ELF as: ‘hybridity, fluidity, and variability’.

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However, the question still remains: what are practices in ELF? In order to add descriptions of practices in ELF, this study examined discursive practices in ELF discussions in an academic setting. The results from the quantitative analysis show that the discussion by the Japanese group, Group 1, includes fewer words and more pauses than the other two ELF discussions. The Japanese participants also talk less than other participants in ELF discussions in Groups 2 and 3 with mixed nationalities. In terms of forms and functions of interruption sequences, Groups 1 and 3 have more occurrences of ITI (intra-turn interruption) and CI (co-operative interruption) than TII (turn-initiation interruption) and II (intrusive interruption). This indicates that these two groups share the discursive practice of cooperativeness, which includes co-completion and language support by coparticipants as also identified by Mauranen (2012). By contrast, the results of Group 2 (two Libyans and one Japanese) is the opposite, and more occurrences of TII and II are observed than ITI and CI. This might imply that Group 2 adopts intrusiveness as their discursive practice rather than cooperativeness. This seems to be adaptation to the Libyan students’ discursive practices in their first language, which, in turn, also has an influence on Hide’s behaviours in the interaction as Hide uses II twice in the discussion in Group 2 (see the preceding section for the detailed analysis) while he uses no interruption in Group 1. Thus, discursive practices in ELF interactions seem to be created by coparticipants in a local situation where an ELF discussion holds. Ongoing negotiation of behavioural norms in ELF discussions are highlighted in this study. Several variables might have affected the results in this study such as the participants’ age, gender, nationality, and the topics of the discussions because the data was collected in ELF discussions in the classroom. Finer descriptions of ELF users’ discursive practices in local communities can be obtained with a larger-scale observation data set. Although it is preliminary, this study has also attempted to suggest an empirical analysis of interaction, integrating a corpus-driven quantitative approach with a more qualitative conversation analytic approach. It is hoped that this brings a better understanding of negotiation of behavioural norms in ELF discussions.

Notes 1

2

The terms native speakers of English and standard British/American English raise controversial issues (Pennycook 2001; Prodromou 2005). Native speakers of British/American English here refer to people who grew up and spent most of their lives in the UK/in the USA using British/American English as a medium of communication. The plus symbol + indicates a continuous sentence and the equal symbol = signals an unfinished sentence. indicates inaudible sounds and | indicates overlap between a previous speaker and a following speaker. . . . shows extralinguistic information including laughter and cough. (2.0) indicates an interval between utterances (2 s in this case) and (.) indicates a very short untimed pause.

108 Keiko Tsuchiya

References Adolphs, S. 2006. Introducing Electronic Text Analysis: A Practical Guide for Language and Literary Studies. London: Routledge. Bamgbose, A. 1998. Torn between the norms: innovations in world Englishes. World Englishes 17, 1–14. Beattie, G. W. 1982. Turn-taking and interruption in political interviews – Margaret Thatcher and Jim Callaghan compared and contrasted. Semiotica 39, 93–114. Bhabha, H. K. 1994. The Location of Culture. London: Routledge. Canagarajah, S. A. 2006. Negotiating the local in English as a lingua franca. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 26, 197–218. Carter, R. and M. McCarthy 1997. Exploring Spoken English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Carter, R. and M. McCarthy 2006. Cambridge Grammar of English: A Comprehensive Guide. Spoken and Written English Grammar and Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chafe, W. L., J. W. Du Bois and S. A. Thompson 1991. Towards a new corpus of spoken American English. In K. Ajimer and B. Altenberg (eds), English Corpus Linguistics: Studies in Honour of Jan Svartvik. Harlow: Longman, pp. 64–82. Cogo, A. 2012. ELF and super-diversity: a case study of ELF multilingual practices from a business context. Journal of English as a Lingua Franca 1(2), 287–313. Cogo, A. and M. Dewey 2006. Efficiency in ELF communication: from pragmatic motives to lexico-grammatical innovation. Nordic Journal of English Studies 5, 59–94. Cogo, A. and M. Dewey 2012. Analysing English as a Lingua Franca: A Corpus-driven Investigation. London: Continuum. Dewey, M. 2007. English as a lingua franca and globalization: an interconnected perspective. International Journal of Applied Linguistics 17, 332–354. Edmondson, W. 1981. Spoken Discourse: a Model for Analysis. London: Longman. Fassnacht, C. and D. Woods 2002. Transana. Version 2.12 – Win. Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin-Medison. Firth, A. 2009. Doing not being a foreign language learner: English as a lingua franca in the workplace and some implications for SLA. IRAL 47, 127–156. Graddol, D. 2006. English Next. London: British Council. Greenbaum, S. and J. Svartvik 1990. The London-Lund Corpus of Spoken English. In J. Svartvik (ed.), The London Corpus of Spoken English: Description and Research. Lund: Lund University Press, pp. 11–45. Hayashi, M. 2003. Joint Utterance Construction. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Hayashi, R. 1988. Simultaneous talk: from the perspective of floor management of English and Japanese speakers. World Englishes 7, 269–288. Heritage, J. 1984. A change-of-state token and aspects of its sequential placement. In M. J. Atkinson and J. Heritage (eds), Structures of Social Actions: Studies in Conversation Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. House, J. 2003. English as a lingua franca: a threat to multilingualism? Journal of Sociolinguistics 7, 556–578. Hutchby, I. and R. Wooffitt 2008. Conversation Analysis. 2nd edn. Cambridge: Polity Press. Hynninen, N. 2011. The practice of ‘mediation’ in English as a lingua franca interaction. Journal of Pragmatics 43, 965–977. Jefferson, G. 1986. Notes on ‘latency’ in overlap onset. Human Studies 9, 153–183.

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Jefferson, G. 2004. A sketch of some orderly aspects of overlap in natural conversation. In G. H. Lerner (ed.), Conversation Analysis: Studies from the First Generation. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Jenkins, J. 2000. The Phonology of English as an International Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jenkins, J. 2007. English as a Lingua Franca: Attitude and Identity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jenkins, J. 2014. English as a Lingua Franca in the International University – The Politics of Academic English Language Policy. Abingdon: Routledge. Kachru, B. B., Y. Kachru and C. L. Nelson (eds) 2009. The Handbook of World Englishes. Chichester: Blackwell Publishing. Kaur, J. 2010. Achieving mutual understanding in world Englishes. World Englishes 29, 192–208. Kaur, J. 2011. Raising explicitness through self-repair in English as a lingua franca. Journal of Pragmatics 43, 2704–2715. Kirkpatrick, A. 2010a. English as an Asian lingua franca and the multilingual model of ELT. Language Teaching 44, 212–224. Kirkpatrick, A. 2010b. Researching English as a lingua franca in Asia: the Asian Corpus of the English (ACE) project. Asian Englishes 13, 4–19. Konakahara, M. 2012. Conjunction but and floor-taking interruption in English as a lingua franca interaction. Essays on English Language and Literature 41, 7–19. Lerner, G. H. and T. Takagi 1999. On the place of linguistic resources in the organization of talk-in-interaction: a co-investigation of English and Japanese grammatical practices. Journal of Pragmatics 31, 49–75. Mauranen, A. 2003. The corpus of English as a lingua franca in academic settings. TESOL Quarterly 37, 513–527. Mauranen, A. 2012. Exploring ELF: Academic English Shaped by Non-Native Speakers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Mauranen, A., N. Hynninen and E. Ranta 2010. English as an academic lingua franca: The ELFA project. English for Specific Purposes 29, 183–190. Murata, K. 1994. Intrusive or co-operative?: A cross-cultural study of interruption. Journal of Pragmatics 21, 385–400. Murata, K. and J. Jenkins (eds) 2009. Global Englishes in Asian Contexts: Current and Future Debates. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Murray, S. O. 1985. Toward a model of members’ methods for recognizing interruptions. Language in Society 14, 31–40. O’Keeffe, A. and S. Adolphs 2008. Response tokens in British and Irish discourse. In K. P. Schneider and A. Barron (eds), Variational Pragmatics. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. xx–xx. O’Keeffe, A., M. McCarthy and R. Carter 2007. From Corpus to Classroom: Language Use and Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pennycook, A. 2001. Critical Applied Linguistics: A Critical Introduction. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Prodromou, L. 2005. ‘You See, It’s Sort of Tricky for the L2-user’: The Puzzle of Idiomaticity in English as Lingua Franca. Unpublished PhD thesis: The University of Nottingham. Sacks, H., E. A. Schegloff and G. Jefferson 1974. A simplest systematics for the organization of turn-taking for conversation. Language 50, 696–735.

110 Keiko Tsuchiya Schegloff, E. A., H. Jefferson and H. Sacks 1977. The preference for self-correction in the organization of repair in conversation. Language 53, 361–382. Seidlhofer, B. 2001. Closing a conceptual gap: the case for a description of English as a lingua franca. International Journal of Applied Linguistics 11, 133–158. Available at: www.univie.ac.at/voice/documents/seidlhofer_2001b.pdf Seidlhofer, B. 2004. Research perspectives on teaching English as a lingua franca. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 24, 209–239. 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, 393–407. Seidlhofer, B., A. Breiteneder, T. Klimpfinger, S. Majewski and M.-L. Pitzl 2011. ViennaOxford International Corpus of English (version 1.0). Sinclair, J. M. and M. Coulthard 1975. Towards an Analysis of Discourse: The English Used by Teachers and Pupils. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Tanaka, H. 1999. Turn-taking in Japanese Conversation: A Study in Grammar and Interaction. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Tannen, D. 1981. New York Jewish Conversation Style. International Journal of Sociology of Language 30, 133–149. Tannen, D. 1990. You Just Don’t Understand. New York: William Morrow. Tognini-Bonelli, E. 2007. The corpus-driven approach. In W. Teubert and R. Krishnamurthy (eds), Corpus Linguistics: Critical Concepts in Linguistics. London: Routledge. Tsuchiya, K. 2013. Listenership Behaviours in Intercultural Encounters: A Time-aligned Multimodal Corpus Analysis. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Tsuchiya, K. and M. Handford 2014. A corpus-driven analysis of repair in a professional ELF meeting: Not ‘letting it pass’. Journal of Pragmatics 64, 117–131. West, C. and D. H. Zimmerman 1983. Small insults: A study of interruptions in crosssex conversations between unacquainted persons. In B. Thorne, C. Kramarae, C. and N. Henley (eds), Language, Gender, and Society. Rowley, MA: Newbury House Publishers, Inc. Widdowson, H. G. 1997. EIL, ESL, EFL: global issues and local interests. World Englishes 16, 135–146. Widdowson, H. G. 2012. ELF and EFL: what’s the difference? Comments on Michael Swan. Journal of English as a Lingua Franca 2, 187–193. Yano, Y. 2009. English as an international lingua franca: from societal to individual. World Englishes 28, 246–255.

8

Dynamics of ELF communication in an English-medium academic context in Japan From EFL learners to ELF users Masakazu Iino Kumiko Murata

Introduction This chapter explores the use of ELF (English as a lingua franca) in a Japanese academic context, where English is formally used as a means of instruction and interaction. The programme is in line with the recent initiative taken by the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) in promoting more English-medium instruction at university (the Global 30 Program) as well as sending more Japanese students abroad to study (the Global Human Resource Development Program) to ‘internationalize’ Japanese universities in the wake of ever-deepening globalization. In this specific academic environment, where more than half the students’ enrolments are L1 Japanese speakers, who call themselves jun-Japa as a group category, students make extra efforts to demonstrate that they are using ELF to communicate with their classmates. This chapter, then, illustrates how jun-Japa as well as other students cooperatively establish a convivial learning environment, tactfully claiming their identities, effectively using ELF and varying strategies to strengthen their solidarity among their peers while enhancing understanding. A special focus will be placed on the gradual transformation of jun-Japa students from EFL learners to ELF users (see Seidlhofer 2011). This will be illustrated and discussed on the basis of data collected from participant observations, recordings of seminar presentations and discussions, focus group discussions and interviews, and subsequent qualitative discourse and content analyses. Before moving onto actual discussion of research findings, in the following section we will discuss a wider background to this research, including the recent change in the Japanese Government’s language policy.

112 Masakazu Iino and Kumiko Murata

Background to the research The Global 30 Program and the School of International Liberal Studies (SILS) at Waseda University As the entire world going through globalization, Japan has been experiencing a sense of unprecedented stagnation in the past two decades after the burst of bubble economy in the early 1990s, which is often called ‘two lost decades’ (MEXT 2011). The concept of ‘two lost decades’ is not only limited to economy, but it also permeates in people’s minds, especially in the college-age generation. For them, their entire life has been coincided with these two lost decades as they were born just around the time when the bubble economy burst. They have grown up without knowing the benefits of the economic boom which their parents’ generation enjoyed. Under this situation, they also find it more difficult to secure their future job, thus becoming more conservative and less adventurous, prioritizing their future career and economic stability. Japan is also suffering from a population decrease and facing a rapidly ageing society. The number of 18-year olds – the age of college entrance – in 2011 was 1.2 million compared to 2.05 million in 1992 (MEXT 2011), having dropped almost by half. The number of students going abroad to study has also been decreasing since 2004, with a significant fall in the number of Japanese students studying in the USA (MEXT 2011: 3).1 By contrast, other Asian countries, such as China and India, have been experiencing strong economic growth and sent an increasing number of students abroad to study (MEXT 2011: 3). This makes the contrast even more striking as, while the number of Japanese students studying abroad is decreasing, that of other Asian countries, namely Chinese and Korean students, is increasing. This exactly reflects the recent economic power shift as China has now become the world’s second largest economy, overtaking Japan a few years ago (see, for example, Nihon Keizai Shimbun (The Nikkei), 20 January 2011). Under these circumstances, Japanese students are reported to have become less eager to study abroad or work abroad partly because of economic reasons, i.e. avoiding high tuition fees or leaving plenty of time for future job-hunting by staying home, thus quite often being described as ‘uchimuki (inward-looking)’ (see, for example, The Nikkei 28 November 2010: 9, 5 December 2011: 23, 5, 8 January 2012: 4 and 7, 26 June 2013: 46, among many others). Under these circumstances, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT) in Japan has recently taken various measures to reverse such trends in the minds of the younger generation, one of which is the Global 30 Program, which encourages more English-medium instruction at university. The need for internationalizing Japanese universities, just like other businesses in the wake of ever-deepening globalization, is considered inevitable to survive the down-turn trend of the Japanese population and economy, as well as to compete academically within the rising Asian region (see, however, Kubota 2002 for a critique of ‘internationalization’ advocated by MEXT).

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Another is the Global Human Resource Development Program, one of its main objectives being to send more Japanese students abroad to study (see also Jenkins 2014; Mauranen 2012 for the global mobility of students today). In this challenging environment, a pioneering undergraduate programme, the School of International Liberal Studies (SILS) at Waseda University, was established in 2004. One of its goals is to advance the internationalization of Japanese higher education. At SILS, English is set as a medium of instruction for most classes. Although definitions of ELF vary (Mauranen, Chapter 3, this volume), Seidlhofer’s (2011) definition, ‘any use of English among speakers of different first languages for whom English is the communicative medium of choice, and often the only option’ (p. 7), is recently most widely recognized and quoted. On the basis of this definition we can tell that SILS exhibits one example of using ELF, in particular, in an Asian context. Although nearly two-thirds of its students consist of Japanese – mainly from three different backgrounds in terms of the use of ELF as will be discussed in more detail in the following section, other students, approximately one-third, are from about 50 different countries/regions, largely from non-English-speaking north-eastern Asian countries, such as China and Korea. In addition, one-third of the faculty members are also of more than 10 different nationalities. Accordingly, in this environment, not only the formal medium of instruction but also informal everyday communication is often conducted in ELF. Furthermore, all Japanese students are required to spend one year abroad to study at more than 400 affiliated universities all over the world, including double-degree/exchange programmes with English-medium instruction in Expanding and Outer Circle countries (Kachru 1985a,b, 1992), while international students are required to take courses on Japanese as a foreign language (JFL). These different backgrounds and experiences of the students contribute greatly to their identity formation and communicative behaviours while they are at SILS. More specifically, their previous educational and lingua-cultural experiences influence their perception of ELF communication and subsequent ELF communicative practices at SILS. Therefore, before moving on to detailed analyses of our research findings we will, in the following, introduce a slightly more detailed description of SILS students based on their emic category. Emic categorization of SILS students In this undergraduate programme, students from various backgrounds study together, negotiating complex dynamics of identity formation in communicating in ELF. Of interest is the classification of group membership deriving from the different language backgrounds of students. They are categorized, according to their own emic labelling system, into four groups: jun-Japa, kikoku, intaa and ryugakusei. Jun-japa, the largest group of the SILS population, i.e. about 60 per cent of the total number of students, are Japanese students who have almost no

114 Masakazu Iino and Kumiko Murata experience of living abroad. They had been taught in typical EFL (English as a Foreign Language) environments up to secondary level and have very limited experiences in actual ELF communication. The term jun-Japa is a group category used by L1 Japanese students themselves, describing their own identity in this complex situation as those who were raised and educated solely in Japan, using Japanese as their daily means of communication. Although literally translated, the prefix ‘jun’ means ‘authentic’, ‘genuine’ or ‘pure’, it is not used in a discriminatory way against other group members, but as a way of justifying their current English proficiency which distinguishes them from other group members such as kikoku, intaa and ryugakusei, who often have native-like command of English or are experienced ELF users. They are going through a transitory period from EFL learners to ELF users, simultaneously having both identities.2 Kikoku are returnees from overseas mainly due to their parents transferring jobs. Many of them have experiences in ELF communication in various contexts, including the Outer and the Expanding Circles, while some have lived mainly in ENL (English as a Native Language) contexts. Intaa are students who graduated from international schools in Japan and have experiences in English medium communication, which is typically based on NS (Native Speaker) norms. Ryugakusei are international students, including both degree-seeking students mainly from Asian countries and regions, and one-year exchange students mainly from the USA and Europe. They are experienced ELF users or NSEs (Native Speakers of English) and simultaneously JFL (Japanese as a Foreign Language) learners. In this academic environment with students from various backgrounds, one of the research interests is the ways in which the students ensure understanding in communication and solidarity with their peers from varying backgrounds as well as their changing attitudes, particularly those of jun-Japas, towards English, throughout their 4-year undergraduate programme, including one-year study abroad experiences, and how they transform their views towards English, in particular ELF. Bearing these in mind, we will now move on to the discussion of the findings from the current research.

Methods, data and findings Methods and data As briefly stated at the outset, the data are mostly based on recorded ones from seminar presentations and discussions as well as those from focus group discussions and interviews at SILS. They were recorded while one of the researchers was conducting the seminars and focus group discussions as a participant observer. There were in total 12 presenters in the two seminar sessions over 2 weeks in January 2012, and nine 1st year and eleven 4th year students participated in the focus group discussions, while 15–20 minute interviews (four 4th year and two – one Japanese and one international – MA students) were conducted retrospectively by the other researcher in July and

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partly the beginning of August 2013. The data were then transcribed and analysed in a detailed manner from discourse and conversation as well as content analytic perspectives. In the following, we will discuss some of the findings from these two main types of data. Findings from seminar presentations and discussions Two features are noticeable in the ELF seminar interactions. One is the use of JLF (Japanese as a lingua franca), which is often observed both at the beginning phase of presentations usually in the form of Japanese formulaic greetings (see also House, Chapter 5, this volume, Romaine 2000) and also when Japanese culture specific terms are introduced while the students are referring to Japanese culture (see also Klimpfinger 2009 for the similar findings in her research). The second feature is relatively slow rate of turn-taking in the question and discussion phase (see also Murata 1994). In the following, we will mainly focus on the first feature, that is, the use of JLF in the form of code-switching in the presentation and discussion sessions. Frequent use of code-switching from English (ELF) to Japanese (JLF) During the presentation phase, frequent use of code-switching from English to Japanese was observed. The international students’ use of Japanese in this case can be said to be the use of their second lingua franca in this community, i.e. JLF, as all of them are required to learn Japanese simultaneously while attending the content course at SILS. Japanese is mainly used in two contexts in this ELF communication; firstly, its use is prominent at the very beginning of students’ oral presentations as they sometimes start their presentations by using Japanese greetings as can be seen in the following example: Ex. 1 1st Year Seminar (Presenter 1 – Japanese-Taiwanese international student) P1: Akemashite Omedeto Gozaimasu (A Happy New Year!) (laughter from the audience) So today I’m going to talk about my research. –Here, Presenter 1 starts his presentation with Japanese New Year greetings as the seminar was the first one after the New Year break. This use of Japanese greetings was relevant and effective as an ice-breaker to start the new session after the break when the students were also slightly nervous about their own presentations. As a token of this, laughter naturally occurs among the audience. Second, Japanese vocabulary is often intentionally used, particularly nouns denoting Japanese social and cultural aspects, when presenters introduce Japanese culture specific topics as also pointed out by Klimpfinger (2009). This seems to be used mainly for the following reasons:

116 Masakazu Iino and Kumiko Murata 1 2 3

Enhancement of understanding. Indication of shared culture and knowledge on Japanese culture-specific topics. Indication of solidarity, in particular, to jun-Japa students.

Let us now consider some of these examples. In Example 2, Presenter 5’s presentation focuses on Japanese fathers and young men’s leisure activities. Ex. 2 1st Year Seminar (Presenter 5 – German-Japanese international student) P5: –- no no there is no キャバクラ (kyabakula – cabaret + club) in Germany yeah that’s why I think it’s interesting Japanese culture that like all the サラリーマン (salarii-man – business men) go to kyabakula after work it’s interesting no other men in other countries – the same as パチ ンコ (pachinko – Japanese pinball) the same as racing stuff 競馬とか (keiba-toka – horse-racing toka (such as) – such as horse racing) it’s interesting I think Here Presenter 5 frequently inserts Japanese culture-specific terms related to popular entertainment such as keiba (horse racing), kyabakula, pachinko as well as karaoke and ma-jan (mah-jong), some of which are already listed in the Oxford Dictionary of English (2nd edition, revised, 2005), while explaining the content of her presentation, ensuring that her audience, particularly junJapa students, understand what she states while simultaneously indicating her own membership to the community by showing her knowledge and understanding of Japanese culture by utilizing their second lingua franca, i.e. Japanese, where appropriate. This simultaneously enhances her solidarity with the students from various language and cultural backgrounds (Rampton 1995). She is using ‘available linguistic resources’ (Seidlhofer 2011), i.e. in this case, JLF, fully in ELF interaction to enhance solidarity, efficiency and effectiveness of understanding (Mauranen 2012). Another example, also from the same first year undergraduate seminar, shows the similar tendency to Example 2. Presenter 12 is a Korean student. Ex.3 1st Year Seminar (Presenter 12, an International (Korean) student) P12: In 2003 冬のソナタ (fuyu no sonata – Winter’s sonata – the title of a Korean drama translated into Japanese) became popular. It is pure な romance. (pure na romance – pure romance – the inserted word na is a Japanese suffix, which indicates an adjective) And ヨン様 (Yon-sama – Mr Yon – sama is a Japanese polite suffix which, being attached to somebody’s name, shows respect for that person) boom was popular in Japan. 視聴率 (shichou-ritsu – audience rating), which is prime time viewing, was quite high.

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Here, Presenter 12 code-switches frequently at lexical level in presenting her paper on ‘Korean Pop Culture in Japan’ and in responding to clarification requests from the floor, trying to accommodate, in particular, to jun-Japa students, but also showing her access to Japanese and understanding of the role of JLF in this specific ELF context, explaining some key words such as 視聴率 (shichou-ritsu – audience rating) and ‘pure な (na – a suffix denoting an adjective in Japanese) romance (pure romance)’. By utilizing these Japanese terms, the presenter also ensures that jun-Japa seminar students understand clearly, thus heightening explicitness and efficiency of understanding in communication (Ehrenreich 2009, 2011; Kaur 2009; Mauranen 2012). On the other hand, Japanese students for their part do not hesitate to respond to presenters briefly in Japanese either, for example inserting phrases such as そうなの？ (sou nano? – Is that so?) as a token of their listenership while presenters are explaining, thus by code-switching in a natural manner where effective and appropriate, enhancing understanding and solidarity with the presenters (Cogo 2009; Jenkins 2009; Kalocsai 2011; Klimpfinger 2009).3 In fact, when students are very excited and naturally responding to a presenter, who is Japanese, responses in Japanese are overwhelmingly observed as in Example 4, where Presenter 2 is giving a presentation on Japanese pop culture, showing some scenes from famous animation films with which students were familiarized and enjoyed as a child: Ex. 4 1st Year Seminar (Presenter 2 – a jun-Japa student) P2: OK now I’ll talk about adults and pop culture. The contents of my essay is as follow ( ) (P2 shows a scene from an animation film) RM1: きたー (kitaa-! – An exclamation meaning, ‘as I’d expected [it to be shown]’) P2: ((laughter)) These things are pop culture for young people. RF1: 懐かしい (Natsukashii – [I feel] nostalgic) P2: No? Like games, uh anime, コスプレ (cosplay – costume+play), or manga. I think many young people enjoy these things. However I think adults make pop culture T: Uh-huh P2: yeah? Do you know him? (showing a photo of internationally acclaimed animation film director/producer Hayao MIYAZAKI) RF2: 宮崎駿 (MIYAZAKI Hayao) あ日本語で答えちゃった (Ah nihongo de kotae chatta!– Ah, I answered in Japanese!) ((laughter)) P2: Yeah, this is Hayao Miyazaki

118 Masakazu Iino and Kumiko Murata RM2: あーメガネしてる (Ah megane shiteru – Ah, [he is] wearing specs) P2: And this is his second long term animation RF3: あーかっこいいね (Ah kakko iine – Ah, [isn’t he] cool) P2: The English name is ‘The Valley of the Wind’ and he made this in 1840, 55 –(P2 – Presenter 2, RM – Response by a male student, RF – Response by a female student, T – tutor) Here, the Japanese students cannot resist responding to the presentation naturally in JLF, seeing their favourite anime characters shown on the monitor, which they enjoyed as a child, although they are supposed to communicate in ELF, and this is also indicated explicitly by RF2, who, after answering the presenter’s question by giving Hayao Miyazaki’s name in a Japanese way, that is, the surname first followed by the first name, MIYAZAKI Hayao, whispers, ‘Ah nihongo de kotae chatta – Ah, I answered in Japanese’. As the topic is so deeply ingrained in their fond memories of the animation films as a child, it is natural they are also responding here in their familiar language. Thus, they are not inhibited. Upon hearing RF2’s meta-comment ‘Ah nihongo de kotae chatta – Ah, I answered in Japanese’, everybody laughs, but even after this they cannot resist responding in Japanese. Looking at Hayao Miyazaki’s familiar face on the monitor, they show their appreciation to him by stating ‘Ah megane shiteru – Ah, [he is] wearing specs’ and ‘Ah kakko iine – Ah, [isn’t he] cool’ in JLF or Japanese.4 Thus, this whole range of code-switching takes place not within one speaker’s turn, but within an extended interaction between the presenter and the audience, the presenter clinging to the use of ELF while the audience are responding extensively in JLF uninhibited. This exchange appears at the beginning of the presentation and continues while the presenter is showing some scenes of famous animation films until eventually ELF overtakes JLF for both interactants. However, occasionally respondents insert the same type of meta-comments used by RF2 above in JLF, commenting directly on the presenter as detected in the middle of the same presentation as follows: Ex.5 1st Year Seminar (Presenter 2 – a jun-Japa student) P2: And ( ) bad guys, many children at elementary schools learn a lots from this anime. RF7: 直訳しすぎだよね (Chokuyaku shisugi dayone – Too much direct translation, don’t you think?) ((laughter)) RF7: 意味わからない (Imi wakaranai – I don’t understand what he says) ((laughter))

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Here RF7 is uninhibited in giving her comments in JLF audible to other seminar members. Although these meta-comments could potentially be facethreatening (Brown and Levinson 1987) to the presenter, perhaps because of the convivial atmosphere they have created and partly because of the commentator’s character, the comments do not change the atmosphere and the presenter does not seem to be affected by them either as the laughter following these comments indicate. Thus, apart from the use of code-switching within a speaker’s turn, codeswitching is also used over several turns at exchange level, which could be due to this specific educational setting in which ELF is used as a medium of instruction where more than two-thirds of the student population consists of Japanese. The use of JLF as a form of code-switching exemplifies the cooperative nature of interaction, that is, the participants, both international and different types of Japanese students, are very cooperative trying to understand each other, measuring their interactants’ language ability both in their first lingua franca, i.e. ELF, and their second lingua franca, i.e. JLF, as well as checking to what extent their schemata are shared (Widdowson 2007), utilizing code-switching between them where effective in order to enhance understanding and to establish solidarity (see the descriptions of the cooperative nature of ELF communication in, for example, Cogo 2009; Firth 1996, 2009; House 2009; Seidlhofer 2009, 2011; and also see Mauranen, Chapter 3, this volume) as well as when naturally and almost instinctively responding to the content of presentations, not intentionally trying to be cooperative.5 Thus, the first year seminar has been found to be characterized with frequent use of code-switching and accommodation both to the audience and to the presenters. This could be because of the difference in the participants’ experience in ELF communication as the first year students, in particular, jun-Japa students, have very little experience in actual ELF communication, having mainly played the role of EFL learners up to the time before entering the university. Consequently, the use of JLF in the form of code-switching plays an important role in strengthening their solidarity in this newly-formed ELF community, where students’ experiences in communicating in ELF greatly vary. That is, by communicating in ELF, the students are constantly negotiating their identities to establish a convivial ELF community (Eckert 2000). Furthermore, in addition to code-switching, a relatively slow tempo in turn-taking is also observed as stated at the outset. This could be another example of accommodation among the students. That is, the students are more careful in making sure that everybody participates in seminar discussions, which is also evident in their comments on this issue in the focus group discussions and interviews, to which we will now turn. Findings from the focus group discussions and interviews The findings from the focus group discussions and interviews show the complex nature of jun-Japa students’ ELF identity, which can be characterized in terms

120 Masakazu Iino and Kumiko Murata of two conflicting tendencies, namely lack of confidence in ELF competence or rather capability (see Seidlhofer 2011; Widdowson 2012 and Chapter 13, this volume) and, by contrast, confidence as an EFL (English as a foreign language) learner or rather as a successful test taker in a traditional sense. That is, they are trained to be ‘competent’ EFL learners on the knowledge level (Widdowson 2008), but not as ‘capable’ ELF users. By using a self-specifier jun-Japa, they are trying to differentiate and protect themselves from the other types of seminar members such as kikoku, intaa and ryugakusei, who quite often have NSE or NSE-like competence (or rather, capability). We will now explore some of the students’ comments on this issue, starting with the ones on turn-taking. EFL identity overwhelmed in ELF contexts As briefly touched on in discussing the results from the seminar presentations and discussions, two characteristics are noteworthy, one of which is relatively slow turn-taking in discussions, but even this slow rate of turn-taking seems very fast for jun-Japa students, particularly in their first year at SILS as can be seen in the following comments by some of them on this issue. JUN-JAPA STUDENTS’ COMMENTS ON THE RATE OF TURN-TAKING IN ELF COMMUNICATIONS

1

I have a lot to say, but [when other people take turns so quickly] quite often I miss chances to contribute as I am very slow to respond because of my English ability. I cannot jump in the discussion [as I always think how to say and then by the time I find the expression the topic has already changed] because they speak so fast and I cannot process fast enough to secure my conversational floor in English. (1st Year, 1M1, translated by the current authors)6 こう⾔いたいことは色々あるんですよ。すんごいまくしたてるように ⾔うと、やっぱりその、自分の英語⼒のなさからその遅いじゃないで すか。タイミングを逃しちゃう。そう、入れないっていうか、なんて ⾔えばいいんだろうって考えて、あ、これだと思ったときには話が流 れてたりする。

2

[I] am completely overwhelmed [by their English]. (1st Year, 1M3) めちゃくちゃ圧倒されますね。

A similar comment is also given by a fourth-year student reflecting on her 4year ELF communication at university as follows: 3

[I] would’ve contributed more in Japanese. (4th Year, 4F3) 日本語だったらもっと発⾔してたと思う。

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These comments show the complex nature of jun-Japa students’ conflict between the awareness of the inadequacy of their use of ELF compared to other ELF users in class and their perceived high self-esteem proved by the successful entrance examination as EFL learners. They might also be indicating disparities between the majority of current entrance examinations and ability or capability required in ELF academic contexts (see, for example, Elder and Davies 2006; Jenkins 2006a,b; Mauranen 2012; McNamara 2012; Sawaki, Chapter 14, this volume; Seidlhofer 2011; Taylor 2006 for discussions on ELF assessment). SILS is ranked as one of the top-level competitive programmes for Japanese high school candidates and jun-Japa students have gone through rigorous written entrance exams, the subjects of which include English, Japanese, and history or mathematics.7 This suggests that they are confident in their academic achievement proved by the traditional examination system of Japan and forming a folk belief that they can compete better if they study in Japanese as clearly stated by one of the students (see Comment 3 above by 4F3) above. We will now explore these jun-Japa students’ conflicting identities in a slightly more detailed manner in their comments. ELF CONTEXTS BUT STILL STRONGLY CONSTRAINED BY NS NORMS

The jun-Japa students are still very much constrained by NS norms and values, which are deeply ingrained in their learning experiences in their sixyear of NS-norm-based learning at school and are not necessarily familiarized with ELF communication or a variety of Englishes for that matter, particularly the first-year students. Although developing communicative ‘competence’ is often discussed by Japanese ELT practitioners and specialists, the discussions still remain at ‘competence’ level and communicative ‘capacity’ or ‘capability’ is never truly explored (see Murata 1993; Murata and Harada 2008; Widdowson 1983, 2008). Thus, the students’ experiences in communicating with NS or NS-like interactants at SILS at the outset are often described in the following two Japanese terms, 1. 恥ずかしさ (hazukashisa – feeling of shame) and 2. 違和感 (iwakan – feeling out of place or awkward), which result from their being constrained by NS norms, as can be seen in the following comments made by some of the students. 4

Most of other students are returnees and international students, so I feel ashamed of my jun-Japa English pronunciation, that is, Japanese English. (1M2) まわりが入ったら本当に帰国⼦女と留学⽣しかいなくて。で、発音も 恥ずかしいしさ。なんていうの、ジャパン、ジャパニーズイングリッ シュみたいな。

Here, Student 1M2 is explaining his difficulty in communicating in ELF in terms of both listening and speaking, being deeply constrained by NS norms

122 Masakazu Iino and Kumiko Murata and not accustomed to ELF communication as well as being ashamed of his Japanese-accented English comparing it with that of other ELF speakers (see Harada 2013 on the Japanese students’ acquisition of English sounds, and Jenkins 2000, 2007 on their perception and attitudes towards them), some of whom are in command of NS-like English, having spent several years in NSE countries. This tendency of being constrained by NS norms and ashamed of speaking up is also observed in the comments made by 4th year students as seen in Comments 5 and 6 below: 5

I was constrained by NS norms. I was ashamed, comparing myself with NSs and returnees. I was sometimes too ashamed to speak up because I did not want to make mistakes. (2–4F9)8 以前はＳＩＬＳにいてもネイテイブの基準に囚われていた。ネイテイ ブや帰国⽣と⽐べると話すのが恥ずかしかった。間違ってはいけない としゃべるのが恥ずかしいこともあった。

6

I sometimes feel ashamed when I speak with NSs, because the level of English is so different and I’m not confident at all if my English is ‘correct’. (2–4M13) ネイテイブと話すのは、能⼒が違うので、「あっているのか」と考え、 恥ずかしさを感じることがある。

Both of the above students used the term 恥ずかしい or 恥ずかしさ (hazukashisa – feeling of shame) in explaining their communication with NSs. On the other hand, another student used the term 違和感 (iwakan – feeling out of place or awkward) as seen in Comment 7. 7

I felt awkward first when I spoke English at SILS, because I was a junJapa and a minority. I had a strong Japanese accent, and I was frustrated (2–4M12) SILS で最初は英語を使っていることへの違和感があった。jun-Japaで minority であったので。自分のJapanese English が強く、皆としゃべる 時、心の中でもやもやしていた。

The informant above states that he was a minority, when in fact he was in the majority group, i.e. jun-Japa at SILS.9 This shows how vulnerable junJapa students felt at the outset and how they were aware of NS norms and constrained by them even in ELF situations.10 Yet another fourth-year student described her experience in communicating with NSs in her 1 year of study abroad in Australia, using a Japanese term 引け⽬ (hikeme – a sense of inferiority) as follows: 8

I felt inferior at the beginning when I took a class with NSs (in Australia). After a while, my classmate told me to give my opinions without thinking I was an overseas student, so I decided to express my opinions. (2-GF11)

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大学（オーストラリア）でネイテイブと一緒に授業を受けるとき、最 初は引け⽬を感じた。しばらく後、クラスメート（NS）が留学⽣だか らと思わず、意見を⾔えといい、その後意見をいうようにした。 In this way, some students also suffer from an inferiority complex against NSs and other Japanese English speakers, whose proficiency is more like that of NSs because of their backgrounds, namely, returnees and those from international schools, in particular, in their first and second years when they do not have much experience in academic ELF communication. This also leads them to the feeling of inadequacy as they feel they are deficient, comparing their language ability to that of NSs, and this, in turn, results in the feeling of power difference as can be seen in the following comment based on a student’s study abroad experience in Australia: POWER DIFFERENCE IN NS-NNS COMMUNICATION

9

In communication in Australia, there was power difference between me and other (Australian) students. It was as if they were patronizing me in that they accepted me as an NNS. (2–4F10) オーストラリアでのコミュニケーションは皆が私を受け入れるという 上からの⽬線。

The following fourth-year student also reflects on her ELF communication around the time when she first entered her course at SILS: 10 I used to use the term jun-Japa, meaning that I cannot do [speak like NSs] because I am a jun-Japa, thus, placing myself in a powerless position. (4F3) 私純ジャパだからできない、っていうような感じで、自分で自分を卑 下する感じで使ってたかも。 By contrast, in ELF communication, quite a few students felt liberated or felt that they could communicate with NNS interactants on equal terms as can be seen in the following comments: ELF COMMUNICATION – COMMUNICATION ON AN EQUAL FOOTING

11 In Sweden, we were equal and positive because we came from different places. We did not see a set standard of English to judge what’s right or wrong. (2–4F10) スェーデン – 皆がいろいろなところから来ているので平等、積極的に なる。何をもって英語が 喋れるという、できるできないの基準がなく なる。

124 Masakazu Iino and Kumiko Murata 12 It is easy to speak with Swedes, because we are not NSs (of English). (2–4F9) スェーデンの⼈との英語の会話、お互いにネイテイブでないので話し やすい。 Some even stated the difference between ELF communication with Asian friends and the one with those from other lingua-cultural backgrounds. According to them, the former is more comfortable and easier even compared to ELF communication in general as can be seen in the following comments: ELF COMMUNICATION IN ASIAN CONTEXTS

13 I don’t find it difficult to communicate with Asian students as long as my English makes sense to them. (2–4M13) アジアの留学⽣との英語のコミュニケーションは伝わればいいという 気持ちで、問題はない。 14 Easier to speak in English, when there are students from various linguacultural backgrounds, especially Asian friends. (4F3) あー逆にいろんな国の⼈がいればもっと話しやすい。アジアの友達と はすごく英語で話しやすい。 Thus, solidarity with Asian students is clearly stated as they share the equal status of ELF speakers and some lingua-cultural backgrounds in Asian contexts, their main concern being intelligibility (see Tsuchiya 2013 for similar comments made by her informants). Appreciation for real ELF contexts is also clearly pointed out. On the other hand, the above student (4F3) also states that: 15 Easier to listen to Japanese English. (4F3) やっぱり日本⼈のほうが聞きとりやすい。 Accordingly, despite her appreciation for communicating with Asian ELF speakers in general, her easiness with English spoken by co-Japanese ELF speakers is clearly stated. It is, however, not only because of familiar accents but also the atmosphere they are familiar with or a more accommodating communicative environment they have built up that makes it easier for them to communicate at SILS as one of the students who has experienced communication with both NSs and NNSs in the USA points out: SILS – A MORE ACCOMMODATING COMMUNICATIVE ENVIRONMENT?

16 In the USA, I could not survive unless I spoke up. At SILS since we know the SILS culture, it is OK not to speak up that much. In the USA, I had to speak up in order to survive as they didn’t understand me when I was hesitant thinking whether I should give opinions or not. SILS provides me

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with a comfortable environment speaking (English) in a Japanese way. (2–4M12) [アメリカでは] まず発信しないと⽣き残っていけない。SILSは勝手が わかっているので、それほどやらなくても [発信しなくても]いい。–[ アメリカ ] では英語で話すとき気を遣っても伝わらないので、まずは 自分が⽣きるために話す。SILSは伝わる（日本的）しゃべり易い環境。 Thus, the students clearly acknowledge that sharing schemata and values contributes greatly to understanding each other. That is, they find ELF communication at SILS or rather in the SILS community, particularly after one-year study abroad experiences, very comfortable and feel at home with the atmosphere of everybody being cooperative and trying to understand each other. This is achieved by all members with different backgrounds making efforts to make a participatory atmosphere, accommodating to each other as one of the returnee students clearly states. The keyword here seems to be a Japanese term 気遣い (kizukai – consideration for others). TOWARDS A MORE ACCOMMODATING COMMUNICATIVE ENVIRONMENT – KIZUKAI AT SILS

17 At SILS, as there were students at various proficiency levels at the outset, I paid attention not to speak too much, so that the class discussion went smoothly and everyone had a chance to speak. I tried to create an atmosphere for everyone to say something, because I wanted to hear their opinions. For example, I used code-switching to attract ryugakusei’s (international students’) interest and to make it easier for Japanese students to understand. During my presentations, I used to insert Japanese words after I explained key points in English. (2–4F10) SILS最初はいろいろなレベルの⼈がいたので、皆がちゃんと話し授業 が進むように⾃分だけが積極的に話さないように気遣いをした。他の ⼈の意⾒も聞きたいので、皆が話せる雰囲気づくりをした。例えば日 本語と英語を混ぜる。こうすると留学⽣も興味を持ち、日本⼈にも分 かりやすい。プレゼンテーション など、キーポイント を英語で述べた 後、日本語を入れたりした。 Thus, this returnee student, who sounded like a native speaker, in particular, for jun-Japa students and whom they felt an obvious threat to them at the outset, states how she intentionally took care not to monopolize, for example, the conversational floor so that other students could also participate in giving opinions in class. She further states that she made an effort to make an atmosphere where everybody could contribute to ongoing discussions by, for example, using code-switching. This is interesting because code-switching was frequently observed in the students’ presentations as reported in the preceding section, and its intentional use is now also confirmed here by one of the users herself. She describes this

126 Masakazu Iino and Kumiko Murata kind of care and concern for others, using the Japanese term ‘kizukau’, which was also used by a jun-Japa student when he stated how it was easier to communicate at SILS compared to a university in the USA, where he studied for a year, as everybody tried to understand what he said at SILS, caring for others. Again, this also proves that this kind of cooperative atmosphere was made partly by every member’s effort to make it more accommodating. The returnee student who has just been quoted above, reflecting on her study abroad at a Swedish university while at SILS, further states that: 18 In Sweden, people expressed their opinions freely. In Japan, for example, I quite often thought that perhaps I should not mention this or that. (2–4F10) スェーデンでは自分の意見を自由にいう。日本では例えば、これは⾔ わない方がいいかなと考えたりした。 Thus, she states how she considers what should or should not be stated in the ELF situation at SILS, while she did not have to do that in the Swedish ELF situation, where she spent a year studying. This means that ELF communities, particularly those where there is a majority group from the same lingua-cultural background, appear to be influenced by the group’s cultural values or conversational styles to a certain extent (see House 2003). Accordingly, this specific ELF community at SILS has been constructed by every member cooperatively participating in making an accommodating atmosphere by respective ways of doing so (Eckert 2000: 41). As seen in the preceding section with the jun-Japa students extensively responding to the presentation in JLF, in an actual ELF context of use, both jun-Japa students and returnees and international students concentrate on understanding each other, and thus, the jun-Japa students do not look disadvantaged as they claim in the focus group discussions and interviews above. Moreover, within a year or so, after accumulating enough experience in communicating in ELF both at SILS and abroad, they become confident enough to feel that they do not need to identify themselves as jun-Japa as clearly stated by one of them: 19 [I know that ] after one or two years, we’ll feel we are no longer jun-Japa. (1M1) でも、その一年間か⼆年間くらい通せば純ジャパじゃなくなるんだな っていうのを。 Therefore, even the first-year students know that they will be legitimate ELF users and participants (Lave and Wenger 1991) in a year or two, being confident in ELF communication and freed from their identity as EFL learners constrained by NS norms. Students are very robust in shifting their identities, where they, where necessary, hide behind their EFL identity at the beginning phase of their ELF communication, but when they have gained satisfactory confidence, throwing their former identity as EFL learners and becoming confident ELF users.11

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Their views on English have also changed. In the beginning, they had a folk belief in the pre-existing native English norms because they were trained in EFL contexts in Japan (see also Widdowson, Chapter 13, this volume). However, after being immersed in the ELF environment as well as one-year study abroad experiences, their attention has shifted more towards the intelligibility which is negotiated and accommodated among the speakers, rather than the aspiration to be integrated in the native speakers’ community (Seidlhofer 2011, and Chapter 2, this volume). That is, by using the term junJapa, they overcome their anxiety to communicate in ‘native/native-like’ English. This was also made possible in collaboration with other students as illustrated above. In sum, different types of students at SILS have accommodated to other students in their own ways in communicating in ELF. Jun-Japa students have gone through the journey from struggles at the outset, being strongly constrained by NS norms and correctness orientation ingrained in them, to attempts to break out of this old communicative value of NS and correctness orientation based on it through enriching experiences in various ELF situations, where NNSs are confidently using ELF for their communication, owning it as their own (Widdowson 1994). Kikoku (returnees) and Intaa (those graduated from international schools) have transformed themselves from the ones with NS-like behaviours and confidence to more experienced and tuned ELF users by being exposed to more enriching and varying ELF communication and trying to accommodate to the more situated one with a Japanese flavour at SILS. Ryugakusei (international students) on the other hand have adjusted their stances from NS or experienced ELF users to ELF users with understanding towards the Japanese flavoured ELF communication through their experience in ELF communication as well as in learning Japanese at SILS.

Concluding remarks and implications This research has found the complex dynamics of students’ identity formation, their accommodation to classmates, and the ways in which they manage ELF communication where more than half the participants are jun-Japa, who, on their own terms, claim that it is natural that they use ELF and that they are different from NSEs or native-like users of English. The study has illustrated how jun-Japa tactfully claim their identity, survive and thrive in this Englishmedium academic context in collaboration with their peers from various lingua-cultural backgrounds, effectively using ELF and turning it to their advantage in this co-constructed unique ELF community. The results from the data also tell that more exposure to various types of ELF communication is necessary and meaningful as the students in this research seem to have learnt greatly from their experiences in a variety of ELF communities through their one-year study abroad, of which English programmes in ELF contexts are particularly relevant for developing ELF communicative capability (see Widdowson, Chapter 13, this volume) as they appear to have

128 Masakazu Iino and Kumiko Murata provided the students with more enriching and eye-opening experiences compared to those held in traditional NSE contexts. That is to say, with the exposure to different types of ELF use and interaction, they come to learn how to utilize their available resources, linguistic or non-linguistic, to achieve their communicative purposes, thus empowering themselves to act as ELF users, not just constant EFL learners (Seidlhofer 2011). All of these have implications for teaching at various levels and contexts. It is of great importance to provide learners with exposure to various types of ELF use and interaction so that they can maximally utilize their available linguistic and other resources to activate their knowledge and make them capable communicators rather than just competent learners unable to act upon their knowledge (see Widdowson 1990, 2003, and Chapter 13, this volume). Classroom practitioners also need to bear this in mind, making it sure that their students have ample opportunities to use their competence to achieve their communicative goals, not just focusing on making them competent test takers on the basis of unrealistic NS norms, thus making them being freed from the feeling of shame or inadequacy, being afraid of their communicative behaviours assessed by NS norms, when they will be most likely to communicate with ELF users in the future in this globalized world.

Acknowledgements This research is funded by JSPS Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research (Foundation B. No. 23320122, 2011–2013). We would like to thank the informants who willingly participated in the interviews, focus group discussions and also for allowing us to observe and record their seminars. We are also extremely grateful to Barbara Seidlhofer and Henry Widdowson for their invaluable comments on an earlier version of this chapter. Naturally, any shortcomings are our own. Finally, our thanks also go to Shuichi Kosaka, Ayano Shino and Akira Shiraishi for helping us to transcribe the recorded data.

Notes 1

2

3

The decrease is particularly noticeable in the traditional inner circle countries such as the USA, the UK and Australia. However, one thing worth noting is that the number of Japanese students studying in neighboring Asian countries such as China and Korea is increasing. Thus, although the total number of students studying abroad is decreasing, students’ destination is more diversifying, which might also be partly reflecting the recent gradual economic power shift in the world. This classification is, in reality, more complex as according to the result of the most recent interviews conducted by the current authors (May 2014), some of the interviewees used the term han-jun Japa (half jun-Japa), which seems to be located in-between jun-Japa and kikoku. See a comment made by one returnee student in the interview (Comment 17), who clearly stated that she used code-switching intentionally to make it easier for Japanese students to understand as well as to attract international students’ attention and interest.

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4

This intense use of Japanese could be unintentionally excluding international students, who do not necessarily share the same childhood schemata with the Japanese students, be they jun-Japa, kikoku or inta. 5 Although, of course, it can still be regarded as ‘cooperative’ if interpreted as showing interest in the presentation and responding to it. 6 All the focus group discussions and interviews were conducted in Japanese except one interview, where the interviewee was an international student and thus it was conducted in ELF. The recorded data were later translated into English by the current authors where necessary. Thus, hereafter all the English versions are translated ones from the original Japanese. 7 On the other hand, intaa and kikoku Japanese students, as well as international degree-seeking students, are typically screened earlier with only the English exam and documents such as TOEFL, GPA (grade point average) and SAT. 8 See also Murata (2011) for the similar comments made by the informants in her research on opinion-giving. 9 See also the marginality of ‘in-betweens’ in Eckert (2000: 59) despite their being a majority. 10 For the definitions of ELF and NS involvement, see Firth (1996), House (2009, and Chapter 5, this volume), Jenkins (2006a, 2014), Mauranen (Chapter 3, this volume), and Seidlhofer (2011, and Chapter 2, this volume). 11 See Seidlhofer (2011), Vettorel (2013) for the discussion about ‘learning’ and ‘using’ and/or ‘learners’ and ‘users’. See also Lin et al. (2011)

References Brown, P. and S. Levinson 1987. Politeness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cogo, A. 2009. Accommodating difference in ELF conversations: A study of pragmatic strategies. In A. Mauranen and E. Ranta (eds), English as a Lingua Franca. Studies and Findings. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 254–273. Eckert, P. 2000. Linguistic Variation as Social Practice. Oxford: Blackwell. Ehrenreich, S. 2009. English as a lingua franca in multinational corporations – exploring business communities of practice. In A. Mauranen and E. Ranta (eds), English as a Lingua Franca: Studies and Findings. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 126–151. Ehrenreich, S. 2011. The dynamics of English as a business lingua franca: A language contact perspective. In A. Archibald, A. Cogo and J. Jenkins (eds), Latest Trends in ELF Research. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 11–34. Elder, C. and A. Davies 2006. Assessing English as a lingua franca. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 26, 282–301. Firth, A. 1996. The discursive accomplishment of normality: On ‘lingua franca’ English and conversation analysis. Journal of Pragmatics 26, 237–259. Firth, A. 2009. The lingua franca factor. Intercultural Pragmatics 6(2), 148–170. Harada, T. 2013. Effects of early language learning on speech perception: from an ELF perspective. In K. Murata (ed.), Waseda Working Papers in ELF, Vol. 2, pp. 111–122. House, J. (1999) Misunderstanding in intercultural communication: Interactions in English as lingua franca and the myth of mutual intelligibility. In C. Gnutzmann (ed.), Teaching and Learning English as a Global Language. Tubingen: Stauffenburg, pp. 73–89. House, J. 2003. English as a lingua franca: A threat to multilingualism? Journal of Sociolinguistics 7(4), 556–578.

130 Masakazu Iino and Kumiko Murata House, J. 2009. Introduction: The pragmatics of English as a lingua franca. Intercultural Pragmatics 6(2), 141–145. Jenkins, J. 2000. The Phonology of English as an International Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jenkins, J. 2006a. The spread of EIL: A testing time for testers. ELT Journal 60(1), 42–50. Jenkins, J. 2006b. The times they are (very slowly) a-changin’. ELT Journal 60(1), 61–62. Jenkins, J. 2007. English as a Lingua Franca: Attitude and Identity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jenkins, J. 2009. Exploring attitudes towards English as a Lingua Franca in the East Asian context. In K. Murata and J. Jenkins (eds) Global Englishes in Asian Contexts: Current and Future Debates. Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 40–56. Jenkins, J. 2014. English as a Lingua Franca in the International University – The Politics of Academic Language Policy. Abingdon: Routledge. Kachru, B. B. 1985a. Asian Englishes beyond the Canon. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. Kachru, B. B. 1985b. 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. Kachru, B. B. (ed.) 1992. The Other Tongue: English across Cultures, 2nd edn. Chicago: University of Illinois Press. Kalocsai, K. 2011. The show of interpersonal involvement and the building of rapport in an ELF community of practice. In A. Archibald, A. Cogo and J. Jenkins (eds), Latest Trends in ELF Research. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 113–137. Kaur, J. 2009. Pre-empting problems of understanding in English as a lingua franca. In A. Mauranen and E. Ranta (eds) English as a Lingua Franca. Studies and Findings. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 107–123. Klimpfinger, T. 2009. “She’s mixing the two languages together” – Forms and functions of code-switching in English as a lingua franca. In A. Mauranen and E. Ranta (eds), English as a Lingua Franca. Studies and Findings. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 348–371. Kubota, R. 2002. The impact of globalization on language teaching in Japan. In D. Block and D. Cameron (eds), Globalization and Language Teaching. London: Routledge, pp. 13–28. Lave, J. and E. Wenger 1991. Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. New York: Cambridge University Press. Lin, A., W. Wang, N. Akamatsu and A. M. Riazi 2011. Appropriating English, expanding identities, and re-visioning the field. In L. Wei (ed.), The Routledge Applied Linguistics Reader. London: Routledge, pp. 96–112. McNamara, T. 2012. English as a lingua franca: the challenge for language testing. Journal of English as a Lingua Franca 1(1), 199–202. Mauranen, A. 2012. Exploring ELF: Academic English Shaped by Non-Native Speakers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. MEXT 2011. An Interim Report of the Council on Promotion of Human Resource for Globalization Development, available at: www.kantei.go.jp/jp/singi/global/

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110622chukan_matome.pdf (Japanese) and www.kantei.go.jp/jp/singi/global/ 1206011interim_report.pdf (English). Murata, K. 1993. Communicative competence and capacity: What’s the difference? – A critical review. JACET Bulletin 24, 121–137. Murata, K. 1994. A Cross-cultural Approach to the Analysis of Conversation and its Implications for Language Pedagogy. Tokyo: Liber Press. Murata, K. 2011. Voices from the unvoiced: a comparative study of hidden values and attitudes in opinion-giving. Language & Intercultural Communication 11(1), 6–25. Murata, K. and T. Harada 2008. Nihon no ouyou-gengogaku to gengo-kyouiku ni okeru Henry Widdowson-shi no kouken (Contributions of Professor Henry Widdowson to applied linguistics and language teaching in Japan). In K. Murata and T. Harada (eds), Applied Linguistics and Language Teaching in Japan. Tokyo: Hitsuji Shobo, pp. 15–26. The Oxford Dictionary of English, 2nd edn, revised. 2005. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rampton, B. 1995. Crossing. Language and Ethnicity among Adolescents. Harlow: Longman. Romaine, S. 2000. Language in Society. An Introduction to Sociolinguistics, 2nd edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Seidlhofer, B. 2009. Accommodation and the idiom principle in English as a lingua franca. Intercultural Pragmatics 6(2), 195–215. Seidlhofer, B. 2011. Understanding English as a Lingua Franca. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Taylor, L. 2006. The changing landscape of English: implications for language assessment. ELT Journal 60(1), 51–60. Tsuchiya, K. 2013. Behaviours in ELF: analyzing interruption sequences in discussions in an EAP course. In K. Murata (ed.), Waseda Working Papers in ELF, Vol. 2, 59–83. Vettorel, P. 2013. ELF in international school exchange: stepping into the role of ELF users. Journal of English as a Lingua Franca 2(1), 147–173. Widdowson, H. G. 1983. Learning Purpose and Language Use. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Widdowson, H. G. 1990. Aspects of Language Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 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. 2007. Discourse Analysis. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Widdowson, H. G. 2008. Foreword. In K. Murata and T. Harada (eds), Applied Linguistics and Language Teaching in Japan. Tokyo: Hitsuji Shobo, pp. 1–6. Widdowson, H. G. 2012. ELF and the inconvenience of established concepts. Journal of English as a Lingua Franca 1(1), 5–26.

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Part III

ELF from business and wider research perspectives

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9

English as a lingua franca (ELF) in international business contexts Key issues and future perspectives Susanne Ehrenreich

Introduction Given the overall number of globally operating business professionals, research into English as a lingua franca (ELF) as it is used in the domain of international business is still relatively scarce, mainly for two reasons. One has to do with the general issue of confidentiality and the obvious challenge of getting access to companies in the first place, a challenge that is particularly difficult to overcome for linguists without a background – academic or professional – in business. The second has to do with a blind spot in a disciplinary field in which one might expect studies into the use of English (as a lingua franca) to evolve naturally and from the inside, as it were. Contrary to such expectations, however, in the field of International Business and Management, where the issue of gaining access to business sites might be less of a problem, the role of language as an important factor of globalization has been unduly neglected until fairly recently. If English is considered, its conceptual nature is generally not problematized (Ehrenreich 2010: 411; Kankaanranta et al. 2015). It is therefore no surprise that unlike in the field of general ELF studies, where the scientific community is rapidly growing, research into English as a business lingua franca (BELF) is still being carried out by only a handful of people. Nevertheless, and very importantly, the BELF studies that have been carried out to date produce interestingly similar results and thus corroborate and validate each other, irrespective or rather, precisely because of the individual studies’ differences in terms of disciplinary and analytical frameworks. This is, as will be shown in this chapter, an intriguing observation, and one that could be called, in methodological terms, across-research-site triangulation. Where conflicting findings are reported, these open up avenues for future research and contextually more transparent approaches. The purpose of this chapter is to present both a global and a more local perspective on recent BELF research, which is done by combining a state-ofthe-art overview of international research into English as a lingua franca in business settings (BELF) with a discussion of exemplary findings from the author’s work in two German multi-national corporations (MNCs) (Ehrenreich 2009a, 2010, 2011a). In the first part of the chapter, key issues that have been

136 Susanne Ehrenreich identified in BELF research to date are discussed and, as part of this synopsis, key researchers in the field of BELF studies are introduced along with contextual information regarding their disciplinary environments. In the second part of the chapter, the focus is on the author’s own empirical work offering two glimpses of BELF use in German MNCs. First, the plurilingual nature of BELF as observed during a one-day shadowing of a German business manager is explored; this is followed by a brief discussion of German business professionals’ perceptions of interactions with Japanese business partners. Finally, in the concluding part, future perspectives and open issues in BELF research are identified. Throughout the chapter, potential comparative perspectives are highlighted where possible.

Key issues in BELF research Reviewing existing research into the use of BELF and insiders’ perceptions of BELF communication in multinational corporations a number of key issues emerge, related to both processes and products of research activities. Focusing on studies that approach BELF in an ethnographic, multi-method manner, the following issues can be identified: principal characteristics of BELF use in MNCs, BELF scholars and their disciplinary homes, research methodologies, theoretical aspects of BELF research, the dynamics of BELF, the directionality of adaptation processes in BELF and the idea of BELF universals, as well as policy and educational implications of BELF research. Each of these key issues will be discussed, albeit at different length, in the following sections. Characteristics of BELF use in multinational corporations Regarding the characteristics defining the use of English as a business lingua franca, most studies investigating business professionals’ perceptions of BELF use support a substantial number of overlapping, in some cases even almost identical observations (e.g. Alharbi 2013; Cogo 2012, 2014; Ehrenreich 2009a, 2010, 2011a; Evans 2013; Kankaanranta and Lu 2013; Kankaanranta and Planken 2010; Louhiala-Salminen and Kankaanranta 2011; Räisänen 2013; Takino 2013). What follows is a highly condensed overview of characteristics of BELF use in MNCs, enriched by several references from the literature illustrating the compelling parallels between otherwise unrelated studies. •

First of all, and not surprisingly, ‘English’ is clearly a must in globalized business and an integral part of business knowledge. However, ‘English’ here does (of course) not refer to native speaker English (NSE), but to English as a lingua franca. In business contexts, what is generally referred to as ‘English’ is a communicative resource that is made up of three quintessentially interrelated components. The first component comprises all kinds of Englishes, which serve as some kind of base, the second includes domain-specific factors and requirements that typically shape

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communicative interactions in business contexts, and finally, the third component refers to the lingua franca mode (see also Hülmbauer 2013 on ELF) in which ‘English’ is used to interact across linguistic and cultural boundaries. Crucially, it is the latter two that have shaped and are continually reshaping the very own rules of ELF use in the business domain, and it is only by taking into account this three-fold, interrelated and dynamic nature of the phenomenon that we can do justice – in research and, eventually, in teaching – to the ways in which English is currently used as the world’s global business lingua franca. So, essentially, what the acronym BELF (originally coined by Louhiala-Salminen and her colleagues, see also Louhiala-Salminen et al. 2005) is attempting to encapsulate as a shorthand, is the following: BELF is business communication via ELF, and being a competent BELF speaker involves knowing how to do business via ELF, and the two cannot be separated. The observation that ‘English’ is part and parcel of a globally operating business professional’s workplace activities has been made in various research settings: (1) English . . . is a vital part of the ‘workplace kit’, just like the mobiles or laptops. The following quote illustrates this quite succinctly. ‘Speaking English is as normal a thing as switching on my computer everyday.’ (Ehrenreich 2011a: 22; based on a paper presented at ELF 3 in Vienna 2010) (2) ‘Competence in BELF, that is, expertise in the use of English in the business domain and knowledge of how it can serve business goals best, was compared to the ability to use the computer: you could not do your work without it in today’s international workplace.’ (Kankaanranta and Planken 2010: 399) •

•

•

Thus, due to its lingua franca nature, BELF is essentially different from any NSE in many ways. It is a simultaneously simplified and complexified mode of communication as well as a highly variable, dynamic and hybrid code. Frequently, a percentage of 70 per cent of English communication with other non-native speakers (NNSs), as opposed to communication with native speakers (NSs), is reported, although of course this is a highly contextdependent variable (Ehrenreich 2009a: 138; Kankaanranta and Planken 2010: 387). Globally operating business professionals are thus dealing with a great range of varying individual linguistic proficiencies among their interlocutors with NSs often being perceived to be particularly difficult to deal with, an issue that is sometimes referred to as the ‘native speaker problem’ (Ehrenreich 2010: 421f.; Rogerson-Revell 2008).

138 Susanne Ehrenreich •

•

•

In the same vein, globally operating business professionals are also dealing with a wide range of different regional native and non-native Englishes and thus a great deal of variation on the levels of phonology, lexicogrammar, and, most importantly, on the levels of discourse and pragmatics. Although sometimes expressed with some regret, the overwhelming majority of participants in the relevant studies seem to accept the fact that variability is an inherent quality of BELF and cannot – as much as this might facilitate global communication – be standardized away. Listening to the voices of internationally operating business professionals, what counts in the face of linguistic diversity is precision or accuracy of the content of a message, rather than its linguistic or grammatical accuracy, however this may be defined. Again, the following two quotes by interviewees from two unrelated studies exemplify just how similar the mindsets of business managers in the international arena are when it comes to what really counts in global communication. (3) I must say I’m confronted with so many levels of correctness that I don’t actually care whether something is correct or incorrect. As long as the meaning is not distorted. (B11/German; Ehrenreich 2010: 418) (4) As long as the core message gets across, your English doesn’t need to be perfect. (F13/Finnish; Kankaanranta and Planken 2010: 393)

•

•

•

•

Consequently, whether or not BELF communication is successful, is to a large extent independent of an individual’s approximation to native speaker competence, rather, a great deal of flexibility and a high level of strategic competence are necessary for coping with the communicative challenges posed by global business interactions. Another characteristic of BELF concerns relational talk and rapportbuilding, which are perceived to be an integral and highly relevant part of BELF competence, even though the relational mode is often felt to be more challenging than business-related or specialized talk. In sum, a great deal of tolerance, flexibility and intercultural experience are necessary to be able to deal competently with the multiple cultural hybridity in BELF, not just in terms of socio-culturally based communicative conventions, but also in terms of business cultures. BELF is therefore – and the same holds for ELF in other domains – by no means a culturally ‘neutral’ code as has sometimes been suggested. Nevertheless, despite, or rather, because of the often substantial lack of common linguistic and cultural ground, BELF-based interactions are often reported to be successful, the reason for this being the high degree of cooperation and the collaborative practices that can be observed among speakers in business contexts.

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Similarly, another decisive factor contributing to successful communication is the length of relationship between business partners, which has repeatedly been mentioned by business professionals as essential for coping with BELF communication. Again, with regard to the nature of relationships and their impact on the quality of business interactions, we find very similar observations documented in the literature on BELF: (5) Well, what I notice again and again . . . the better I get to know my [Chinese] colleague, the better I know how long he is normally silent between questions or when I tell him something, or does he clear his throat or do I notice a ‘mhm’, as a sign of confirmation, or something of this kind, or do I not (with emphasis) notice anything in my interactions with him. Well, . . . in that case I know that this is something my colleague usually does or does not do . . . . the better I get to know him, the easier it is for me to find out whether or not he has actually understood what I just said to him. . . . And I realize that there has been a considerable learning curve in the course of time – in terms of developing a certain sensitivity as to whether or not he has understood me. (4/German: Ehrenreich 2011a: 24) (6) Most of the interviewees also emphasized the importance of the length of relationship, which was reported to contribute to the ease of BELF communication . . . (Kankaanranta and Planken 2010: 402)

•

Finally, another feature of BELF that has been unanimously reported by (B)ELF researchers is the fact that in addition to English other languages are involved in BELF communication, in various manifestations with the minimal multilingual interplay comprising English and the speakers’ respective mother tongues. BELF environments are thus by no means monolingual, but at least bi- or even plurilingual settings, an aspect which will be explored in more detail in the second part of this chapter.

There are, quite naturally, also a number of facets of BELF talk where, for various reasons, we find slightly less agreement among researchers, and quite clearly, each of these facets, however difficult they may be to tackle in theoretical and methodological terms, is calling for more research. One such issue concerns the overall effect of (B)E(LF) as the preferred communicative choice for global business trans- and interactions. Optimistic accounts seem to be dominating the picture at the moment, and thus BELF is often said to be an enabler of international communication. However, it is important to keep in mind and investigate in more detail the reasons for this optimistic perspective. The fact that ‘English’ can also act as a disabler, exercising and resulting in exclusion

140 Susanne Ehrenreich of speakers with no or very little proficiency in English, or BELF, for that matter, is an issue that has been reported to be the case particularly in the initial phase of a country’s or a company’s globalizing strategies (see also Marschan-Piekkari et al. 1999, for the Finnish context 15 years ago, and for the Japanese context in the early 2000s, Blazejewski 2006,1 see also Fujita et al. 2014). In a similar vein, BELF communication, which is often reported to be successful, can also prove to be problematic entailing mis- and non-understandings that can result in, for example, major economic losses; mis- or non-understandings that are not always detectable in the immediate linguistic environment of recorded data. Here, we face the challenge of how, in methodological terms, such instances of mis- or non-understanding in BELF communication can be identified and analysed adequately. More generally, but closely related to the issues that have been outlined above, more attention should be devoted to language-related power issues in BELF-based environments (going beyond the mere ‘NS problem’). Language – be it ‘English’ in its various manifestations, or BELF, the respective headquarter’s language or any other language involved in a given business setting – is always also an instrument of power – a fact that is sometimes eclipsed by slightly over-optimistic representations of (B)ELF discourse. While this synopsis of key characteristics of BELF is not necessarily an exhaustive one, it nevertheless represents an attempt to summarize the most salient features of BELF communication that have been established so far through research studies investigating BELF users’ own perceptions of how BELF works (or fails to work) in their respective globalized workplaces. BELF scholars and their disciplinary frameworks – and why these matter As mentioned above, holistic accounts of ELF in business settings, based on multi-method or ethnographic data, have so far been conducted by only a handful of scholars. It might therefore be helpful to look at who these people are and briefly describe their academic or disciplinary backgrounds. Why? Because ‘BELF studies’ in its current state is a field for which the very term ‘field’ is in many ways more an exaggeration and anticipating a possible future rather than describing its actual state. It is a field in which individual researchers are rooted in highly diverse disciplinary frameworks and research traditions, brought together and unified more or less exclusively, but crucially, by their shared research interests.2 Such background information may be beneficial in terms of contextualising and gauging more adequately the individual scholars’ empirical and theoretical achievements. Among the pioneers in the field of BELF are Louhiala-Salminen and Kankaanranta from the Aalto University School of Business in Helsinki, Finland. Both scholars have a background in applied linguistics as well as in economics. Currently they are working in the framework of IBC, International Business Communication. Building on seminal work in ELF research by Jenkins, Seidlhofer and Mauranen, they started applying key ideas such as the Lingua Franca Core (Jenkins 2000) and Seidlhofer’s notion of the ‘conceptual gap’

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(Seidlhofer 2001) to research in business communication, developing the concept of BELF, which they introduced in an article in English for Specific Purposes (ESP) in 2005 (Louhiala-Salminen et al. 2005). Since then they have been investigating the perceptions of BELF speakers in a range of large Finlandbased MNCs in sectors such as IT and logistics, with some of their research being conducted as part of a larger research programme investigating various facets of business know-how (Louhiala-Salminen and Kankaanranta 2011: 246). They use a range of quantitative and qualitative methods to collect their data and their findings are mainly disseminated in business-related journals such as the Journal of Business Communication, IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication and the Journal of Business and Technical Communication (e.g. Kankaanranta and Planken 2010; Louhiala-Salminen and Kankaanranta 2011; Kankaanranta and Lu 2013). The theoretical frameworks they use to analyse their data are interdisciplinary and taken from both business communication research and linguistics. It is to a great extent thanks to them and their prolific work that the wider business research community is now beginning to realize the relevance of language matters and the role of BELF in particular in global operations. Also in Finland, a remarkable study was conducted by Virkkula-Räisänen. Hers is a longitudinal ethnographic study exploring ‘the construction of professional communicative repertoires of Finnish engineers’ (Räisänen 2013: 4). Her data spans a 6-year period from 2003 onward; her very refined analytical framework is of a sociolinguistic nature. Particularly noteworthy is the application of the concept of ‘enregisterment’ by Agha (2007), which is essentially concerned with people’s socialization into certain ‘ways of speaking’ (Hymes 1972). The journals in which her findings are published reflect the interdisciplinary nature of research into BELF, e.g. International Journal of Applied Linguistics (Virkkula [Räisänen] 2010a), Journal of Business Communication (Räisänen 2010b) and Sociolinguistic Studies (Räisänen 2012). In Germany, there is the author of the present chapter, Ehrenreich, with a background in language pedagogy and teacher education, who, inspired by presentations given by Jenkins, Seidlhofer and Mauranen at various IATEFL conferences, was curious to find out, first, about the attitudes towards ELF held by non-language specialists, and second, about the mechanisms of BELF communication. The companies in which her research study was carried out are large global players in the technology sector, with respective workforces of 14,000 and 400,000. The data collection procedures comprise qualitative interviews, observation including two instances of one-day shadowings of individual top managers, as well as audio recordings of telephone calls, telephone conferences and meetings. The theoretical concepts applied to analyze her data are drawn from linguistics and sociolinguistics, e.g. the community of practice (CofP) approach and Schneider’s Dynamic Model of the Evolution of Postcolonial Englishes (Ehrenreich 2009a,b, 2010, 2011a,b,c). Ultimately, her concern is to feed back the implications of empirical insights gained in the business world into the pedagogical domain.

142 Susanne Ehrenreich In England, Cogo, an applied linguist at Goldsmiths, has been investigating the multilingual practices in a small IT company that comprises a total of 8 highly multilingual members of staff, employing the sociolinguistic framework of super-diversity to analyze her data (Cogo 2012). Also in England, two very interesting PhD projects are currently in progress, one by Alharbi (Alharbi 2013) at King’s College, London, who collected ethnographic data in the IT department of a Saudi Arabian health insurance company, and another one, highly relevant for the Japanese context, conducted by Takino at Southampton University. Takino uses narrative interviews to identify Japanese business people’s ‘trajectory of English use as they develop into mature BELF . . . users’ (Takino 2013; see Lopriore and Grazzi 2013: 95). Providing an important complement to Takino’s perception study, Otsu (2014), based in Japan, in her comparative study of authentic talk-in-interaction explores the striking differences in attitudes towards E(LF) in academic and professional settings. She is juxtaposing instances of an individual’s communicative performance, who is at the same time a student in an English language class and a business professional in an ELF-based environment. Also in Japan, Fujita and her colleagues are currently conducting an extensive multi-method study exploring the English language skills required at international business meetings by Japanese business executives (Fujita et al. 2014). Also dealing with an Asian context, albeit a more multilingual one than Japan, in a paper published in the Journal of Business Communication, Evans (2013) describes ‘Perspectives on the use of English as a business lingua franca in Hong Kong’. Evans also uses a multi-method approach and again presents findings strikingly similar to observations made in previous studies on BELF. The study’s particular strength is its context sensitivity, for example in terms of pointing out factors such as company ownership that impact on the extent and the nature of BELF communication. Obviously, considering the varying disciplinary frameworks the individual scholars are working in, differences in terms of approaching the topic of BELF are to be expected, for example in terms of data collection procedures and in terms of the nature of analytical tools employed as well as in terms of where and how findings are disseminated. Such differences need to be appreciated accordingly. The differences in approaching BELF can be broadly summarized as follows: some researchers approach BELF from a business or business communication perspective, while others approach ‘ELF in business’ from a more distinctly linguistic perspective. After this brief overview of the BELF research community, the synopsis of key issues in BELF research will be continued. Research methodology In terms of research methodology, there is general agreement among BELF scholars that with regard to perception studies qualitative and ethnographically

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oriented approaches are – still – the way to go (Seidlhofer et al. 2006: 21). Only procedures which uncover the participants’ emic perspectives help to elucidate the ways in which the ‘insiders-as-experts’ themselves perceive and interpret certain phenomena, including such interculturally highly relevant notions as politeness, directness, and efficiency or effectiveness. Tricky theoretical issues Concerning the theoretical tools that are used to analyse and interpret empirical data, it might be appropriate at this stage to exercise a great deal of interdisciplinary tolerance and to accept the fact that a wide range of often seemingly incompatible concepts are used to explore BELF and its uses in various settings. For example, essentialising vs non-essentialising notions of culture can or even have to be used in line with an individual scholar’s disciplinary orientation to explain BELF-related phenomena to particular audiences or readerships. Other scholars, including the author of this chapter, may find non-essentializing concepts more productive in explaining their findings. For example, a non-essentialising perspective on (B)ELF might entail moving away from a clearly definable concept of communicative competence to more elusive, non-essentialist notions of competence as ‘situated performance’ or something similar along these lines (Hülmbauer 2013). However, whether scholars promoting these ‘hard-to-pin-down’ concepts will be successful any time soon in convincing education ministries and other relevant authorities to eventually apply the concept of ELF to future curricula, is a different story. The dynamics of BELF BELF is a highly dynamic communicative mode and in a constant state of flux. The same holds for the processes that can be observed in the course of its adoption and adaptation on such levels as nation states and business sectors, as well as on the levels of groups and generations of speakers. By the same token, the strategies employed by individual speakers to deal with BELF are constantly changing and so are attitudes and identifications. In Ehrenreich (2011a) I conceptualized this dynamic change by adapting Schneider’s model of the Evolution of Postcolonial Englishes. Companies or even countries differ in terms of when they embrace or endorse, explicitly or implicitly, the idea of English as an international language and, similarly, on the level of the individual, BELF users have been observed to go through a succession of different phases in their language biographies. Over time, self-conscious EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners develop into confident BELF users, constantly adapting and reshaping their linguistic repertoires as is required by their current professional settings, a dynamic development which is captured in my adaptation of Schneider’s model (Table 9.1).

144 Susanne Ehrenreich Table 9.1 ‘Locating English in the domain of international business’ from Ehrenreich (2011a: 29, Table 1, adapted from Schneider 2007: 56) Phase

Global economy

Identity construction

Sociolinguistics of contact/use/ attitudes

Linguistic developments

1 Foundation

First international unions (joint ventures, mergers, acquisitions)

Power stratification acc. to economic relations Varying degree of support for internationalization Strong ‘us–them’ polarization

English required in some business interactions English learnt as EFL at school English an asset, non-English speaking participants disadvantaged

Mix of different learner Englishes

2 Exonormative International Power stratification Interactions more orientation profile (acc. to business frequent and established or hierarchies, also more complex intensifying acc. to proficiency English in English) introduced International group as corporate identities emerge language 3 Nativization and endonormative orientation

International Power differences cooperation remain intensifying Member of multilingual organization Communities of practice emerge

Partial language shift English a ‘must’ Confident use of ELF Target: communicative effectiveness No ‘complaint tradition’

Lexical borrowing Codeswitching Phonological innovation Lexical productivity Hybridity on discourse and pragmatic levels

4 Endonormative stabilization 5 Differentiation Note: Schneider’s original terms are in italics.

The issue of BELF speakers’ evolving linguistic identities is also addressed by Räisänen (2013) and by Takino’s (2013) ongoing work on Japanese business professionals. Räisänen presents a graph similar in essence to the one developed in Ehrenreich (2011a) illustrating this process on the level of the individual (Figure 9.1).

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Learner repertoire

Points of reference: EFL, NS – language as a system – linguistic resources – deficiency – lack of school success

ELF user repertoire

Points of reference: ELF, NNS – language as meaning – interactional resources – adequacy – success in everyday encounters

145

Professional communicative repertoire

Points of reference: EFL, ELF, BELF, colleagues – communicative abilities – communicative resources – success vs. challenges in working life

Figure 9.1 ‘A major trajectory of repertoire construction’ from Räisänen (2013: 145, Figure 8)

She summarizes her findings as follows: ‘Figure 8 [Figure 9.1 in this chapter] illustrates the major trajectory of repertoire construction involving a move from constructing a learner and a general ELF user repertoire to constructing a professional communicative repertoire’ (Räisänen 2013: 144). Socio-cultural communicative conventions – convergence towards BELF universals? Another important issue in current BELF research concerns socio-cultural communicative conventions and their realizations in BELF. How are they negotiated and what kinds of adjustment processes can be observed? This issue urgently requires further investigation from various angles and is one of the future perspectives that will be addressed in some more detail in the concluding part of this chapter. Policy and educational implications Obviously, BELF research has major repercussions on language policies and on language education and training, not just for language training in the business sector, but also more generally. Some of the implications for the business context have been addressed by Louhiala-Salminen and Kankaanranta (2011: 259 f.) and Ehrenreich (2009a), and more recently by Kankaanranta et al. 2015 and Pullin 2015), with more work-in-progress currently under way (Cogo 2014; Fujita et al. 2014).

146 Susanne Ehrenreich

Exemplary glimpses of BELF practices in a German MNC: multilingual practices and speaker perceptions In the following part of this chapter two exemplary glimpses of BELF practices in a German MNC will be discussed. The first describes the multilingual practices of a business manager as observed during a one-day shadowing, the second provides a snapshot of German business professionals’ perceptions of their interactions with Japanese business partners. Multilingual practices in the daily work of a business manager in a German MNC The following observations concerning the multilingual nature of BELF interactions in a German MNC might be particularly interesting as a backdrop for the Japanese context since Germany is, similar to Japan, generally regarded a monolingual society (although on closer inspection this is, of course, a very simplified and unjustified characterization of its actual linguistic set-up). Yet, in how far the wider plurilingual context of Europe is something that can, at least to some extent, be compared with the plurilingual Asian environment, in which Japan finds itself, and its effects on actual cross-linguistic communicative interactions via English, is something that still needs to be established. The procedure: a one-day shadowing The one-day shadowing of a manager, the findings of which are discussed here, took place on 16 March 2006 in one of the two German MNCs in which my data were collected (Ehrenreich 2009a, 2010). The company specializes in transportation systems and is global in the sense that it has subsidiaries on all continents. The shadowing lasted approximately 9 hours, from 7.55 a.m. to 5.15 p.m., with the manager himself staying on in the office for another hour. A total of 110 separate, often overlapping, activities were documented, most of them discourse activities, i.e. involving verbal communication, either in the spoken or in the written mode. The number of people involved in the manager’s communicative interactions during the day amounted to roughly 40 people, in face-to-face interactions and via telephone calls, as well as in telephone conferences, the latter involving up to a total of eight speakers on both sides. The nationalities of the manager’s interlocutors during that particular day were German, Chinese, Spanish, Irish, Italian and American, and the languages that were used in the interactions comprised ‘English’ and ‘German’ (in inverted commas here because both languages were used very much as mixed codes), as well as Spanish and Italian. The languages spoken actively by the manager are German, English, French and Portuguese, as well as some Spanish. In the manager’s communicative exchanges during the day a great deal of co-existence and interplay of different languages was observed. In the following,

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different types of such multilingual practices are discussed, some in addition to E(LF) and others occurring within ELF, although of course it is not always possible to maintain this conceptual distinction. In contextual terms, what needs to be kept in mind is the fact that on the day the shadowing was taking place the manager found himself in his home country, i.e. in a German-speaking environment, not abroad, where English would have played an even more prominent role. A count of all English-based interactions occurring during the one-day shadowing and the total time they amount to in comparison to German, is a task that still needs to be performed. However, with respect to the quantitative side of language choice, it might be interesting to refer to complementary interview data that were obtained in the same company. In these interviews, up to 50 per cent of the interactions during a regular working day at home were reported by the majority of interviewees to occur in English, an estimate that seems to be reflected in the following qualitative analysis of findings. Findings: plurilinguality in addition to ELF and within ELF Based on the observations made during the day of the shadowing, the general linguistic set-up can be described as a German-speaking environment with very frequent use of English in e-mails, phone calls and phone conferences, as well as in exchanges with Chinese ‘inpatriates’. On other days, English would have also been used in meetings with international business partners, however, such an event was not scheduled on this particular day. Very often, several languages, mostly German and English, were activated and used simultaneously. For example, English or German e-mails were read or even written during phone calls, for which the other language was used, i.e. one activity was done in one language, while the other activity was carried out, at the same time, in the other language. A similar practice of what could be called simultaneous dual language use was observed in the same company during an international management meeting involving seventy managers, mostly managing directors from the subsidiary companies around the world: during the official plenary presentations, which were held in English, a large number of participants were reading and sending e-mails in their native (or other) languages. Turning again to the one-day shadowing, Spanish was used as the third language in addition to English and German in three discourse activities (DA): In DA 24 (9.37 a.m. to 9.41 a.m.), a phone call, the manager used Spanish to interact with a Spanish colleague because this colleague’s English was, as he explained, not particularly good and, fortunately, Spanish was part of the German manager’s multilingual repertoire. Subsequently, in DA 25 (9.41 a.m. to 9.42 a.m.), he wrote an e-mail in Spanish to the same Spanish colleague and, later during the day, in DA 77 (1.45 p.m. to 1.47 p.m.) he met another Spanish colleague in the hallway, whom he greeted in Spanish, which was followed by a brief Spanish conversation.

148 Susanne Ehrenreich However, different languages were not just used side by side or simultaneously as intact codes, i.e. in addition to ELF, instead, they were also mixed into hybrid uses of two or even more languages. To my own surprise, I found that English was an integral part of the manager’s use of German, meaning that a lot of his utterances were full of English expressions or resembled something that has been called ‘half-and-half utterances’ (Louhiala-Salminen 2002). This ongoing code-mixing constituted a common feature of many of his German-based interactions during the day. This was particularly noticeable in DA 64 (11.32 a.m. to 12.44 p.m.), an extended meeting with one of his German colleagues. German was intertwined with English in many different ways, for example, in frequent code-switches. Frequently, English lexical items (design freeze, joint venture, scope-split, batches, licence fee, etc.) were used in otherwise German utterances. (7) ‘wir sagen einfach [we’ll just say] cost reduction ist nicht unser Problem [is not an issue we have to deal with]’ This mixing of codes was also observed with abbreviations for English terms that were used in predominately German exchanges: (8) ‘TOT’ [transfer of technology] Interestingly, there were also instances where English abbreviations were pronounced in German, for example in interactions with Italian business partners, for example: (9) ‘FAI’ [first article inspection]. This worked perfectly well in this specific speaker constellation, simply because in this particular case the German and Italian pronunciation of the initials in question happens to be identical. Code-mixing also occurred within one lexical item or within noun phrases. (10) ‘der sales-Preis’ [the sales price] The mixing was also realized in extended utterances by the manager, for example in DA 64 (see above) as a shorthand summary for his German colleague of an extended communicative event – a negotiation – that had taken place earlier that day: (11) ‘das ging wirklich [transl.: and this actually worked], final offer, best offer, final offer, ultimate reduction of one per cent’ Italian was employed as the fourth language during that day in both ways, in addition to ELF as well as, in a very implicit way, within ELF. In DA 87

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(2.16 p.m. to 3.32 p.m.), a telephone conference between Germany and Italy, there were two instances where Italian was used among Italians. This was done to clarify and resolve a tricky issue that had come up in the course of the phone conference, the first time this was done unannounced; the second time Italian was used it was prefaced by ‘just a second for Italian’. While these instances are clear cases of another language being used in addition to ELF, in the same discourse activity we also find an example of how plurilinguality within ELF can be put to use. However, the relevance of this example was only revealed to me by post-observation comments. In telephone conferences with their Italian business partners, it was explained to me afterwards, the German managers and engineers would use a different English word to denote a particular technical product – (12) manometer as opposed to pressure gauge – with the Italians than with other ELF or ENL speakers. This was done because of the cognate nature of this particular word in German and Italian, a fact which was exploited to facilitate better understanding on both sides (see also Hülmbauer 2013). Theoretical implications In theoretical terms, it is Hülmbauer’s (2013) work on the plurilingual nature of ELF, published several years after the shadowing had been taking place, which proved to be particularly helpful in elucidating the implications of the above observations. Hülmbauer points out that in addition to the consecutive use of different languages, there is also a more integrated facet to ELF in relation to other languages. She is arguing for a conceptualization of ELF as a plurilingual phenomenon in itself, which means that we are dealing with two different facets of plurilinguality in relation to ELF, its plurilingual contexts on the one hand and its plurilingual nature on the other hand. Summarizing the findings of her predominantly theoretical work as follows, Hülmbauer captures very aptly what can be observed in the empirical data analysed above: [T]his dissertation proposes an alternative conceptualisation of language in the light of current lingua franca communication. It argues for a holistic view of plurilingual practices as integrative ‘languaging’ without reference to strictly demarcated linguistic units . . . (Hülmbauer 2013: 335f.) It is this kind of integrated and qualitative notion of plurilinguality that encapsulates best the merging and blending of languages that were observed not only during the one-day shadowing described above but on many other occasions during the process of data collection. Going beyond the German and European environment, it would be very interesting to see how possible multilingual practices materialize in Japanese contexts of international business communication.3

150 Susanne Ehrenreich German speakers’ perceptions of interactions with Japanese Moving from the non-participant observer’s perspective of a single manager’s BELF interactions to an exploration of participant (i.e. emic) perspectives, the following section provides a brief overview of what German business professionals had to say about their interactions with Japanese business partners. In the qualitative interviews that were conducted as part of the author’s multimethod study at two Germany-based MNCs, the challenges of intercultural communication, particularly with Asian business partners, was frequently mentioned. With regard to interactions with Japanese business partners, the interviewees repeatedly addressed issues such as their struggle to understand and eventually cope with different business cultures and procedures, and what they, from their German perspective, saw as a lack of directness and clarity, but also how, at the same time, strategies had been developed to successfully deal with perceived instances of indirectness. Similarly, differing conventions governing business genres such as meetings and negotiations were reported as a site of struggle, as well as coming to terms with speaker hierarchies and different floor-taking mechanisms, etc. Very often, straightforward ethnocentric views were expressed in terms of how German business procedures were, quite naturally, the best, but at the same time the interviewees also elaborated on how they had tried out and gradually learned to develop and adopt new approaches that seemed to be working better in German-Japanese interactions, rather than just sticking to how things were commonly done in German business settings. At the same time, there was widespread agreement that Japanese reliability was something that was very much appreciated. Needless to say, all these issues deserve to be researched from a complementary, i.e. a Japanese perspective (Fujita et al. 2014). Above all, and this is true for the majority of my interviewees’ global interactions, despite the challenges they had to meet, they were generally extremely fond of working in a highly globalized company and had no intention whatsoever of moving back to a more nationally oriented workplace. I conclude this very cursory glimpse of German business professionals’ perceptions of their interactions with Japanese business partners with the following quote by a German CEO: (13) This morning I talked to a Japanese partner on the phone. It was awful English, but we sort of understood each other. . . . There is simply no better solution, I don’t speak Chinese, I don’t speak Indian, I don’t speak Japanese. (B3/German; Ehrenreich 2010: 420) This quote very nicely shows how intricately several aspects of BELF are interwoven: prevailing standard language ideologies lingering somewhere in the back of the mind even of very proficient BELF communicators, BELF as an enabler of global business communication (and, by implication, as a disabler

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for those not proficient in it), and, finally, the processes of solidarity-building between BELF speakers.

Conclusion: future perspectives and open issues Basically all of the key issues addressed in the first part of this chapter beg for more research activities in the field: the principal characteristics of BELF, related theoretical issues, the dynamic nature of BELF, BELF in interaction with other languages, as well as educational considerations. Crucially, future research needs to explore different, and hitherto uncharted regional and cultural settings, the nature of different sectors of industry, as well as company-internal vs company-external perspectives and, finally, in methodological terms, innovative approaches need to be developed. To conclude, I would like to draw the reader’s attention to two of my main concerns, one being the urgent need for BELF researchers to contextualize their findings better, the other concerning the dynamics of the hybridity of communicative norms in BELF. Open issues: the sociolinguistic importance of context Looking at previous research into BELF, I would like to argue that BELF researchers need to be careful to contextualize their findings more adequately. More specifically, particular research contexts and their characteristics have to be made transparent when findings are reported: the size of the company or companies and their economic power, the corporate structure, the makeup of the workforce, the location of the headquarter and the headquarter’s language(s) and culture(s) (i.e. monolingual vs multilingual, hierarchical or rather non-hierarchical), company-internal vs company-external communication with customers and suppliers. Each of these contextual factors needs to be highlighted more transparently than has sometimes been the case and their links to and effects on the nature of BELF communication and its perception by business professionals in a particular setting has to be explored more thoroughly from a sociolinguistic angle. BELF does not materialize in the exact same way across regions, domains and companies, i.e. BELF is not the same everywhere, it is always shaped by its particular context, a fact that is sometimes overlooked. Open issues: convergence of communicative norms? There is general agreement that communication via BELF is an intercultural hybrid, i.e. discourse and pragmatic features of BELF are negotiated within speaker communities and coloured by their speakers’ linguacultural backgrounds. The question is whether, in the course of ongoing global interactions among individuals, some kind of convergence of communicative norms is happening, as has recently been suggested by Kankaanranta and her colleagues

152 Susanne Ehrenreich (e.g. Kankaanranta and Lu 2013), and whether this is a unidirectional process. If this was the case indeed, we might wonder whether the international business domain is exposed to a new kind of hegemony, a hegemony forcing upon it Western notions of (apparently) successful business communication with principles such as clarity, directness, openness, and efficiency (Kankaanranta and Planken 2010; Kankaanranta and Lu 2013) governing all global business communication? Or are the processes that are taking place globally, instead of converging into one direction, rather bi- or even multidirectional affairs, as I have suggested elsewhere (Ehrenreich 2011b, c)? Devising research methods to investigate the socio-cultural communicative principles governing BELF communication in a given context is a very challenging task and I applaud Kankaanranta and her colleagues for their pioneering work in terms of comparing e.g. Finnish BELF with Chinese or Korean BELF (Jung and Louhiala-Salminen 2012; Kankaanranta and Lu 2013). I have, however, reservations with regard to some of the tentative conclusions that have been suggested so far. I support the observation, and have similar data of this kind, that socio-cultural adjustment processes on the part of the speakers are taking place, for example with respect to conversational styles and politeness strategies. However, Kankaanranta and her colleagues seem to go one step further in suggesting that an overarching process of convergence towards a particular set of principles governing business communication in general can be observed (Kankaanranta and Planken 2010; Kankaanranta and Lu 2013: 298 ff.; Louhiala-Salminen and Kankaanranta 2011), a set of principles identified by what probably has to be classified critically as Western-dominated business communication research. For example, Kankaanranta and Lu (2013: 298 f.) report findings according to which Chinese business professionals working in Finnish subsidiaries have adopted a more direct approach in communication and have begun to follow the company’s convention of addressing everybody by first names regardless of the company-internal hierarchy of their interlocutors.4 My own data suggests a more interculturally balanced and multidirectional approach that is being adopted by globally operating business managers, particularly in interaction with Asian business partners (Ehrenreich 2011b, c). Similarly, Park (2009) on ‘Korea English as a Glocalized Variety’ and Morizumi (2009) on ‘Japanese English for EIAL [English as an international auxiliary language]’ underline how important it can be for speakers to retain certain L1-based – in their cases, Korean or Japanese – discoursal features in their use of English for international purposes. This area of pragmatic hybridity and the question of how exactly such hybridity materializes in BELF, spoken by speakers of different lingua-cultural backgrounds, is, to my mind, one of the most interesting and pressing issues to explore, though notoriously difficult to research. In order to counterbalance any potentially emerging European, or more specifically, Finnish and German bias, Asian perspectives are urgently needed.

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Notes 1

2

3

4

Blazejewski (2006: 84–88) offers an account from a conflict-management perspective analysing the situation in a Japanese subsidiary of a German-based MNC after English had been introduced as the common corporate language in the early 2000s. It should be noted here that other researchers investigating ELF in business contexts have done so predominately from a micro, i.e. conversation or discourse analytic perspective, and have therefore, and only for this particular reason, not been mentioned here, e.g. Pitzl (2010), Pullin (2013) and Santner-Wolfartsberger (Wolfartsberger 2011). A first step in this direction has been taken by Takino in her presentation on ‘Multilingual practices among the Japanese BELF users’ presented at the 2nd ELF ReN Workshop, which was held in Southampton in November 2013. For a different, ELF-critical perspective, see Kubota, Chapter 10, this volume. It seems that in earlier publications the phenomenon of pragmatic hybridity in terms of effects of L1 discourse practices on the nature of BELF was given more prominence than has recently been the case (Louhiala-Salminen et al. 2005).

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Pitzl, M. 2010. English as a Lingua Franca in International Business: Resolving Miscommunication and Reaching Shared Understanding. Saarbrücken: VDM Verlag Dr. Müller. Pullin, P. 2013. Achieving “comity”: the role of linguistic stance in business English as a lingua franca (BELF) meetings. Journal of English as a Lingua Franca 2(1), 1–23. Pullin, P. 2015. Culture, curriculum design, syllabus and course development in the light of BELF. Journal of English as a Lingua Franca 4(1), Special issue on Teaching ELF, BELF and/or Intercultural Communication? Guest editors: Susanne Ehrenreich and Marie-Luise Pitzl, 31–53, doi: 10.1515/jelf-2015-0010. [Räisänen] Virkkula, T. and T. Nikula 2010a. Identity construction in ELF contexts: a case study of Finnish engineering students working in Germany. International Journal of Applied Linguistics 20(2), 251–273. [Räisänen] Virkkula-Räisänen, T. 2010b. Linguistic repertoires and semiotic resources in interaction: a Finnish manager as a mediator in a multilingual meeting. Journal of Business Communication 47(4), 505–531. Räisänen, T. 2012. Processes and practices of enregisterment of business English, participation and power in a multilingual workplace. Sociolinguistic Studies 6(2), 309–331. Räisänen, T. 2013. Professional Communicative Repertoires and Trajectories of Socialization into Global Working Life. PhD dissertation: University of Jyväskylä. Rogerson-Revell, P. 2008. Participation and performance in international business meetings. English for Specific Purposes 26, 103–120. [Santner-]Wolfartsberger, A. 2011. ELF business/business ELF: Form and function in simultaneous speech. In A. Archibald, A. Cogo and J. Jenkins (eds), Latest Trends in ELF Research. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 169–183. Schneider, E. 2007. Postcolonial English. Varieties around the World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Seidlhofer, B. 2001. Closing a conceptual gap: the case for a description of English as a lingua franca. International Journal of Applied Linguistics 11, 133–158. Available at: www.univie.ac.at/voice/documents/seidlhofer_2001b.pdf Seidlhofer, B., A. Breiteneder and M. Pitzl 2006. English as a lingua franca in Europe. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 26, 1–34. Takino, M. 2013. Listening to the narratives of Japanese ELF users in business contexts. Paper presented at ELF6, The 6th International Conference of English as a Lingua Franca, Rome, Italy, 4–7 September 2013.

10 ‘Language is only a tool’ Japanese expatriates working in China and implications for language teaching Ryuko Kubota In China, Japanese, rather than English, is used [in the workplace] in many cases; but there, the language needed is basically not Japanese or English but Chinese. . . . What’s necessary is for the Japanese (expatriates) to learn Chinese. Workers, who are capable of doing their job well in Japan, can manage [language demands] once they are overseas. Basically, we don’t consider language skill as the goal. . . . in schools, the goal is to learn [English] grammar and vocabulary through tests and get the perfect score on a paper exam. . . . But at work, the goal is to accomplish your task whether in Japan or abroad. We consider language skill as just one of the tools. (both translated from Japanese) These are statements made by one of the present study’s interviewees, a manager of the personnel department of a major Japanese manufacturing company. These comments question common beliefs – that English serves as a universal lingua franca and that contemporary work categorically demands high English proficiency. The first belief supports the growing scholarly interest in the role of English in the globalized world, whereas the second one reflects the neoliberal ideology that emphasizes the development of so-called soft skills as part of human capital in the knowledge economy (Block et al. 2012; Kubota 2011a; Park 2011; Urciuoli 2008). These beliefs drive the current trend of foreign language education in the non-English-speaking world, emphasizing learning English and measuring linguistic skills by standardized tests such as IELTS (International English Language Testing System), TOEIC (Test of English for International Communication), and TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language). While the spread of English is an undeniable fact, other lingua francas exist and function in many social settings (Mufwene 2010). Furthermore, research on language and global mobility has revealed diverse linguistic repertoires that are not aligned with bounded standard language (Blommaert 2010; Blommaert et al. 2005). Although proficiency in an additional language is important in transnational work, employers typically look for workers who are not linguists but those with

Japanese expatriates working in China 157 strong professional competency in addition to language skills (Bloch 1995). In fact, an overemphasis on teaching language skills may neglect other skills and dispositions required for the globalized workplace. Assumptions about English and linguistic skills can be critically explored by examining the language use of transnational workers who are native speakers of a language other than English working in a non-English-dominant world, their experiences of linguistic and non-linguistic challenges, and their views about the knowledge, skills, and dispositions required in transnational work. Seeking intersections of the inquiries into English as a lingua franca, language in the workplace, and foreign language education, this chapter reports a qualitative case study that investigated these questions by focusing on Japanese expatriates in China and Chinese co-workers in the manufacturing sector.

Teaching English, skills and ideologies The assumption that English is a global language connecting people from diverse linguistic backgrounds underpins recent scholarship in language education, including English as an international language (e.g. McKay and Bokhorst-Heng 2008; Sharifian 2009), world Englishes (e.g. Kachru and Smith 2008; Kirkpatrick 2007), and English as a lingua franca (ELF) (e.g. Jenkins et al. 2011; Murata and Jenkins (eds) 2009; Seidlhofer 2011). This assumption is also reflected in the increased emphasis on teaching English as a foreign language in many parts of the world. In Japan, for example, strong trends for teaching and learning English in both public and private sectors are observed in introducing English to the primary school curriculum (Butler 2007; Butler and Iino 2005; Kubota 2011b); in the popularity of English language tests, especially TOEIC for career and academic purposes; and even in public debates on making English an official language (Kawai 2007; Matsuura et al. 2004). Many of these developments are influenced by a series of recommendations for education made by Japanese business associations (Kubota 2011a). Moreover, English use is institutionalized in the business sector, as seen in the English-only policy enforced by large Japanese businesses like Rakuten and UNIQLO. Conversely, the spread of English has been criticized from the perspective of linguistic imperialism as it reinforces inequalities between English speakers and non-English speakers, increases the superiority of native speakers of English, and threatens minority languages (e.g. Phillipson 2009; SkutnabbKangas 2000). Many of these discussions about English are based on the premise that English has become the most natural and viable choice for intercultural communication and therefore it is universally used for global communication. It is important to note that recent scholarship on ELF has situated English in multilingual contexts, where multiple languages including English are used in fluid and hybrid manners, moving away from a monolingual focus. For instance, Cogo (2012) describes how non-native English-speaking multilingual workers at an IT company in the UK code-switched among Spanish, German and

158 Ryuko Kubota English (see also Ehrenreich, Chapter 9, this volume). Yet our scholarly community’s overwhelming interest in English together with preoccupation with English in language education policies and public discourses reinforces the myth of English as a universal language. However, this assumption has been questioned. From a sociolinguistic point of view, it is estimated that more than three-quarters of the world population is non-English-speaking (Graddol 2006) and the major lingua franca among transnational nonelite migrant workers outside of English-dominant countries is often the dominant language of the host country rather than English (Gottlieb 2008; Kubota and McKay 2009; Mufwene 2010). A qualitative study on elite Russian workers in Germany revealed that English was not universally used in all situations in the workplace. While some used English, it was only for workrelated topics; some Russian job seekers were disadvantaged for not speaking German; and moreover some used their native language, Russian, exclusively (Amelina 2010). A study of Japanese companies operating in China revealed that, unlike in such countries as Malaysia and the Philippines, where English is typically used in the workplace, Japanese expatriates experience the need for a working knowledge of Mandarin (Nebashi 2007). Even in English-dominant countries such as Canada, the UK and the USA, immigrant workers do not necessarily use English in the workplace; rather, they often use their native language or learn other immigrants’ languages for workplace interaction (Block 2007; Duff et al. 2000; Goldstein 1997; Harper et al. 1996; Kramsch and Whiteside 2007, 2008; Norton 2000). Indeed, frequent reference to English as a global language in scholarly and educational contexts reinforces the truth effect of this assumption. Moreover, an intensive focus on English in academic, educational, and public policy discourses could undermine the importance of learning other languages. But what level of linguistic competence in any language is needed for transnational work? The above-mentioned study in Germany (Amelina 2010) indicates that language used in a multilingual workplace may display very specialized linguistic forms depending on the purpose and the language user’s repertoire. It may indeed demonstrate ‘truncated multilingualism’, which is ‘linguistic competencies which are organized topically, on the basis of domains or specific activities’ (Blommaert et al. 2005: 199). The linguistic competence necessary for specific workplace communication might be quite different from what is typically taught in language classrooms which presumes ability of the complete spectrum of the standard variety of a language. The assumption about English as an international language is closely related to the neoliberal notion of human capital or abilities deemed necessary for the knowledge economy (Heller 2003; Urciuoli 2008; Williams 2010). As an important aspect of human capital, English competence is deemed essential for career opportunities and upward socioeconomic mobility (Kubota 2011a; Park 2010, 2011). Recent quantitative research on language economics concludes that language skills are indeed positively related to earning, but this may apply more to men than to women and all data come from North American and

Japanese expatriates working in China 159 European settings involving European languages (Grin et al. 2010). Moreover, companies do not necessarily prioritize pre-existing skills in English (or another language) for employment or overseas work assignment (Kubota 2011a), which might be related to practical constraints such as cost effectiveness arising from the recruitment of competent employees (Grin et al. 2010). The role of English competency for work in Asian settings requires further investigation. Issues of multilingualism in the workplace have been studied within applied linguistics from various conceptual and methodological perspectives, such as pragmatics in workplace communication (i.e. politeness and various functions such as complaints, directives and apologies); ethnography for investigating language choice, literacy practices, identity and the role of English instruction in the workplace; and issues of power, ideology and discrimination in gatekeeping encounters such as job interviews and skills testing (see Duff 2008 and Roberts 2007 for syntheses). Other studies focus on gender in workplace communication (e.g. Holmes 2003) or are situated in the inquiry area of English for specific purposes and investigate how non-native English speakers use English in various business contexts such as emailing, business meetings and specific work (e.g. Forey and Lockwood 2007; Rogerson-Revell 2007, 2008; Wozniak 2010). These studies, however, are predominantly situated in Englishdominant societies where communication in English is assumed. Another interdisciplinary area of inquiry is business discourse, which involves linguistics, communication studies, organization studies, and international management, and investigates how workers and business institutions, including multinational corporations, accomplish tasks through oral and written communication (Bargiela-Chiappini 2009). Although English is still a major topic of discussion, this inquiry area tends to be more international and the use of other languages is examined. Within the domain of international management, for instance, studies on multinational corporations generally found that although English is typically chosen as a common corporate language, other languages do play the role of either common or operational language and language policy is sometimes left ambiguous due to affective and political consequences within the workplace (Piekkari 2009). With regard to the role of language proficiency in personnel overseas assignments, Piekkari (2008) concludes that ‘more emphasis tends to be placed on professional competence rather than language competence per se’ (p. 132), which corresponds to the views of Japanese managers (Kubota 2011a). Despite such scholarship in multiple disciplines, little is known, as Tanaka (2009) points out, about communication in the transnational workplace in non-English-dominant countries in Asia, where, for instance, Japanese workers interact with other Asian workers. An investigation of language choice, communication strategies, and competencies viewed as important by focusing on the transnational workplace would provide useful insights into teaching and learning for preparing future citizens in the globalized society. In addition, the nature of transnational communication in languages other than English may offer insight in lingua franca communication, which ELF is part of.

160 Ryuko Kubota This chapter aims to fill the scholarly gaps and explores implications for language education. This chapter focuses on six major Japanese manufacturing companies and investigates through interviews the language choice of current and former Japanese expatriates and local Chinese office workers in three subsidiaries in China. It also examines the views of interviewees, including managers at the headquarters in Japan, about knowledge, skills, and dispositions deemed important for overseas work. It specifically investigates the following questions: What languages do Japanese expatriates use in the workplace? What other knowledge, skills, and dispositions do the Japanese company managers, expatriates, and local workers think necessary? I approach this research from a critical perspective, questioning taken-for-granted assumptions to transform the status quo. However, as discussed later, corporate business rests in the neoliberal system and thus this research raises difficult questions.

Methodology Adopting a qualitative approach, I conducted interviews with employees of six major manufacturing companies in Japan and three subsidiaries in China (two in a major city and one in a midsized city), which were associated with two of the six parent companies. Interviews in Japan involved Japanese managers or those who were familiar with personnel policies (‘managers’ hereafter) about expatriates and former expatriates in China. Interviews in China involved current Japanese expatriates and Chinese office workers. The interviews took place in Japan in 2010 and in China in 2011. All interviews were conducted in a face-to-face semi-structured format in Japanese arranged individually or in a small group. Of many industries in Japan, I chose the manufacturing sector as a focus since it has the largest overseas expansion, constituting approximately 42 per cent of all Japanese industries operating overseas (Toyo Keizai 2009). China was chosen as a site of investigation because it is a non-English-dominant country and the top destination of Japanese companies’ overseas expansion. In 2008, China hosted a total of 5,017 subsidiaries set up by 2,474 Japanese companies, which constituted 23 per cent of all the Japanese subsidiaries abroad (Toyo Keizai 2009). A contact person at each company was identified through personal connections. The contact person either arranged interviews or agreed to be interviewed. The interviews with managers were conducted either in a one-onone or group format, whereas those with former expatriates were conducted individually. At two headquarters, interviews with former expatriates were attended by the contact person. The contact persons were also included in the study as managers since they participated in the interviews. One former expatriate was working at a factory outside of Tokyo and was interviewed separately. Some interviewees in Japan had experienced being both a manager

Japanese expatriates working in China 161 and an expatriate in China and/or other foreign countries. Their accounts from both perspectives were included in the data. Visits to subsidiaries in China were arranged via the headquarters in Japan. Due to lack of resources for interpretation, I had requested that Chinese employees speak either Japanese or English. All Chinese interviewees spoke in Japanese. All interviews with Japanese and Chinese participants were oneon-one except for one joint interview with two Chinese employees. At two subsidiaries, a brief tour of the workplace was arranged, allowing me to observe an office floor and a production floor. All in all, interview accounts come from the following three groups: 13 Japanese managers at six Tokyo headquarters, 10 expatriates (6 former and 4 current), and 6 Chinese local office employees (see Table 10.1). Of the expatriates, 5 worked for Company A (3 former and 2 current), 4 worked for Company B (2 former and 2 current), and 1 former expatriate worked for Company C. The former expatriates worked in China for 1 to 5.7 years with an average of 4.4 years, whereas the current expatriates had been working in China for 1 to 9 years with an average of 3.7 years. All Japanese interviewees were male, except for 2 female managers who attended two interviews in Tokyo. The male dominance reflects the typical employment pattern of major Japanese manufacturing companies. One manager was a long-time employee originally from China with a degree from a Japanese university. Of 6 Chinese employees, 2 were female and 4 were male. Interview questions for managers included: What criteria are used for selecting employees for overseas assignments? What cultural and linguistic challenges do expatriates face? What kinds of language skills are important? What abilities and qualifications are required for working overseas? For current and former expatriates, I asked about their experience abroad in addition to their personal and linguistic background. Other questions included: What language(s) do/did Table 10.1 Participants Company Manager

Former expatriate

Current expatriate Local staff

A

AM1, AM2, AM3 AF1(AM1), AF2, AF3 AC

AL1, AL2*

B

BM1, BM2, BM3* BF1, BF2

BCSubX1 BCSubX2 BCSubY

BLSubX1. BLSubX2* BLSubY1 BLSubY2

C

CM

CF(CM)

–

–

D

DM1, DM2*

–

–

–

E

EM

–

–

–

F

FM

–

–

–

Note: A to F denote companies. Asterisks denote female. AF1(AM1) and CF(CM) indicate that these two individuals represent both manager and former expatriate.

162 Ryuko Kubota you use for what types of tasks in the workplace? What cultural and linguistic challenges do/did you experience? How do/did you overcome them? What knowledge, skills, attitudes, and awareness do you think are important for working overseas? For Chinese employees, I asked about their personal and linguistic background and the following questions: What language(s) do you use for what types of tasks with Japanese expatriates? What cultural and linguistic challenges do you experience with the expatriates? How do you overcome them? Each interview lasted between 15 and 75 minutes with an average of 42 minutes. Each interview was audio-recorded (except for one participant who declined) and transcribed later. Content analysis of the data was performed with an interpretive lens by synthesizing the responses and identifying common themes. Before presenting the findings, limitations of this study should be noted. First, due to a difficulty of accessing corporate sites for research (BargielaChiappini 2009; Roberts 2007), only a small number of participants were involved and only interview data were available. Actual workplace communication would offer richer data. Second, although this study focused on the manufacturing sector, some of the companies (companies D and F) have a strong information technology service section as well. The diverse nature of business for large businesses, coupled with the difficulty in access, made it rather challenging to identify a homogeneous group of participants. Third, the sample seemed to lack diversity as the participants were selected by the contact persons. The interviewees’ overall proactive tone, as exemplified in some Japanese expatriates’ reference to other expatriates with less positive attitudes toward China, indicates that they were distinctive employees from the contact persons’ perspective. Finally, due to lack of resources, interviews with Chinese employees were not conducted in Mandarin. Multilingual data collection would provide more comprehensive data in future research. The following findings should be tempered by these limitations.

Findings Language use When I mentioned that one focus of my investigation was language use in the workplace in China, most managers stated that China differs from other countries in that Japanese and Mandarin,1 rather than English, are mostly used (Nebashi 2007). As indicated below, the prevalent use of Japanese and Mandarin might be related to the proximity of the written systems and a legacy of Japanese colonialism. Some managers mentioned that the language depends on the nature of the work. Interviews with expatriates paralleled such comments; of the ten former and current expatriates, only three mentioned that English was the major language for work. The responses from other expatriates indicated that, although there were some individual and corporate differences, the major

Japanese expatriates working in China 163 languages used between the expatriates and Chinese local employees or clients were Japanese and to an extent Mandarin in oral and written communication. Language use is obviously influenced by one’s language proficiency. Although all expatriates chose Mandarin with varied self-reported levels of proficiency, three (AF1, AF2, BF2) commented that their Mandarin proficiency was very limited. Of them, two (AF1, AF2) stated that they used English 70 to 80 per cent of the time and Japanese for the rest, whereas one (BF2) said that Japanese was the main medium of communication. In contrast, three expatriates (BF1, BCSubX2, CF) learned Mandarin at a Chinese university for approximately a year (one had studied as an undergraduate student and two had been sent by their company) and considered themselves to be fluent in spoken and written Mandarin. Of the three, two used Mandarin as the major medium of workplace communication, whereas one commented that Japanese was used more often than Mandarin. The remaining four expatriates (AF3, AC, BCSubX1, BCSubY) used Mandarin with varied frequency. One (AF3) commented that he used mostly Japanese in the beginning but toward the end of his stay, he was using about 40 per cent Japanese and 60 per cent Mandarin for oral communication, whereas he used Japanese and English for written communication. Another expatriate, who dealt with local sales agents (BCSubX1), said that he used mostly Japanese for oral communication in his office, whereas he handled Mandarin email messages sent directly from Chinese sales agents. Asked what he would do if he could not understand, he said, ‘I can understand from Chinese characters and [Arabic] numerals because the content is predictable.’2 An interpreter accompanies him on business trips within China, but he occasionally makes simple speeches in Mandarin. Another expatriate, who had previously lived in the USA (BCSubY), was surprised to find out that English was not used at all in his workplace in China. He began learning Mandarin seriously and became able to use it to some extent for email and spoken communication. Conversely, another current expatriate (AC) stated that although he was learning Mandarin, he used mostly English since his work involves sales clients outside of China. Expatriates’ frequent use of Japanese is supported by the fact that many Chinese office employees, as many as perhaps 50 per cent, had a varied range of Japanese proficiency. The subsidiaries actively hire Chinese workers with Japanese proficiency and they encourage Chinese employees to learn Japanese once they are hired. One former expatriate (BF1) explained that while he was in China, Chinese employees with English proficiency increasingly left for Western companies, making his workplace more bilingual in Japanese and Mandarin. Following the Japanese corporate tradition, which prioritizes employees’ on-the-job training for long-term employment, the company began to support Chinese employees’ Japanese language learning. This in turn reduced the necessity to compete with Western companies for recruiting workers with similar competencies. One Chinese interviewee (AL2) also mentioned that although English proficiency was deemed important for Chinese office

164 Ryuko Kubota employees and many already had functional English skills, knowing Japanese would provide them with a competitive edge in the current tough job market. The Chinese interviewees obviously represent such a profile. All studied Japanese formally. Four interviewees (AL2, BLSubX1, BLSubY1, BLSubY2) studied in Japan in the 1980s and/or 1990s, when learning Japanese was popular. One interviewee (AL1) lived in Japan for 11 years; originally from Taiwan, he had moved to Japan as an adolescent, completed a master’s degree in engineering in Japan, and was hired by the current company in Japan. In contrast, another interviewee (BLSubX2), who was younger than the others, majored in Japanese in China. She had only traveled to Japan once on business. All of the Chinese interviewees used Japanese for oral and written communication. Of the six, the Taiwanese multilingual interviewee used English as well. He made a comment that represents one nature of communication that applied to Japanese expatriates as well: Ryuko:

AL1: Ryuko: AL1:

Is Japanese currently a medium when you communicate with Japanese expatriates? Yes, it is. How about email? That’s Japanese too. I use a different language depending on whom I communicate with. For example, I use Chinese with local employees, Japanese with expats, and English when I have inquiries from abroad.

Paralleling the above comment, bilingual or multilingual expatriates also used different languages depending on the interlocutors’ linguistic repertoire. Yet the communication can be hybrid. For both expatriates and local employees who use their second language with varied levels of proficiency, language mix is a typical consequence. One former expatriate (AF2) reflected on the common practice of language mix which included Chinese employees’ use of Japanese slang and his mixing of Mandarin. Written communication did not completely overlap oral communication. According to the expatriates, their email communication with Japanese colleagues or clients was in Japanese. When email communication involved multiple recipients, a message was sometimes translated into or dictated in Mandarin, depending on the message’s importance and the recipients. Conversely, expatriates handled routine or non-critical email communication in Mandarin by using such strategies as guessing the meaning from the Chinese characters and numerals or writing in Japanese by using as many Chinese characters as possible, although the effectiveness of especially the latter strategy is unclear. These strategies are made possible because Japanese and Mandarin share logographs, though their forms or meanings are not always identical.

Japanese expatriates working in China 165 The three expatriates who used English as a major medium of oral communication also used English for email communication. One current expatriate (AC), manager of a sales coordination department whose work mostly involved sales-related business outside of China, commented that he encouraged Chinese employees to use English in order to make communication transparent to him and other Japanese employees. Another former expatriate (AF3), who shifted from Japanese to Mandarin in oral communication during his stay, commented that email communication was mostly conducted in English. It seems that the language choice and use depends on the nature of the work, the linguistic repertoire of the interlocutors, individual linguistic subjectivity, and possibly the culture of each workplace. As previously mentioned, when the work involves communicating with people outside of China or English-speaking Chinese, English tends to be used. Within the office, depending on the linguistic repertoire of the participants, the language of a meeting can be Japanese, Mandarin or English. Furthermore, many interviewees agreed with the following statement of a former expatriate: The closer you get to the worksite where our machines operate, the more necessary the local language becomes. (BF1) For one current expatriate, an engineer who works for the product support department and often travels to solve technical problems, speaking Mandarin is essential. For the production floor, most workers are not Japanese or English speakers; they tend to use their local language, dialect of Chinese. For Japanese engineers to communicate with production floor workers, they need Mandarin proficiency or an interpreter. During a brief factory tour, I saw a Japanese engineer instructing a group of Chinese workers via a Chinese interpreter. All the bulletin boards were mostly displayed in Mandarin with some Japanese, indicating that some of the posters (e.g. safety information) were translated from Japanese originals. The choice of language also depends on the nature of the task. If the task does not require sophisticated language, a second language can be used. Conversely, if the task is complicated, translation and interpretation comes into play. As one manager (FM) explained, technical work like presenting new technology to local workers and clients typically does not involve complicated negotiation and thus minimum language proficiency usually suffices. Conversely, detailed communication requires a translator or interpreter, usually local Chinese employees or Japanese employees who are proficient in Mandarin and hired locally. However, language specialists per se are rare – they might initially be hired for communication purposes but they are trained to acquire other work skills. This echoes the career requirement that typically goes beyond being a ‘pure “linguist”’ (Bloch 1995). Overall, many expatriates are compelled to use language(s) other than Japanese with varied levels of sophistication. This raises a set of questions posed by one former expatriate (BF1):

166 Ryuko Kubota When we say someone can speak a language, like English, what does it mean? At which level, from a professional point of view, someone is proficient? . . . When I’m asked “Do you speak Mandarin?” I say “Yes,” but I wonder what it takes to say I can speak it. Is it being able to serve as an interpreter? Or is it being able to say greetings and interact? These questions seem to signify truncated repertoires that are partial and specialized and yet functional in a workplace (Blommaert 2010; Blommaert et al. 2005). The blurred definition of language proficiency for business purposes calls into question the appropriateness of conventional goals for teaching foreign languages. One interesting issue is a possible link between language choice and workplace-specific practice or individual subjectivity. The four expatriates who used mostly English for email communication worked for the same company (AF1, AF2, AF3, AC). Language choice and use might be part of corporate practices unique to each workplace, although choosing a common language is often an emergent process (Piekkari 2009). It is also worth noting that two of these four expatriates used to work in a subsidiary in Singapore where English was predominantly used. One former expatriate (AF2) stated that he had few opportunities to use Mandarin in his workplace because his local co-workers spoke English or Japanese. His following comment was followed up by a manager: AF2: . . . It [language choice] depends on the section or environment. For example, in the production department, people don’t speak English, so they have to communicate in Mandarin . . . If you happen to speak some English, you try to use it. But if you can’t speak English well, you’d try to communicate in Mandarin from the get-go and you become good at it quickly – I was the former case. AM3: Being able to speak English can be good or bad in the Chinese context. People naturally rely on English, so . . . if a [Japanese] worker who can only speak Japanese is sent there, then what to be learned is Mandarin. These people tend to make better progress in learning Mandarin. Some expatriates with English-speaker subjectivity apparently shun learning the local language in an ELF environment. In sum, Japanese and, to some extent, Mandarin are major common languages in the office space for Japanese expatriates but English is also used for work involving overseas clients and English-speaking Chinese clients or mainly for written communication. The orthographical proximity between Japanese and Mandarin allows written communication in both languages. The closer the work is related to the local contexts, the more the local language is used. Overall, language choice depends on the linguistic repertoires of the interlocutors, the nature of work, and perhaps individual subjectivity.

Japanese expatriates working in China 167 Skills, knowledge and dispositions required for expatriates Interviewees acknowledged the importance of language skills, especially English in general and Mandarin for working in China. One manager (FM), who regularly participated in meetings with global partners, emphasized the importance of English. However, both managers and expatriates shared a consensus that transcultural communicative and cultural competence and dispositions were as or more important. Asked about the criteria for selecting expatriates, one manager (AM2) stressed that the ultimate goal is often misunderstood. He said: What’s clear is that it’s not about language skills – what matters is whether a person can do the work or has motivation to do it. That’s it. Someone who can’t do the job or has no motivation can’t function abroad even if he can speak a foreign language. His next comment provided the opening quote of this article, in which he contrasted schools and workplaces and pointed out that in the work culture language proficiency is considered to be ‘only one of the tools’ to accomplish the ultimate goal. This view that prioritizes work competence over language proficiency and regards language as a tool or dôgu was shared by all managers, paralleling a previous study with smaller companies (Kubota 2011a) as well as others (Bloch 1995; Piekkari 2008). This issue is related to the corporate policy on TOEIC scores for hiring and promotion. Although all companies utilized TOEIC for hiring and promotion, they used scores only as supplementary information in making personnel decisions. In other words, lower scores alone do not justify candidate elimination. This is again because language skill is deemed complementary to work skills and managers generally believe, based on their past experiences, that those who are competent workers can manage language demands onsite. One current expatriate who received one year of Mandarin language training (BCSubX2) is a case in point: his company required a score of at least 500 on TOEIC, which he had failed to attain. Nonetheless, he said, ‘I wasn’t concerned because I was convinced that I’d be OK once I actually lived abroad.’ Although he admitted that his current spoken English was very limited, he will probably do as well in an English-speaking environment as he had in a Mandarin-speaking context. If language proficiency measured by a test may not be essential, then what is considered to be crucial? What the interviewees emphasized can be conceptualized in a broad stroke into two categories: (i) ability to communicate with associated knowledge and dispositions and (ii) personal qualities. Figure 10.1 summarizes these components. First, the ability to communicate includes communication strategies that overlap broadly defined strategic competence (Canale 1983) or ‘the ability to manage communication . . . in order to achieve an intended interactional goal’

168 Ryuko Kubota

Ability to communicate • Linguistic skills • Strategic competence ‘To communicate in a straightforward, simple, and clear manner and yet politely’

Personal qualities • Leadership • Outgoingness • Sociability • Flexibility • Cooperativeness • Broadmindedness, etc.

Communicative dispositions

Willingness to communicate • Persistent effort to communicate

Mutual accommodation • kizukai and kikubari [thoughtfulness and considerateness] • Put oneself in others’ shoes • Sincerity, respect, humbleness

Foundational disposition • Being interested in culture of Self and Other • Building trusting relationships • Having non-prejudiced and non-discriminatory attitudes

Cultural knowledge • Japan’s colonial history • Contemporary politics • Cultural difference (e.g., taboos)

Figure 10.1 Qualities required for border-crossing communication

(Nakatani 2005: 77). It is competence to convey messages in a concise, focused and intelligible manner through written and oral modes of communication (e.g. drawing pictures, writing down, hitsudan [brush talk], whereby expatriates write key Chinese character(s) to convey or confirm intended meaning – see Hwang (2009), paraphrasing, exemplifying, using hand and body gestures, and using real objects. One former expatriate with Mandarin proficiency (BF1) commented that what worked for him was the ability to accommodate the situation and find ways to communicate, again signifying truncated repertoires. Thus, . . . rather than people who know a lot of vocabulary, someone who can substitute with appropriate words in a particular situation might have higher komyunikêshon ryoku [ability to communicate]. . . . Rather than communicating with appropriate vocabulary and grammar, what’s necessary for us, I think, is the ability to convey meaning even without grammar.

Japanese expatriates working in China 169 Overall, the goal is ‘to communicate in a straightforward, simple, and clear manner – sutorêto ni, shinpuru ni, kuria ni tsutaeru – and yet politely’ (FM) in any language and acquiring strategic competence is deemed important to compensate limited linguistic resources shared by interlocutors. Ability to communicate is supported by essential qualities, which were mentioned by interviewees and can be called communicative dispositions. They are divided into two categories: willingness to communicate and mutual accommodation (Lippi-Green 2012; Nieto and Bode 2008). First, interviewees said that willingness to communicate even with limited linguistic resources (AF2, BF1, CF) as well as persistent effort to communicate (AM1, CF) were essential. Reflecting on his experience of engaging in an internship in Turkey as a university student, a former expatriate (AF2) commented about communicating in English: I really learned that it’s not so much about how well you can speak the language but how to try to express yourself or listen to the other; and it’s OK if you don’t understand everything. Second, interviewees’ responses point to the importance of mutual accommodation. Specifically, dispositions such as kizukai and kikubari [thoughtfulness and considerateness] and efforts to be in the interlocutor’s shoes (AM2, DM1, AF3, CF, BCSubX2, BCSubY); sincerity (BF1); respect (BLSubY2); and humbleness (BLSubY2) make communication a shared activity. The following comment by a local employee (BLSubY1) synthesizes these qualities: We should put ourselves in the other person’s shoes in order to understand each other better. Oftentimes people misunderstand each other when they don’t make themselves understood but instead speak in ways that can be understood only by themselves. These communicative dispositions are further supported by foundational dispositions and cultural knowledge. Foundational dispositions are attitudes and awareness necessary to build mutual trust. They include being interested in the culture and customs of the Other as well as the Self (AM2, EM, BCSubY), building one-on-one trusting relationship (AF3, AC, BCSubY), and having nonprejudiced and non-discriminatory attitudes (AM1, AM2, CF, BM1, BF1). These dispositions are represented in a reflection of one former expatriate (AF3) who worked in China for 5 years. During the first year, he had negative attitudes toward Chinese people; he overgeneralized their not keeping promises or schedules as ‘because this is China’. But he realized that this attitude prevented him from working collaboratively with his Chinese colleagues and from enjoying his work. After observing and interacting with an older expatriate who had a more positive outlook, he eventually changed his attitudes. He commented:

170 Ryuko Kubota After all, it is about interaction between people. So, if you hate the other person, your business would be over and your relationship beyond business would be over too. So, those who want to befriend people are more suited [for doing business overseas]. Expatriates’ accounts need to be understood against the backdrop of the political and historical animosity between China and Japan, stemming from Japan’s military invasion of China since the end of the eighteenth century. Negative sentiment and racist attitudes against each other exist in public discourses (Lin and Kubota 2011). The interviewees in this study, however, were acutely aware of the harm that racist or prejudiced attitudes cause. For them, looking down upon the local people is a taboo (BM1, AF2, BF1, CF), and instead, they consider a willingness to collaborate and contribute to the local society to be essential. One former expatriate (AM1) contrasts Japanese attitudes toward Westerners and Asians and states: In the case of Japan, for example, when we say ‘gaijin san [foreigner]’ we mean white people. And ‘gaijin’ gets ‘san [polite marker]’. . . . when we are in Asia, we tend to feel superior . . . some people even say Chinese are no good or Thai are no good – they over generalize people. Becoming critically aware of one’s racial and cultural biases, as this statement indicates, constitutes the foundational dispositions. Cultural knowledge works in tandem with foundational dispositions and communicative dispositions, enabling effective communication. It includes an understanding of the history of China and Japan as well as the historical and political relations between the two. For a current expatriate (AC) for instance, Japan’s colonial history in China constitutes essential knowledge; understanding history from ‘both Japanese point of view and Chinese point of view’ provides critical assessment of the legitimacy of a Japanese version. For a former expatriate (BF1), diplomatically and smoothly discussing political conflicts (e.g. the Japanese Prime Minister’s visit to Yasukuni Shrine, which enshrines war dead including Japanese war criminals) with his Chinese clients was a challenge. Along with language proficiency, historical knowledge was mentioned by expatriates as what they wished they had before working in China. Interviewees also mentioned cultural expectations such as: face-saving practices that prohibit individual reprimands in public (AF2, BCSubY, BLSubX2); different business practices and protocol, including the interpretation of contract (AF3, BCSubY); and individualism (AC, DM1). Other kinds of knowledge of and interests in the host country were regarded to be important as they enable versatile conversations with diverse local workers and clients (AM2, EM, BF1, AC). However, a caveat mentioned was preconceived knowledge; learning about culture and history in pre-departure training could lead to stereotyping (AF3, BCSubY). Talking with colleagues who are already in China, however, could help newcomers avoid this problem.

Japanese expatriates working in China 171 The second broad category that was mentioned by Japanese interviewees as essential for working overseas had to do with personal qualities. They include leadership, outgoingness, sociability, bravery, flexibility, perseverance, cooperativeness, broad-mindedness, and mental and physical strength. These qualities, along with other dispositions, help develop effective and respectful communication in cross-cultural contexts. Success for these manufacturing companies is predicated on producing and selling goods. Thus, distinguished professional competency as an expert in the field is indispensable for success. Equipped with personal qualities and an ability to communicate that is supported by communicative and foundational dispositions and cultural knowledge, expatriates believe that they can manage communicative demands.

Discussion This study aimed to understand the nature of communication in non-Englishdominant transnational workplaces with pedagogical implications in mind. The findings raise several questions on the following issues: English as universal language, neoliberal emphasis on developing linguistic skills, and competencies deemed important for border-crossing communication in transcultural work. Questioning English as a universal language First, the findings about Japanese expatriates in China indicate that although English is indeed used in the workplace, the use is restricted to certain individuals who engage in tasks involving English-speaking clients locally or internationally or who might have an English-bound linguistic identity due to their previous work experiences in the English-speaking world. Instead, Japanese and Mandarin are major languages of workplace communication for the interviewees (Nebashi 2007). Japanese expatriates and Chinese office workers mutually communicate with a range of proficiency in each other’s language. As the German study mentioned earlier demonstrates (Amelina 2010), expatriates’ use of the language of a non-English-dominant host country and their own native language, rather than English, is not unusual in the transcultural workplace. This suggests that using English in transnational contexts, which has attracted great scholarly attention, is only part of lingua franca communication. Thus, research on ELF can benefit from investigations on transnational communication in other languages. Many of the communicative strategies mentioned by the participants are also part of plurilingual repertoires that exist across linguistic boundaries (Council of Europe 2001). This perspective indicates a need to address lingua franca strategies and linguistic diversity in teaching not only English but also diverse L1 and L2.

172 Ryuko Kubota Critical understanding of the neoliberal emphasis on (English) language skills Second, although neoliberal discourse rationalizes the importance of learning English based on the promise that it would provide individual workers with socioeconomic benefit, Japanese managers in this study generally viewed skills in English (or any other language) as no more important than professional expertise. Although the managers recognized the importance of English skills in general and Mandarin skills in China, linguistic competency did not override professional competence. Thus, although TOEIC was widely used, it had a more symbolic function of making employees aware of the importance of English skills than a practical role of determining personnel decisions. Furthermore, it is important to note that none of the expatriates interviewed in this study were women, although the gender imbalance might partly reflect the overall employment pattern in the manufacturing sector in Japan. While English language learning in higher education typically attracts female learners, the overrepresentation of male expatriates indicates a gap between the assumption about international mobility that English study is supposed to afford women and the actual opportunities for them in business settings. Competencies for border-crossing communication Third, the competencies required for transcultural work that were mentioned by the interviewees tended to be more about cultural knowledge, communication skills, attitudes, and dispositions than what is strictly linguistic. As discussed above, they can be categorized as ability to communicate, supported by communicative dispositions, foundational dispositions and cultural knowledge, as well as personal qualities. Also, the expatriates used various strategies to overcome communication challenges. These strategies overlap the strategic competence in the framework of communicative competence (Canale 1983), including paraphrasing to compensate for unlearned linguistic items, using non-verbal strategies, using L1 knowledge (e.g. brush talk), and so on. The expatriates who use the language of the host country manage their communication albeit not perfect. In fact, none of the interviewees mentioned grammatical accuracy or fluency as an important skill for pursuing their work. These findings indicate that the medium of communication in global work settings might be better described by resources that are partial, simplified, and incomplete and yet effective, rather than a bounded system of what is commonly conceived as language (Blommaert 2010). Should language teaching continue to insist on the conventional emphasis on fluency and accuracy or should it focus more on ability to communicate in real contexts? This question needs to be explored further. The knowledge, attitudes and dispositions mentioned by the interviewees also parallel symbolic competence, which is ‘the ability not only to approximate or appropriate for oneself someone else’s language, but to shape the very context

Japanese expatriates working in China 173 in which the language is learned and used’ (Kramsch and Whiteside 2008: 664). Language users with symbolic competence avoid creating a face-threatening situation for local workers and interact with local people on an equal stance, as partners. The non-linguistic qualities identified in this study also overlap with many of the general competences in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) (Council of Europe 2001): namely, declarative knowledge (savoir) of the target society, culture, institutions and history; skills and know-how (savoir-faire) including social skills, cultural sensitivity, ability to overcome stereotypes; existential competence (savoir-être) including attitudes such as openness, being interested in difference, and exercising cultural relativism in understanding Self and Other as well as motivation and personality; and ability to learn (savoir apprendre) and discover otherness by combining other components described above. The non-linguistic qualities identified in this study as well as plurilingualim are already incorporated in this framework of language education. The general competences described in CEFR can be further complemented by critical cultural awareness/political education (savoir s’engager) as proposed by Byram (1997, 2008). This competence goes beyond the conventional approach to language teaching, which reinforces instrumental pragmatism, the native speaker model, and fixed cultural differences, and instead addresses the awareness that the ways in which social, cultural, and institutional practices operate in diverse cultures and contexts are built upon political, historical, and ideological foundations. It challenges the preconceived notion of what is normal or taken for granted and aims to transform the unequal power relations that exist in learners’ consciousness and in social structures. Some of the interviewees’ accounts demonstrate their critical awareness or self-reflection of racial and cultural biases, paralleling this dimension. All in all, the competencies identified in this study constitute knowledge, skills and dispositions for border-crossing communication, which involves not only English as a lingua franca but also other languages and promotes active, critical and reflective engagement in communication across various kinds of differences (Kubota 2012). Both L1 and L2 classrooms are the sites where these competencies can be developed. It is, however, important to critically reflect on the fact that the competence discussed by CEFR, Byram, and this study is entangled with ideologies of the new economy. This point is discussed in the final section.

Implications for education and policy This study provides several educational implications. First, the current rhetoric of the neoliberal promise of English – that proficiency in English as a global language enables communication universally and that it is indispensable for jobs – should be reconsidered. The study indicates the need to critically reflect on

174 Ryuko Kubota the promise of English, seek to develop dispositional and strategic competencies beyond linguistic accuracy and fluency, and develop willingness to learning languages other than English. In short, it is necessary to develop the awareness that while English proficiency, as understood conventionally, is a necessary condition for many international communicative situations, it is by no means a sufficient condition. This study also revealed that, despite the perceived importance of language tests like TOEIC for employment opportunities, some employers do not view English proficiency or test scores as more important than professional, personal, and communicative competence. There seems to be a perceptual gap between language educators and transcultural workers. Language educators pursue formal language teaching and assessment to foster sophisticated communicative competence, while transcultural workers acquire and use language in ways quite different from ‘getting a perfect score on a paper exam’. The language use for real-life purposes (certain job-related tasks in this case) may require quite different kinds of communicative effectiveness. Many transnational workers in this study or the Japanese engineers in the USA (Sunaoshi 2005) who are in the forefront of transcultural work have limited linguistic resources and yet can manage communication. ‘What constitutes being able to use a language?’ is a question to explore further for pedagogical innovation. As such notions as ability to communicate and communicative dispositions indicate, such competence is not restricted to a particular language but can be developed and employed across one’s linguistic repertoire. Thus, it is necessary to explore how border-crossing communicative competence – such as how to make oneself understood effectively, how to negotiate linguistic and cultural diversity, and how to affirm difference – could be developed both in L1 and in additional language(s).

Closure: a critical reflection The competencies that are required for border-crossing communication identified in this study overlap with those described in CEFR, which has a liberal undertone in its promotion of cultural and linguistic pluralism and dispositional dimensions beyond the language system. Critical cultural awareness (Byram 2008) works in parallel. Also, my analysis of interview accounts questioned and challenged the neoliberal obsession with English and linguistic skills and drew attention to other qualities. Yet, CEFR, Byram’s work, or this study cannot escape neoliberalism. In the case of CEFR, the fact that more attention is paid to the learners’ attainment of communicative language competence (linguistic, sociolinguistic and pragmatic) than other aspects is perhaps a clear indication of its instrumental focus aligned with the development of neoliberal human capital. CEFR’s 6-point scale for measuring linguistic competence is even calibrated against the proficiency rating scales of other commercial tests, exacerbating the instrumental

Japanese expatriates working in China 175 focus in language learning (McNamara 2011). CEFR was developed by the Council of Europe, whose mission is to promote human rights, democracy and rules of law to achieve the economic growth and social cohesion envisioned by the European Union. As Europe is becoming one unified free marketplace, educating students to be able to communicate across cultural and linguistic differences is viewed as fundamental to individual mobility and economic prosperity of the region. Thus, CEFR is inseparable from this regional economic system and ideology. Critical cultural awareness/political education proposed by Byram (1997, 2008) goes further to address more critical dimensions of language study. Yet the notion of the development of human capital in the knowledge economy is left unquestioned (and even used as a rationale for his proposal) without confronting the problems that neoliberalism has created, including growing non-regular employment, economic gaps between the rich and the poor, and the language divide – namely, the inequality between those who can afford to develop proficiency in a language of power and those who cannot (Block et al. 2012). Also in this study, although the findings problematize neoliberal assumptions about English and language study as discussed so far, the focus of the study, i.e. large corporate business, is indeed a beneficiary of neoliberalism that supports a free-market economy, promoting global expansion of capital to seek lower production costs and in turn creating economic and consequently educational gaps both domestically and internationally. Furthermore, the ability, dispositions, knowledge and qualities for border-crossing communication identified in this study, CEFR, and works by Byram parallel in part the neoliberal educational goals put forth by OECD, such as linguistic skills (e.g. speaking and writing clearly), personal skills (e.g. positive attitudes, adaptability), ability to cope with uncertainty, flexibility, ability to work with others, and learning to learn (Hirtt 2009; Hyslop-Margison and Graham 2001; Urciuoli 2010). Would exploring educational implications based on this study be complicit with neoliberalism in late capitalism which has created a great amount of social problems? What would a vision of language education look like in a more critical framework for transforming social, economic, racial, gender, and educational inequalities? What is clear, however, is that border-crossing communication is required not just in transcultural business but also in local communities that are becoming increasingly diverse. More intellectual engagement is needed to resolve these predicaments.

Notes 1 2 3

Throughout the interviews, the term chûgokugo [the Chinese language] was used, which refers to Mandarin. All quotes are translated from Japanese. This chapter was first published in the Journal of Multilingual Education 3: 4, 2013. It has been reproduced here with permission.

176 Ryuko Kubota

Acknowledgements This study was funded by Hampton Fund Research Grant at the University of British Columbia.

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11 English language skills that companies need Responses from a large-scale survey Hajime Terauchi and Tamao Araki

Introduction Business today is often conducted under the circumstances where communication with people of other countries is necessary. To facilitate communication on a global level, the default choice is often English (see, however, Kubota, Chapter 10, this volume). This means that businesspeople often use English as a lingua franca (ELF), to communicate, in particular, with others from various linguacultural backgrounds. In this situation, Seidlhofer (2011) states that ELF researchers need detailed accounts of ELF interactions – how ELF users negotiate what is interactionally relevant, how they make accommodations in their interactions with each other, how they make creative use of their diverse linguistic repertories, and how they cooperate in the co- or re-construction of ‘English’ they have learned. ELF is a concept applicable to a variety of encounters involving the use of English in the business field, where professional managerial and technical skills are often considered over the language ones with the latter often being regarded just as ‘a means to an end’, although it is still regarded as one of necessary skills in many international companies (Ehrenreich 2010: 417). ELF is not a language to be learned to talk with native English speakers in specific countries nor is it the one to learn only about the cultures and countries in which English is the mother tongue. It is more appropriate to think of ELF as a ‘language’ or rather, ‘variation’ to be acquired for the realistic goal of communicating with others from different language backgrounds in a variety of situations, ranging from virtual to actual, which are phenomena very likely to be encountered in the business world (see also Seidlhofer 2011). Based on some key findings in English for Specific Purposes (ESP) and today’s world with ELF being more common, Noguchi (2012) sets educational targets by stating that students need to be able to very clearly express their ideas so that what they have to say will be understood and have the intended impact. She also added some details by saying that (i) it may not be native-like speech, but it does need to be understandable; (ii) it may not be grammatically perfect, but it does need to be accurate for effective communication; (iii) it

English language skills that companies need 181 may not be unique and creative,1 but it does need to be rhetorically accessible for the audience (Noguchi 2012: 2).2 Noting empirical thinking common both in ESP and ELF research, Noguchi also states the idea of ELF from an educational viewpoint as follows: Today, there is a strong need for Asian voices in a wide range of fields from business to science and technology and even in the arts. We need to equip our students with the linguistic tools that will enable them to cogently express themselves so that they can be heard and can make a difference. (Noguchi 2012: 1) To offer insight into the situation in the Japanese business world and to obtain educational implications, this chapter reports on a survey study conducted to grasp the English communication skills required by Japanese businesspeople who wish to play active roles in a competitive global market. A large-scale survey involving 7,354 global businesspeople in Japan was conducted to identify communication issues and suggest achievement goals for English communication for Japanese people, especially at the university level. We elicited responses from Japanese businesspeople about the English level they felt was required to successfully negotiate in the global marketplace and about their communication issues. In particular, we focused on the different ways of coping with various issues from the viewpoints of ESP and ELF. The findings should aid in understanding the criteria of evaluations and English skills required in global markets, along with other implications for policymakers. The following sections describe the survey that we conducted and discuss the findings and their implications, particularly from the perspective of ELF in the global business world. Such ELF study should enable better understanding of the conditions of and attitudes toward English as it is being used in the global business community.3

Survey and methodology Overview The aims of the survey were two-fold: (i) to identify significant problems perceived by businesspeople in conducting their international business and (ii) to propose achievement goals for English communication for Japanese businesspeople and students who are foreseeing to join the workforce. This study was a part of a 4-year large-scale research project financially supported by Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research of Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) over the period 2004 to 2007. The purpose of the entire project as reported in Koike and Terauchi (2008) was to produce English proficiency guidelines in the format of Common European Framework of Reference for Japanese English learners, which was called CEFRjapan or CEFR-J. Toward this end, we aimed (i) to investigate the English language level required for

182 Hajime Terauchi and Tamao Araki Japanese global businesspeople, (ii) to set standards for English language communication for global businesspeople and (iii) to establish CEFRjapan for Japanese standards of English education from elementary school to university (Koike and Terauchi, 2008: ii). The survey was originally designed to provide relevant data for objectives (i) and (ii) described above. In the present chapter, we re-examined the results of the survey and decided to examine a wider range of issues in international business communication in the Japanese context. Here, we focus on our findings related to communication and ELF. Respondents The respondents were first contacted via the personal networks of the research group. Subsequently, the Institution for International Business Communication (IIBC) joined the research group and offered their network of those who registered for the Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC) and those who subscribed to the IIBC newsletter. Questionnaires were conducted via the Web, with a total of 7,354 respondents. Questionnaire The survey, conducted from February through December 2006, consisted of 13 major items and 59 subordinate items, with multiple-choice questions including a free description section. Questions 1–5 aimed at eliciting background information such as sex, age, education, affiliation, type of business, department, position, experiences in taking English proficiency tests, scores of those tests, overseas business trips, and overseas residence for business purposes. Question 6 provided a set of descriptors on the ability to manage languagerelated business tasks (simple and complex) and asked the respondents to answer how skilfully they could do each task in the format of a 5-point Likert scale. Question 7 was about kinds of communication modalities (. . . i.e. meeting, telephone, party, presentation, etc.) and media or genres (e.g. business letters, fax, manuals, etc.) used in their professional activities. Questions 8–13 are listed below as they are directly relevant to the purpose of the current chapter. Q8. Problems related to business activities with foreign partners in a business setting. Q9. Necessary competence for international business settings. Q10. English proficiency needed for international negotiation. Q11. Need to use English in the workplace over the next decade. Q12. Need to use foreign languages other than English in the workplace over the next decade. Q13. Requests for English education in Japan.

English language skills that companies need 183 Analytical methodology We analysed the descriptive answers (Question 13) using WordMiner, a textmining software that has many statistical/analytical functions such as cross-sectional analysis and multivariate analysis. We used the following procedure to analyse the descriptive data. 1 2 3

Text-mining analysis of all the textual data of descriptive answers to Question 13. Keyword analysis of the answers provided by the respondents of different TOEIC score bands. Close examination of the textual data based on the keyword analysis.

Results Questions 1–5 revealed the background of the respondents as shown in Table 11.1. Men exceeded women in number by less than 20 per cent. Many of them worked for Japanese companies while a little more than one-fourth of them worked for overseas affiliated firms. Most were in their 20s through 40s at the time of the survey and thus may constitute the active part of the workforce of their companies/organizations. They were employed by various types of business with ‘Technology’ being the largest group (21.5 per cent). More than half, or 3,517 respondents (52.2 per cent), had experienced a short overseas business stay, while 1,473 respondents (20.0 per cent) had been on a long overseas business stay. The destinations of the long stays were 44 countries based on the data from 280 respondents, who provided specific locations in their answers. Although many destinations were located in so-called ‘Inner Circle’ countries (the USA: 95 persons; the UK: 27; Australia: 15; Canada: 8; New Zealand: 1) according to Kachru’s categorization (Kachru, 1985, 1992), there are also many countries in the ‘Outer Circle’ or ‘Expanding Circle’ chosen as their long-term business activities (see Figure 11.1). Although the sample is limited (only 280 respondents provided specific locations in their answers), it is very probable that many respondents of this

Table 11.1 Profiles of the respondents (N = 7354) Sex

Male: 58.1%, female: 41.9%

Affiliation

Japanese firm: 70.4%, overseas affiliated firm: 27.0%

Age

20s: 21.9%, 30s: 46.4%, 40s: 24.2%

Type of business

Technology: 21.5%, sales: 14.3%, research & development: 14.0%

Overseas business Short stay: yes: 52.2%, no: 47.8% experience Long stay: yes: 20.0%, no: 79.9%

184 Hajime Terauchi and Tamao Araki

Figure 11.1 Destination regions of long-stay business experience by the respondents (N = 280)

questionnaire had used ELF in their business activities (however, again see Kubota, Chapter 10, this volume, for slightly different findings in her research). The average level of English proficiency of the businesspeople as measured by TOEIC score was within the band of 687–737 (Figure 11.2). More than half of the respondents had reached 700 or more (cumulative percentage: 55.5 per cent). This is much higher than 465, the officially reported average score of people who took TOEIC IP at their own organizations in Japan in 2006 (The Institution for International Business Communication 2007). Even the relatively high scores of the respondents, however, seem insufficient for efficient global business communication. A comparison of the results of Question 3 (actual TOEIC scores) and those of Question 10 (ideal TOEIC scores) uncovered a large gap between the two (see Figure 11.3). The gap suggests that the businesspeople’s perception of their actual level of English proficiency needed to be improved further for global business communication. The parallel graphs in Figure 11.3 show that about 70 per cent of businesspeople think their work should require a TOEIC score of 800 or more while in reality only about 30 per cent of them had attained such a score. The results of Question 6 show how challenging/easy it is for them to manage language-related tasks in terms of four skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing) and the task complexity (simple and complex) (see Table 11.2). As in the CEFR descriptors, ‘complex’ and ‘simple’ here refer to abstract ideas and do not refer to any concrete content. The results show that receptive skills, listening and reading, are easier to be implemented in business situations than the productive skills of speaking and writing. Reading is the easiest among them. Sixty-four percent of the

English language skills that companies need 185

Figure 11.2 English proficiency of questionnaire respondents (N = 6651)

Figure 11.3 Comparison of actual TOEIC score and ideal score (N = 6651)

respondents can read and understand over 90 per cent of simple content, and 21.7 per cent can understand 70–80 per cent. Thus, a total of 85.7 per cent can read and understand 70 per cent or more of simple content material. For complex content, on the other hand, only 18.9 per cent can read and understand over 90 per cent of the content, while 33.2 per cent of them can understand 70–80 per cent. Thus, a total of 52.1 per cent of the respondents can read and understand at least 70–80 per cent of complex content. Accordingly, reading ability decreases as the content becomes complex.

186 Hajime Terauchi and Tamao Araki Table 11.2 Four skills depending on the level of content (expressed as a percentage of the respondents who can understand or express the percentage of the content) (N = 7354) More than 90%

70–80%

50–60%

30–40%

Less than 20%

Nonrespondent

Listening

Simple Complex

42.7 11.0

30.6 27.4

15.2 26.2

6.8 17.0

4.6 18.4

0.1 0.1

Speaking

Simple Complex

36.9 8.0

26.1 21.7

17.6 23.5

10.6 17.9

8.7 28.7

0.1 0.1

Reading

Simple Complex

64.0 18.9

21.7 33.2

7.8 23.9

3.6 12.7

3.1 11.3

0.1 0.1

Writing

Simple Complex

40.7 8.6

24.3 22.0

16.2 24.2

10.0 17.8

8.7 27.3

0.1 0.1

Listening is more difficult than reading with only 42.7 per cent having the ability to understand over 90 per cent of simple content. By adding those who can listen and understand 70–80 per cent of the simple content, the number goes up to 73.3 per cent. On the other hand, only 11.0 per cent of the respondents understand 90 per cent or more of complex content, although the figure goes up to 38.4 per cent if we add in the people who understand 70–80 per cent of the same content, which accounts for 27.4 per cent. Thus, there is again a gap between the understanding of simple and complex contents. Only a quarter of the respondents who understand simple content can listen and understand complex content as for understanding more than 90 per cent of the content. This finding suggests that only a limited number of people, even those who have good listening skills, have the ability to understand sophisticated, subtle and complex content through listening. Productive skills are more difficult to implement than receptive skills and there is a greater gap between producing simple and difficult content. For speaking, only 36.9 per cent can talk about more than 90 per cent of easy content, whereas the figure falls to only 8.0 per cent in the case of complex content. Similarly, 40.7 per cent of the respondents can write about more than 90 per cent of easy content, whereas the figure falls to only 8.6 per cent in the case of writing more than 90 per cent of complex content. Thus, writing and speaking seem to be more challenging than listening for businesspeople. The results present a skewed picture of mastery of the four skills, with reading being the easiest and speaking the most difficult and with simple content being much easier than complex content. If we set the ideal objective, which is, businesspeople should be able to operate in all of the four skills at over 90 per cent for complex content, the picture indicates the relative urgency for the improvement of each of the four skills.

English language skills that companies need 187 Even those with high scores often expressed difficulty in some specific skills. Question 8 asked about the difficulties the businesspeople experienced at meetings in these areas, which was subdivided into the following five items: Q8.1 Contribution = ‘Due to lack of English communication skills, I can only keep up with the discussion and cannot contribute to the discussion enough.’ Q8.2 Pace = ‘Because I focus on listening to others, meetings proceed at the pace of the others before I can state my opinion.’ Q8.3 Support/Counterargument = ‘I cannot make a good argument or counterargument.’ Q8.4 Timing = ‘I miss the timing to give my own ideas and am disadvantaged.’ Q8.5 Credibility = ‘I am not confident in getting enough credibility from the other party due to the shortness of contents and my explanation.’ The results are shown in Figure 11.4. For the individual items in Question 8, the respondents gave the estimated frequency of having difficulty in meetings (per ten meetings). For example, the respondents in the 750–800 TOEIC score band feel in more than a half of their business meetings that they cannot contribute sufficiently to the discussion (see ‘Contribution’ in Figure 11.4). The answers of people in the higher score bands show that even those with high TOEIC scores feel difficulty when it comes to specific skills in business meetings. On the other hand, the results also showed a tendency that the higher the score band of the respondents, the less frequently they feel challenges across all the items. The results thus showed the English ‘proficiency’ as measured by TOEIC cannot solve all the challenges but can be a part of the solution to the businesspeople’s management of their English meetings. Responses to Question 9, ‘What other abilities are required in global business settings in addition to English abilities?’ revealed that there are also some skills which are less related to language, but are considered very important in business settings. These are, for example, abilities to analyse results and understand general backgrounds as well as slightly more language related abilities such as presentation skills as shown in Figure 11.5. In particular, abilities to ‘make judgments’ and ‘make others accept them as credible’ are regarded very important as shown in the figure. The descriptions provided in Question 13 gave us a more detailed view of the needs in business settings. The results of text mining show that there are differences in the focus of the respondents’ answers according to the proficiency levels (see Table 11.3). The respondents with lower TOEIC score band

188 Hajime Terauchi and Tamao Araki

Figure 11.4 Frequency estimates of difficulty perception in business negotiations (N = 6640). Each question item was answered with frequency estimates (i.e. how often per ten meetings they would feel difficulty of the kind described in each item)

English language skills that companies need 189

Figure 11.5 Importance judged by Japanese businesspeople on business skills other than language-related ones (N = 7354)

(400–599) mentioned ‘daily conversation’ and ‘Japanese’ most frequently while rarely mentioning ‘logical thinking’. The respondents of middle score range (600–799) mentioned ‘speech’ most frequently while least mentioning ‘vocabulary’ and ‘business’. The respondents of the highest score band (800–990) mentioned ‘logical thinking’ and ‘business’ most frequently, which were least frequently used by those of the lower band, while the highest groups rarely mentioned ‘Japanese’ and ‘speech’, which were included in the keywords in the descriptions of those of the lower score band. Table 11.3 presents the results of keyword analysis based on the frequency of words or phrases that appeared in the text data. As these words can mean very different things in different contexts, close examination of the text data is necessary for these results to be understood properly. Due to spatial reasons, we chose the two most characteristic keywords, ‘daily conversation’ and ‘logical thinking’ and, in what follows, present only what is relevant to this argument.3

Table 11.3 Keywords in descriptive answers by respondents of different TOEIC score bands Order of TOEIC score range frequency 400–599 600–799 (N = 125) (N = 367)

800–990 (N = 393)

The most frequent 1 2 3

Daily conversation Japanese

Speech

Logical thinking Business Vocabulary

The least frequent

Negotiation Logical thinking

Business Vocabulary

Speech Japanese

2 1

190 Hajime Terauchi and Tamao Araki To start with ‘daily conversation’, although the phrase was the top keyword in the answers of the respondents of the lower TOEIC score band, it was also observed in the answers of those of the other bands. However, the contexts differed. The respondents of the lower TOEIC score bands tended to use the phrase when they mentioned the importance of daily conversation in English education in Japan. On the other hand, the respondents of higher TOEIC score bands tended to use the phrase when they pointed out the difference between English in daily conversation, including lessons at school and English needed in business settings as illustrated in the following comments made by some of the respondents. Comments by respondents from lower TOEIC score bands: We need measures to improve the ability of practical English daily conversation beyond grammar and vocabulary. (Respondent A in 400–599 TOEIC score band) English education should aim at developing the ability of daily conversation rather than ‘grammar-translation’. (Respondent B in 400–599 TOEIC score band) Comments by respondents from higher TOEIC score bands: To improve negotiation skills in business, you need to do training to sell some specific product in English rather than lessons aimed at improving daily conversation skills (Respondent C in 800–990 TOEIC score band) School curriculum of English needs to be clear on the point whether it aims at students’ entering colleges, improving daily conversation, or improving one’s performance in business. (Respondent D in 800–990 TOEIC score band) On the other hand, the phrase ‘logical thinking’ was used most frequently in the answers by the respondents in higher TOEIC score bands but least frequently by the respondents in lower TOEIC score bands. We need to be trained in logical thinking before expecting an improvement in performance conducted in English. (Respondent G in 800–990 TOEIC score band). Whether it is conducted in Japanese or English, the debating and speech skills are the same as they are based on our logical thinking ability and general education. (Respondent F in 600–799 TOEIC score band) What these respondents meant by ‘logical thinking’, however, is not clear or may vary depending on what exactly constitutes the ability, and thus further investigation is needed.

English language skills that companies need 191

Discussion and educational implications The findings from the survey described here offer insights into answering the question ‘Is English proficiency necessary in business?’ The resounding answer is that English proficiency for business communication plays a key role in reducing the difficulty and the magnitude of problems in many aspects of business meetings. As stated in Koike and Terauchi (2010), many aspects showed medium effects while businesspeople with higher English proficiency tend to have fewer problems in their meetings. Therefore, high English proficiency can be considered to be part of the solution to overcoming many problems in business meetings. It must, however, be foregrounded with the descriptions of problems or strategies in the participants’ answers. English proficiency must be considered together with intercultural understanding as many respondents of the survey (especially those at the lower TOEIC score band) answered a deeper understanding of the Japanese language and culture is necessary to do business with those from other linguacultural backgrounds, whose language and culture also needs to be understood along with their own. The sharing and practicing specific business frameworks should also be encouraged along with improving English proficiency as it was shown that business specific skills and the mastery of special vocabulary were two of the keywords mentioned often in the respondents’ answers (see Table 11.3 and the citations of the respondents’ answers above). English proficiency should be combined with better business skills and greater intercultural understanding. In this sense, an ESP approach – more specifically, a genre-based approach – offers an effective framework for English education for businesspeople in Japan. ESP genre theory describes how genre and its practices are defined by the discourse community and the purpose of the genre (e.g. Bhatia 1993; Swales 1990). A genre has a specific textual structure and language use defined by the specific discourse community; it also reflects the sociocultural background of the genre (Bhatia 2008). Introducing the perspective of genre and genre awareness may provide concrete milestones for the teaching and learning of English business meetings especially in the environment where the norms of native speakers of English are less commonly adopted. Our current study identified in an empirical manner various kinds of challenges the businesspeople are facing in a Japanese context, a valuable source for developing an educational programme in this context. At the same time, however, further investigation is needed in terms of language use, textual structures, discourse patterns, multimodality, and overall meeting sequences to grasp a comprehensive picture of the genre. By identifying these aspects, we should be able to provide instructions and develop materials in a more relevant way to overcome the difficulties in managing meetings and various linguistic challenges uncovered by the survey. The chapter has explored the implications from our survey findings and has offered suggestions as to how they can be applied to English language education of the university level in Japan from the perspectives of ELF and global business

192 Hajime Terauchi and Tamao Araki education. As stated above, ELF is not a language to be learned to talk with native English speakers or to learn only about the cultures and countries in which English is the mother tongue. ELF is a language or rather, variation to be acquired for the realistic goal of communicating with others from different language backgrounds in a variety of situations, ranging from virtual to actual, such as the business world, where people from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds need to share a ‘lingua franca’ to communicate with each other. Students, therefore, should also be exposed to the actual uses of ELF in the business settings earlier in their learning process so as to be able to have clearer images of themselves acting globally in their future.

Notes 1 2

2

3

See Seidlhofer and Widdowson (2009), where they discuss ELF creativity, however. Teaching rhetorical skills is given a new light in ESP, which has been replacing general English education at university level in Japan, where students used to be encouraged to delve into rhetorical creativeness and the sophisticated use of the language in literature. In ESP, on the other hand, genre is taught as a set of goaloriented rhetorical skills that are shared in a given discourse community and facilitates communication among the members in an effective way (Swales 1990; see also Terauchi et al. 2010). The project members in its analytical phase include: Hajime Terauchi, Takachiho University; Hisashi Naito, Hokkai-Gakuen University; Masako Terui, Kinki University; Reiko Fujita, Tokai University; Tamao Araki, University of Miyazaki; Masuyo Ando and Kosuke Miki, The Institute for International Business Communication. For detailed textual analysis, see Koike and Terauchi (2008, 2010).

References Bhatia, V. K. 1993. Analysing Genre: Language Use in Professional Settings. London: Longman. Bhatia, V. K. 2008. Genre analysis, ESP and professional practice. English for Specific Purposes 27(2), 161–174. Ehrenreich, S. 2010. English as a Business Lingua Franca in a German multinational corporation: Meeting the challenge. Journal of Business Communication 47(4), 408–431. The Institution for International Business Communication 2007. TOEIC tesuto katsuyo jittai houkoku 2007 nendo ban [Report on the usage of TOEIC in FY 2007]. Tokyo: The Institution for International Business Communication. 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. Kachru, B. B. (ed.) 1992. The Other Tongue: English across Cultures, 2nd edn. Chicago: University of Illinois Press. Koike, I. and H. Terauchi 2008. Kigyo ga motomeru eigoryoku chosa hokokusho: Dainigengo shutoku kenkyu o kiban to suru sho, chu, ko, dai no renkei o hakaru eigokyoiku no sendotekikisokenkyu [Research report based on a survey on English

English language skills that companies need 193 needs at companies: Fundamental research on English education from a secondlanguage-acquisition-research point of view aiming for linking curricula at elementary schools, junior high schools, high schools and colleges] (Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research Report No. 16202010). Chiba: Authors. Koike, I. and H. Terauchi 2010. Kigyo ga motomeru eigoryoku [English Skills: What do Companies Really Need?]. Tokyo: Asahi Press. Noguchi, J. 2012. Whose English should we teach? JACET Kansai Newsletter 60, 1–4. Sakai, K. 2009. Nihon ni okeru CEFR juyou no jittai to ouyou kanousei ni tsuite: Gengo kyouiku seisaku ritsuan ni mukete [The reality and application possibility of CEFR in Japan: Toward the development of language education policies]. ELEC Bulletin 117, 20–25. Seidlhofer, B. 2011. Understanding English as a Lingua Franca. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Seidlhofer, B. and H. G. Widdowson 2009. Accommodation and the idiom principle in English as a lingua franca. In K. Murata and J. Jenkins (eds), Global Englishes in Asian Contexts: Current and Future Debates. Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 26–39. Swales, J. M. 1990. Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Terauchi, H., H. Yamauchi, J. Noguchi and S. Sasajima 2010. Niju-isseiki no ii esu pii: Atarashii ii esu pii riron no kochiku to jissen [ESP in the 21st Century: ESP Theory and Application Today]. Tokyo, Japan: Taishukan.

12 Attention, please! A linguistic soundscape/landscape analysis of ELF information provision in public transport in Tokyo Peter Backhaus

Introduction 7 September 2013 was celebrated by large parts of the domestic media as a very special day for Japan. Less than 3 years after the devastating triple catastrophe that is now best known by the name of ‘Fukushima’, the Olympic Committee announced that Tokyo would be hosting the 32nd Summer Olympic Games in 2020. To many in Japan, this was perceived as a long-awaited acknowledgment by the international community that things were finally going back to normal. Justified or not, the Games are now commonly hailed as a great opportunity to show the world that the country has ‘recovered’ from the horrors of the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake and the Fukushima events. How to properly prepare the city for 2020 has been one of the major topics ever since Tokyo won the bid. Apart from the construction of new venues and the renovation of existing ones, larger parts of the city’s infrastructure are outdated and in need of a general overhaul. But this is not the only issue. With large numbers of overseas spectators bound to show up for the Games, it is at least as important to get the city’s information infrastructure updated and make sure that people with all different kinds of cultural backgrounds and languages will find their way through the city. It can be expected that English as today’s most common lingua franca is going to play a major role in this venture (see Huffington Post 2013). It is not the first time Tokyo faces the challenge of hosting an international event of this scale. The Summer Olympic Games of 1964 were conducted in Tokyo, too, though little is known about the linguistic preparations that were taken then. What we do know is that well into the 1980s, Tokyo’s information infrastructure was largely monolingual Japanese. More recently, however, there was the Soccer World Cup, hosted jointly by Japan and South Korea in 2002, which also had two venues in the larger Tokyo metropolitan region. The preparations of this event brought with them a larger number of well-documented linguistic measures intended to make Tokyo a more easily understandable place for people without proficiency in Japanese (for a general overview of the development since the 1980s see Backhaus 2009). Though English has not been the only foreign language involved – the two others being Chinese and

ELF information provision in public transport

195

Korean – it has without doubt been the most important one. As one result of this, a greater part of information provision in public transport now functions largely bilingual, including both visual and auditory types of guidance. This chapter takes a closer look at the use of English as a lingua franca (ELF) in both types of information provision: spoken announcements on trains, and written directions on station signs. The next section introduces the research methodology and gives a brief account of a similar ELF study from a different cultural context, which will serve as a comparative background to the analysis. Next I will introduce the data collected for this project and presents the three questions that guide the analysis. The data are examined more closely in the following two sections. I start with an analysis of the train announcements, and then move on to a similar analysis focusing on station signs. The closing section summarizes the main regularities with regard to the usage of ELF in information provision in Japanese public spaces and draws some general conclusions.

Previous research English as lingua franca (ELF) has been defined by Seidlhofer (2011: 7) as ‘any use of English for communication among speakers of different languages for whom English is the communicative medium of choice, and often the only option’. This chapter analyses the use of English in public urban space as a means of information provision to a non-specified, linguistically heterogeneous target group. In this sense, it clearly functions as a lingua franca as defined above. This is not to say though that the information providers themselves are necessarily aware of the concept of ELF and its potential usefulness in situations of urban language contact. In fact, as will be seen in the analysis of the data, that is most likely not the case. For the time being, however, it suffices to say that the term ELF is applicable to the present context and will therefore be used throughout this chapter. The data include both spoken and written language used in public space. The former is part of the linguistic soundscape. The term ‘soundscape’ was first given scientific attention by Schafer (1977: 7), who defined it – somewhat broadly – as ‘any acoustic field of study’. This does not necessarily include language, and most previous soundscape studies actually haven’t done so. Recently, however, the concept has also been applied to the study of spoken language in public space (e.g. Scarvaglieri et al. 2013). The complementary topic of written language in public space is the main research object of what is now generally referred to as the ‘linguistic landscape’. Since the late 1990s, it has received increasing attention in sociolinguistics and related fields (e.g. Gorter 2006; Shohamy and Gorter (eds) 2009; Shohamy et al. (eds) 2010). One of the few previous studies that examine the use of ELF as a means of information provision in public space is Sifianou’s (2010) research in Athens. Her data consist of 15 pairs of pre-recorded bilingual (Greek–English) subway station announcements in the Greek capital. Her analysis provides a couple of

196 Peter Backhaus insightful observations into the use of ELF in public space that serve to examine the data presented in this chapter in a comparative perspective. Sifianou analysed her data with respect to differences from inner circle English, as would be found, for instance, in announcements in the London subway, to which she compares her data. She found differences on the phonological, lexico-grammatical, and pragmatic levels. With regard to the first of the three, she observed that the speech of the announcements showed some clear non-native pronunciation features that suggested that the first language of the recorded speaker was Greek rather than English. Similar observations were made on the lexico-grammatical level. Although no ‘grammatical errors per se’ were found, Sifianou (2010: 30 f.) holds that many of the announcements are strikingly ‘unidiomatic’ and ‘rather incongruous’ in their use of English (see some examples of creative use of ‘idiomatic’ expressions by ELF speakers in Seidlhofer 2011; Seidlhofer and Widdowson 2009). This relates to the findings on the pragmatic level, where Sifianou observed that the English announcements in her data systematically deviated from those commonly heard in the London tube in that they were much longer. Whereas brevity is one of the main features in London, the announcements in Athens tended to be more sophisticated in terms of politeness. Thus they frequently started with explicit requests for attention and ended with a token of gratitude. In this, they were closely resembling the co-occurring Greek announcements, on the basis of which, as Sifianou assumes, they were created. Based on these observations, Sifianou (2010: 41) concludes that Greek ‘metro authorities have attached less prestige to native speaker norms, preferring instead to capitalize on the prestige attached to other, mainly cultural sources’. In other words, ELF in the Greek metro system shows some clear and most likely deliberate local impacts that make it somewhat distinct from English as used in inner circle contexts. These observations will serve as a background to the analysis of the data in the present study, to which we turn now.

Research questions and methodology Inspired by Sifianou’s research, this study looks at the use of English as a lingua franca in public transport in Tokyo by using data from the linguistic soundscape. These are complemented by linguistic landscape data. The analysis is motivated by the following research question: 1

What are the general characteristics of English as a lingua franca as used in Tokyo’s public transport system?

In order to tackle this question, we will consider the following two, more specific questions: 2 3

How does ELF in Tokyo’s public transport system differ from inner-circle English contexts? How does it differ from the corresponding Japanese texts?

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197

Two types of data were collected. The first of these are audio-recordings of train announcements delivered inside the Yamanote Line, a circle line that connects Tokyo’s major city centres. The recordings were made in September 2013 by using a cell phone recording device. The recording starts after a train in Takadanobaba was boarded and includes all spoken announcements during a roughly 60-minute trip through the 29 Yamanote Line stations, in counterclockwise direction (uchimawari) back to Takadanobaba. The data were transcribed for subsequent analysis (Kunimatsu 2013).1 The second type of data consists of a convenience sample of ca. 70 bilingual Japanese–English public signs collected in and around train stations in the larger Tokyo metropolitan region in summer 2012. Most of the signs are warnings, prohibitions or requests about things that should or should not be done while using public transport. The reason for choosing these types of signs was that it was assumed that some of the characteristics of ELF in Tokyo’s linguistic landscape would show more clearly in such matters of high urgency than they would on ‘mere’ information signs, which do not try to enforce a certain behaviour and hence come with less illocutionary force (Austin 1962).

The soundscape data A total of 72 train announcements were recorded during the Yamanote Line ride. An announcement was defined as one or more coherent utterances delivered in the same language by the same speaker/voice. The end of each announcement was usually marked by a longer pause. Available languages were Japanese and English. An overall distinction can be made between pre-recorded announcements played from tape, and live announcements made in real time by the conductor on board the train. The pre-recorded announcements in Japanese and in English were delivered by two different female voices, with the Japanese version in all cases preceding the English one. The live announcements were made by a single male voice. Table 12.1 gives an overview of the total number of announcements and the two different types. A first basic thing to note here is that there is not a single live announcement in English. In other words, information in English is available only on tape, suggesting that the train conductors are not required to speak English. In contrast to Sifianou’s (2010) data, the English messages in the Yamanote Line show virtually no local impact in terms of pronunciation. They are clearly modelled after an inner-circle variety of English that can best be described as Table 12.1 Announcements and languages Type

Japanese

English

Total

Pre-recorded Live Total

30 (42%) 13 (18%) 43 (60%)

29 (40%) 0 (0%) 29 (40%)

59 (82%) 13 (18%) 72 (100%)

198 Peter Backhaus North American. This can easily be understood from the pronunciation of /r/ in post-vocalic position. An example is given in Extract 1, which is part of an announcement delivered between Tabata and Komagome Station. The three relevant instances of post-vocalic /r/ pronunciation, underlined in the extract, are ‘doors’ (line 2), ‘here’, and ‘for’ (both line 3). Extract 1: Announcement between Tabata and Komagome 1 2 3

The next station is Komagome. The doors on the right side will open. Please change here for the Namboku Subway Line.

While the speaker is for the most part not recognizable as Japanese, a certain local impact can be identified when it comes to the pronunciation of proper nouns. Here, too, the pronunciation of /r/ can be taken as an indicator. When it occurs in the names of a station or line – and only then – it is consistently pronounced the Japanese way, that is, as a flap (IPA symbol /ɾ/). The eight station names that contain this phoneme are listed in Table 12.2, which gives a close phonemic transcription of their pronunciation in the English announcements. Even proper nouns, however, are occasionally pronounced in a way that deviates from their original Japanese pronunciation. This tendency is particularly frequent with the accentuation of line names. The data contain various items where the Japanese pitch accent is given up in favour of a more stress-like pronunciation that basically follows (inner-circle) English accentuation rules. One such example is the term ch¯ u¯ o (central) in ‘the Chuo Line’, which in the English announcements is pronounced with a stress accent on the first syllable, whereas the common Japanese pronunciation starts with low pitch and changes to high pitch only on the second mora. Similar differences in accentuation can be observed in the following line names, where the English stress accent is indicated by an apostrophe: Shonan ’Shinjuku Line, Han’zomon Line, Tokyu ’Toyoko Line, and Tokyu Denen’toshi Line, among others.

Table 12.2 Station names containing /ɾ/ pronunciation in English announcements Standard spelling

Pronunciation

Harajuku Meguro Yurakucho Akihabara Nippori Nishi-Nippori Ikebukuro Mejiro

/haɾaʤɯkɯ/ /megɯɾo/ /jɯ:ɾakuʧo:/ /akihabaɾa/ /nip:oɾi/ /niʃinip:oɾi/ /ikebɯkɯɾo/ /meʤiɾo/

ELF information provision in public transport

199

On the levels of lexicon and grammar, no differences from inner-circle English can be observed at all. If anything, here too a North American variety of English can be considered to function as a model. The only piece of evidence though is the term ‘subway’, as opposed to ‘underground’, which would be expected in British English. In terms of pragmatics, a direct comparison with the concurring Japanese texts shows that the English announcements in some cases are slightly shorter or less detailed. The announcement in Extract 2 contains various such examples. Extract 2: Announcement between Harajuku and Shibuya 1 2 3

tsugi

wa

Shibuya,

Shibuya.

next

TOP

Shibuya

Shibuya

o-deguchi wa

migigawa desu.

HON-exit TOP

right side

T ky t yoko-sen, T ky denentoshi-sen, Kei inokashira-sen, T ky T yoko Line

4 5 6

wa TOP

o-norikae

desu.

HON-change

COP

densha to h mu no POS

Subway Fukutoshin Line

aida

ga

between

SUB

aite iru tokoro ga arimasu node space SUB

ashimoto around feet

9

Kei Inokashira Line

Subway Hanz mon Line

be open

8

T ky Denentoshi Line

chikatetsu Hanz mon-sen, chikatetsu Fukutoshin-sen

train and platform

7

COP

ni

exist

go-ch i

DAT HON-attention

because

kudasai please

The next station is Shibuya.

10

The doors on the right side will open.

11

Please change here for the Tokyu Toyoko Line, the Tokyu Denen Toshi Line, the Keio Inokashira Line, the Ginza Subway Line, the Hanzomon Subway Line, and the Fukutoshin Subway Line.

12

Please watch your step when you leave the train.

COP = copula, DAT = dative, HON = honorific, POS = possessive, SUB= subject, TOP = topic.

The extract consists of two pre-recorded announcements delivered in direct succession. The first one (lines 1–8) is a message in Japanese that gives the name of the next station, Shibuya (line 1), and a long list of transfer lines that will be available from there (lines 3–5). It closes with a reminder to be careful when getting off the train (lines 6–8). The English announcement that

200 Peter Backhaus follows (lines 9–12) has roughly the same contents, but there are some slight differences. One is that the name of the station is repeated in Japanese (line 1), but not in English (line 9). The same difference holds for all other station announcements in the data. As a principle, the station name is always given twice in Japanese, whereas it is available only once in English. With regard to politeness features, a first thing to be observed in the extract is that, somewhat different from Sifianou’s data, no effort is made to capture some of the hyper-polite elements of the Japanese text in the English translation. For example, beautification prefixes such as in o-deguchi (line 2), o-norikae (line 5) and go-chu ¯i (line 8) do not show any corresponding style upgrades in the English text, neither morphologically or lexically, nor by any other means. Another notable difference between the two announcements is that the warning to be careful when getting off the train is substantially longer in Japanese. Where the English version just says ‘Please watch your step when you leave the train’ (line 12), the Japanese announcement also explains why special attention is necessary here: because there is a wider gap between the train and the platform at some sections (lines 6–7). The explicit mentioning of a reason for the postulated behaviour reduces the face-threatening potential of the Japanese request by making use of what Brown and Levinson (1987: 128) in their classic framework have identified as positive politeness. Noteworthy, however, is that omission of information in the English version may have just the opposite effect. This can be seen in the example presented in Extract 3, a bilingual announcement informing passengers that there are priority seats (lines 2 and 8, respectively) reserved for a clearly defined group of people. The main difference between the Japanese and the English version is that the former contains a direct request to the passengers to leave their seat to these people (line 6), whereas the English version leaves it to the hearer to draw this conclusion. The English request thus is made off-record (Brown and Levinson 1987: 211), which reduces the imposition on the hearer. Interestingly, while much has been made of the indirect way of Japanese communication (e.g. Akasu and Asao 1993), the example in Extract 3 shows just the opposite pattern: a very explicit Japanese request that comes with a much more indirect English translation, whose very construal as a request is entirely left to the receiver. Extract 3: Announcement between Osaki and Shinagawa 1 2

((Japanese information about the next station)) kono densha ni this train

3

wa

DAT TOP

o-toshiyori

ya

elderly people CONJ

4

y senseki

ga

priority seats

SUB

exist

karada no fujiy na

o-kyakusama

disabled

HON-customers

ADJ

ninshin-ch ya

ny y ji no o-tsure

pregnant

infants

CONJ

arimasu.

no

POS HON-bringing POS

ELF information provision in public transport 5 6 7 8

o-kyakusama

ga

201

irasshaimashitara

HON-customers SUB

HON-be-COND

seki o

o-yuzuri

kudasai.

seat ACC

HON-leave please

((English information about the next station)) There are priority seats reserved for elderly and disabled passengers, expecting mothers, and passengers accompanying small children.

ACC = accusative, ADJ = adjective, COND = conditional, CONJ = conjunction, DAT = dative, HON = honorific, POS = possessive, SUB = subject, TOP = topic.

In summary, the soundscape data reveal that ELF as used in Yamanote Line train announcements shows only minor differences to inner-circle English. Unlike in Sifianou’s data, no local impact can be observed on the level of grammar and lexicon. The same holds true for the phonetic characteristics of the announcements. As could be seen, they are modelled after a NorthAmerican variety of English, from which they differ, not surprisingly perhaps, only when it comes to the pronunciation of proper nouns in line and station names. Even in those cases, however, English accentuation rules may occasionally prevail. A direct comparison with the concurring Japanese messages has further shown that the English texts tend to be slightly shorter, with differing effects in terms of politeness.

The landscape data As described in the methodology section, the second type of data collected for this study is from the domain of written language: bilingual Japanese-English warning and direction signs. They are comparable to the soundscape data in that they too are used for information provision to an unspecified group of people in public space, and they also show some of the characteristics discussed in the previous section. However, they also differ on various accounts. With respect to the variety of English that influenced the texts on the signs, we can again say that a North American variety served as the main model, though the evidence in the collected data is scarce and not entirely unambiguous. As regards orthography, there is only one case where a word with differing spelling in British and American English is used. A warning message at an escalator reads: ‘Have your child stand at the center of the escalator step’, which gives the American spelling for the word ‘centre’. On the lexical level, too, there are a few instances that suggest a North American variety. One appears on a direction sign indicating ‘Restroom on your right’, another is a warning ‘For customers using a wheelchair, stroller or luggage with wheels’. The terms ‘restroom’ and ‘stroller’ have a clear American flavour. With regard to the latter, however, the data also contain a warning saying ‘Do not use strollers or pushchairs’, where the American term is

202 Peter Backhaus accompanied by the corresponding British English expression. In this respect, it is perhaps worth noting that the term that occurs in the Japanese version of the text is bebı¯ka ¯, a Japanese-made loan word derived from the two terms ‘baby’ and ‘car’ (see Table 12.3 below). Even though a direct translation of the term as ‘baby-car’ in the English message might arguably be more easily intelligible to a large number of ELF users, preference is given here to the two lexically more opaque expressions from American and British English. With regard to grammar, one recognizable characteristic of the landscape data is non-marking of plural. An example is a platform sign containing a warning that ‘Getting off the train between station is dangerous’. A similar case is a sign with a list of actions prohibited inside the stations, including ‘musical performance, canvassing, collection of contributions,’ all of which go perfectly in singular, but also ‘signature collecting campaign’, for which innercircle English rules would require a plural marking. From a pragmatic perspective the missing plural appears to be rather unproblematic. In our first example, the preposition ‘between’ logically allows little doubt that more than one station is concerned, and for the second example it is irrelevant if it is one or several collection campaign(s) – they are prohibited anyway (see also Mauranen 2012: 125). They relate to the general ELF characteristic of omitting redundant information for ‘communicative effectiveness and economy’ (Breiteneder 2009: 263). Another noteworthy pattern found in the data is repetition of nouns where anaphoric reference by pronouns would be possible. For instance, a frequently found warning sign on the platform reads ‘Please do not rush into the train, or force yourself into the train’, for which the second mentioning of ‘the train’ could easily be replaced by ‘it’. Another example is from a sign that gives instructions about emergency situations. It stipulates that ‘When directions are given by staff members during evacuation, please follow the directions’. Here, too, the repetition of ‘the directions’ sounds somewhat odd. However, from an ELF perspective this formulation has a clear advantage over a pronoun. If ‘the directions’ was replaced by lexically void items such as ‘them’ or ‘these’, this would entail additional processing load to identify the antecedent the pronoun refers to. In the present case, things are additionally complicated by the fact that there are two possible candidates ‘them’ could – in principle – refer to: directions and staff members. Repetition of the noun instead of pronoun anaphora eliminates these ambiguities and thus increases the explicitness and intelligibility of the message (Dewey 2007: 343–344). Seidlhofer (2004: 220) has characterized this as a general tendency in ELF, which she refers to as ‘overdoing explicitness’. One most prominent feature of ELF text on the signs of the sample, again corresponding to the soundscape data, is that it frequently contains less information than the accompanying Japanese text. An example is given in Figure 12.1, a prohibition to smoke inside the station. While the two-word English noun phrase ‘No Smoking’ communicates only the most fundamental message

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203

this sign was made to convey, the Japanese text contains a large amount of additional information. The text directly above the English message, shu ¯jitsu kin’en, not only conveys the prohibition to smoke (kin’en), but further specifies that this prohibition applies all day through (shu ¯jitsu). More detailed (and in part redundant information) is given in the two sentences below the English text, which hold that smoking is prohibited ‘inside the station’ (eki ko ¯nai) and ask for ‘the passengers’ cooperation’ (o-kyakusama no go-kyo ¯ryoku). The two sentences are written in the formal style (desu/masu) and contain a couple of other politeness features such as the beautification prefixes o (in o-kyakusama and o-negai) and go (in go-kyo ¯ryoku), as well as the humble verb form itasu. The text at the top is a performative speech act specifying that this sign is ‘a request’ for cooperation (o-negai). Here, too, the politeness marker o is used. Finally, the bottom line of the sign identifies the authority in charge of making this prohibition, Tokyu Railway. Juxtaposing the English text with the accompanying Japanese version in this way brings to light how much – and how much more than in the soundscape data – the former is reduced to an absolutely essential minimum of information.

Figure 12.1 No Smoking

204 Peter Backhaus Rather than with the Japanese text, this makes it correspond very closely to the co-appearing message of the pictogram, where, obviously, the image of the cigarette stands for smoking and the red circled frame plus the cross-out line that runs through it expresses prohibition (Wogalter et al. 2006: 160; Johnson 2006: 466). The English message does not convey any more information than that either. The Japanese text, by contrast, contains a large number of additional details, including a heading that frames this sign as a request (rather than a prohibition, what it factually is), the authority issuing the request, and various specifics about spatial, temporal and social relationships that apply between the sign, its writers and its readers. The overall impression we get from this – and many other signs that show similar properties – is that there is a tendency to confine English text to information considered absolutely essential. This also helps explain that the English part of the sign comes as a plain prohibition, whereas the Japanese part, at least judging from the headline of the sign, is framed as a request. As no attempts are made to communicate more subtle messages, particularly with regard to politeness features as available in the Japanese text, the message in English comes across as very straightforward, easily understandable, and void of the cultural specifics of the place where it is being used. In this sense, and in contrast to Sifianou’s (2010) observations in Athens, the English we find here tends to be relatively non-localized. In its simplicity and explicitness, it does show features of ELF though. Another observable tendency is that English text on bilingual signs more frequently than the accompanying Japanese text seems to take the syntax of an imperative clause. Similar observations have been made by Ohata (2004) in comparing Japanese and English TV commercials. One example from the data is presented in Figure 12.2, where the English message is ‘Keep to the left here’. By contrast, the Japanese text koko de wa hidarigawa tsu ¯ko¯ is given as a (copula-less) affirmative sentence that literally translates as ‘Here [is] lefthand traffic’. Table 12.3 gives three more examples of English imperatives that take a different syntactic format in Japanese. In (1), which has already been briefly dealt with in the lexical analysis, the English imperative is accompanied by a Table 12.3 English imperatives Japanese (1)

English

bebik

wa

kinshi

desu

prohibition

COP

“baby-car” TOP

(2) (3)

ky teisha

ni

sudden stop

DAT

ch i

Watch for sudden stops

attention

tachiiri kinshi enter

Do not use strollers or pushchairs

prohibition

TOP = topic, COP = copula, DAT = dative.

Do not enter

ELF information provision in public transport

205

Figure 12.2 Keep to the Left

Japanese affirmative sentence saying that ‘baby-cars’ are prohibited. Although the direct and rather strong expression kinshi (prohibition) is used here, the Japanese version is not syntactically framed as an imperative. The same applies to (2), where the English warning to ‘Watch for sudden stops’ is formulated as an imperative sentence, whereas the Japanese version kyu ¯teisha ni chu ¯i is left without a verb, and thus without a visible imperative form. In (3) the command ‘Do not enter’ in the Japanese version is expressed as a four-character nominal compound consisting of the two terms ‘enter’ (tachiiri) and ‘prohibition’ (kinshi, as also used in (1)). This is the Japanese standard expression for this type of message, relating to the fact that nominal compounds with four characters, commonly known as yoji jukugo, are an important stylistic feature in Japanese. They are frequently used in public messages, most likely because they can condense a high information load into the considerably short format of four characters. The expressions shu ¯jitsu kin’en (Figure 12.1) and hidarigawa tsu ¯ko (Figure 12.2) discussed above are two more examples of such fixed four-character compounds. While it would have been possible to use an English phrase that syntactically comes closer to the Japanese original, e.g. ‘Prohibition to enter’ or ‘No trespassing’, preference in this sign and others is given to an imperative form. This appears to be the most easily understandable way of making the prohibition in English, as it relies on very basic vocabulary only (compare ‘do not’ vs. ‘prohibition to’). The efficient use of a limited number of lexical items has also been discussed by Seidlhofer (2002) in the ELF context. A final tendency that is worth noting with respect to the landscape data is the occasional occurrence of signs with English text that comes unaccompanied by Japanese text. One such example is presented in Figure 12.3. It shows a succession of three prohibition signs about smoking, use of cell phones, and the bringing of pets, respectively. All three messages are expressed using pictograms which are accompanied by a text below. Noteworthy about these signs is that while the cell phone and the pet prohibition are spelled out in Japanese, the ‘No Smoking’ warning is available only in English. Even though such signs are rather small in number, they suggest that in some cases Japanese readers are included in the ELF target group. Judging

206 Peter Backhaus

Figure 12.3 No Smoking again

only from the signs included in the sample, however, it seems that Englishonly text exclusively appears in combination with pictograms. In other words, Japanese readers are confronted with English-only messages only if an accompanying pictographic version of the message is available. As in the case of the ‘No Smoking’ example, these pictograms frequently are highly standardised and have a wide international currency.

Discussion and conclusion We now come back to the three questions: 1 2 3

What are the general characteristics of English as a lingua franca used in Tokyo’s public transport system? How does it differ from inner-circle English contexts? How does it differ from the corresponding Japanese texts?

Starting with (2), one first basic thing that can be said is that the analysed data show comparatively few differences with inner-circle English contexts. As we have seen, both the spoken and the written data seem to be predominantly based on a North American model. In the data we find these features on the levels of orthography (‘center’), pronunciation (postvocalic /r/), and lexicon (‘subway’, ‘restroom’, ‘stroller’). The local impact on these levels is minimal. With regard to the lexicon, for instance, we also find the British English term ‘pushchair’, but there is no occurrence of the made-in-Japan term ‘baby-car’ in the English data. On the level of phonology, on the other hand, it is possible to observe a more Japanese-like pronunciation, as the occurrence of /ɾ/ in proper nouns shows. Even for this type of vocabulary, however, we find various examples where inner-circle English accentuation rules block a more local pronunciation. On the other hand, we do find some deviations from the inner-circle model in the domain of grammar, at least in the landscape data. One case in point is

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207

the non-marking of plural, where overall intelligibility is not at risk (e.g. ‘between station’). A second characteristic that could be observed is the repeated use of a noun that would be replaceable by a pronoun. Here, too, as has been shown, the repetition does not seem to affect the overall intelligibility of a message but, if anything, contributes to disambiguate it. This preference of communicative explicitness has been pointed out by various ELF scholars in other contexts (e.g. Mauranen 2006). With regard to the third research question, a direct comparison of the English messages with their co-occurring Japanese texts has shown that one basic feature of the former is that they tend to be shorter and less detailed. For the soundscape data, we have seen that the English messages commonly omit smaller portions of the Japanese messages, including the repetition of the station name, the reason for a warning, and the direct expression of a request. In addition, no attempts have been made to recapture any part of the honorific weight from the Japanese announcements in the English texts. The same tendency shows even stronger in the landscape data, as could be easily understood from the ‘No Smoking’ example. Whereas the Japanese text contains a large amount of (more or less important) additional information about time, place, and a great repertoire of stylistic features intended to specify the relationship between sign reader and writer, the English message says all there is to say in no more than two words. Intended or not, the simplicity and explicitness that show here again could be characterised as features of ELF. This may also be a factor in the choice of an imperative sentence (‘Keep to the left here’) where the accompanying Japanese version uses a more abstract format. One more noteworthy feature that a direct comparison between English and Japanese brings to the fore is that in some cases only one language is available. Judging only from what we find in the data, it seems that if a very straightforward message like ‘No Smoking’ is concerned, and if this message is accompanied by a pictogram, English-only may become an option. In such cases, the Japanese host population becomes included in the group or ELF users, too. On the other hand, the soundscape data have revealed that English messages are available exclusively for prefabricated announcements. If some more local or immediate content is to be communicated for which no prerecorded message is available, English is no longer an option. With regard to research question (1), regarding the general characteristics of ELF in the present data, we can conclude that in direct comparison with Sifianou’s study from Athens, English in public transport facilities in Tokyo appears to be only very weakly localised. In contrast to the situation in Greece, where the authorities in charge were described to be using a variety of English that was largely in accordance with their own cultural preferences, sign writers in Tokyo seem to be most eager to use English in a way that is void of too much local impact. As the analysis has shown, there is a clear preference for inner-circle English, suggesting a rather low consciousness of ELF as such on the part of the agencies in charge.

208 Peter Backhaus Getting prepared for the 2020 Olympics, Tokyo is now facing major infrastructural challenges that will substantially change its outward appearance, including the linguistic part of it. As the present study has shown, English is already fulfilling a vital function in information provision in public spaces. What additional steps will be taken in the next couple of years, to what extent English will be recognised as a true, non-native bound lingua franca, and how efficient the communication system will work in the end, remains to be seen.

Note 1

I thank Ms. Kunimatsu for letting me use these data for the present purpose.

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Linguistic Super-diversity in Urban Areas: Research Approaches. Amsterdam: Benjamins, pp. 45–74. Schafer, M. 1977. The Tuning of the World. New York: Knopf. Seidlhofer, B. 2002. The shape of things to come? Some basic questions about English as a lingua franca. In K. Knapp and C. Meierkord (eds), Lingua Franca Communication. Frankfurt/Main: Peter Lang, pp. 269–302. Seidlhofer, B. 2004. Research perspectives on teaching English as a lingua franca. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 24, 209–239. Seidlhofer, B. 2011. Understanding English as a Lingua Franca. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Seidlhofer, B. and H. G. Widdowson 2009. Accommodation and the idiom principle in English as a lingua franca. In K. Murata and J. Jenkins (eds), Global Englishes in Asian Contexts: Current and Future Debates. Houndmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 26–39. Shohamy, E. and D. Gorter (eds) 2009. Linguistic Landscape: Expanding the Scenery. New York: Routledge (Taylor & Francis). Shohamy, E., E. Ben-Rafael and M. Barni (eds) 2010. Linguistic Landscape in the City. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Sifianou, M. 2010. The announcements in the Athens Metro stations: An example of glocalization? Intercultural Pragmatics 7(1), 25–46. Wogalter, M. S., N. C. Silver, S. D. Leonard and H. Zaikina 2006. Warning symbols. In M. S. Wogalter (ed.), Handbook of Warnings. Mahweh, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, pp. 159–176.

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Part IV

ELF and pedagogic concerns

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13 Competence and capability Rethinking the subject English H G Widdowson

What do teachers of English do? They teach English, of course. Other teachers teach history, or geography or physics and they teach English. That is their subject. How they teach it may differ in all kinds of ways, and there is plenty of diverse opinion about the best way, but what they teach seems to be straightforward enough, and not a matter of dispute. In this chapter, I want to suggest that, on the contrary, there is a problem about what English is taught, and that this problem is at the very heart of TEFL – in Japan and everywhere else. The English teacher’s subject is English, and, in another sense of the word, English is also the subject of this chapter. To begin with a simple question: What do we mean by English? The question is simple, but the answer is not because English can obviously mean different things for different people. For people in native speaking communities in Britain, in the USA, in Australia, English is what they use quite naturally for communication in the continuity of daily life. It is an insider language, a familiar and essential part of their everyday social reality. For learners of English in Japanese classrooms it is an outsider language. It is not familiar, it is foreign. Although words and phrases in English make a symbolic appearance in advertisements, shop signs and on T shirts, English is not a part of everyday social or institutional communication in Japan. It does not occur naturally but has to be made to occur by teaching. It is divided into discontinuous events called lessons that are fitted into the school curriculum between other subject lessons according to administrative convenience – once on Monday afternoon, perhaps, between history and physics, once on Wednesday twice on Thursday. So on the face of it, it is obvious that what English means for its native speaker users is quite different from what it means for its non- native speaking learners. There are two realities here, and the central pedagogic problem that teachers have to contend with, and have always had to contend with, is how these two realities can be related to and reconciled with each other. So this is the problem I want to explore. I make no claim that I can resolve it. My purpose is to raise awareness of the issues that I think crucially need to be taken into account in dealing with it. It is often said that teachers need to be reflective practitioners. All I want to do is to raise questions about the

214 H G Widdowson subject they teach that they might reflect on, or, as some people might say, reflect about. The first thing I think it is worth reflecting about is the orthodox taken for granted assumption that it is English as a first or native language (ENL) that should be the objective for learners to achieve. The E of ENL is essentially the same as the E of the subject: English as a foreign language (EFL) or English to speakers of other languages (ESOL). It is ENL that is recommended as the E to be taught and tested as a subject. So what is this ENL? We can identify three ways of describing it 1

2

ENL = Encoded forms. ENL is the English that has been codified as the standard language. Standard English – the English that has been described in authorized works of reference: The Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary, The Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English, and so on. These provide norms of correctness for learners to conform to. Note that therefore learners are required to do what most native speakers do not do. Standard English is what grammarians and dictionary makers describe not what most NSs actually use – it is an idealization, an abstraction. But according to orthodox pedagogic thinking, if learners are to be linguistically competent, their English has to be accurate, they have to conform to the Standard, their English has to be correct: competence = conformity = correctness. ENL = communicative functions. With the so-called structural approach, the E of the subject is the encoded language, the forms of the standard language and their encoded semantic meaning. With the communicative approach comes a change of subject. Now the focus is on how these forms are put to communicative use: their pragmatic function. The objective now is communicative competence.

But again this is assumed to be the native speaker’s communicative competence. Learners are induced to learn how native speaker communities used their language as appropriate to their social contexts – their acts of communication- how they, the native speakers, express greetings, apologies, agreements, disagreements, promises and so on. Learners are taught how to communicate but only how to communicate like native speakers and their communication is required not only to be appropriate in reference to pragmatic convention but also correct in reference to the linguistic rules of the standard language. They have to communicate on NS terms and in NS terms. It is not enough for them to use their English resources to get their meaning across in pragmatically effective ways: they have to use their English accurately as well. Communicative function has to correspond with correct linguistic form. In the currently favoured version of this approach, Task Based Language Teaching, the activities that learners are taught to engage in are said to focus primarily on meaning rather than form but the meanings that they express still have to conform to norms of correctness and conventional native speaker usage.

Competence and capability 215 It is not enough for learners to achieve a communicatively successful outcome on their own terms, the outcome has to match up to native speaker standards. So there is not really a primary focus on meaning as such but on form – the approved native speaker form that the meaning takes. And now a third way of thinking of ENL: 3

ENL = authentic usage. In recent years there has appeared a third way of thinking of ENL which represents it in terms not of native speaker competence but of native speaker performance. With the advent of the computer, corpus linguistics is now able to reveal in detail patterns of NS usage – idiomatic patterns of linguistic forms that NSs have actually produced. This, it is said, represents real or authentic English usage. So since the objective of learning is to acquire the actual linguistic behavior of NSs, then learners should, it is argued, be required to conform to the norm of these patterns of usage as well. The teaching objective now is to get learners to acquire not only the correct linguistic forms of standard English, and not only the conventional communicative functions that these forms can be used to express but also the actual idiomatic wordings that native speakers produce as revealed by a corpus. And so we get the corpus-based Collins COBUILD Dictionary, which claims to help learners with ‘real’ English, and the corpus-based Cambridge Grammar of English, which carries on its cover a ‘real English guarantee’.

So what is usually recommended as the English that teachers should teach as a subject is the English that is represented by standard encoded forms, by its communicative functions and its authentic performance in native speaker contexts of use. It is the English that native speakers know and use – their competence, their performance, their conventions of usage. EFL = ENL. This is the English to be taught and the English that learners are required to conform to. If they do not conform they are wrong. And there are plenty of books around that will tell them so. To take one example, at the beginning of Michael Swan’s authoritative reference book Practical English Usage (Swan 2005), there are a number of pages with the heading printed in red – red for danger – Don’t Say it! 130 common mistakes. Mistakes such as: It’s often raining here It can rain this evening I gave to her my address Please explain me what you want I object to tell them my age No doubt the world is getting warmer The number of the unemployed is going up I have much money Don’t say it! But learners do say it – and keep on saying it in spite of being told not to.

216 H G Widdowson Although it is these norms of native speaker English that are taught, it is not the English that is learned. As every teacher knows, learners stubbornly refuse to do what they are told and persistently fail to conform to these norms of correctness and conventional usage. English taught as a foreign language, ETFL, is not the same as English learned as a foreign language, ELFL. That is, ETFL ≠ ELFL. Teachers set up ENL as the target language and try to help learners to hit the target but most of them miss it. All kinds of new method and approach have been proposed over the years to improve the learners’ aim – the structural approach, the natural approach, communicative language teaching, task-based language teaching, content and language integrated learning, all trying, and trying in vain, to get learners to conform to ENL norms and achieve NS competence. So if learners do not learn ENL, why do we keep on trying to teach it? One answer is that only if you conform to these norms can you use the language effectively as communication. But none of these things that learners are told they must not say actually poses any problem of communication. And millions of people using English as an international means of communication, as a global lingua franca, produce ‘mistakes’ of this kind and yet achieve communication appropriate to their purposes. We find such non-conformities in English usage all over the world – face-to-face exchanges, interactions over the internet, in business transactions, diplomatic negotiations and international conferences. When, for example, you listen to presentations in international conferences, you will hear plenty of these non-conformities, these so-called ‘mistakes’. So teachers themselves will be making the same kind of ‘mistakes’ that they keep on telling their students not to make. This is not a criticism – on the contrary, it is simply a recognition that this is what English users quite naturally do in the real world. The use of English as a lingua franca – ELF – often, indeed usually, does not at all correspond with the norms of ENL. The globalized use of English as a lingua franca represents a different reality – a reality very different from that of the native speaker. Let me give you one example. Here is Ban Ki-Moon, the Secretary General of the United Nations replying to a question in an interview about globalization: . . . the world is going through global communication and globalizations. The China is number 2 economic power in the world . . . Combined economic power I think they can play greater role than they have been doing now. While economic situation in Europe and other places are going down there is again expectation that the countries in this region can play better and greater role in the global situation . . . Ban Ki-Moon obviously has not acquired NS competence – or at least if he has, he does not act upon it. What he says is full of the kind of mistakes that teachers are told they must correct. Globalization is a non-countable noun

Competence and capability 217 that cannot be made into a plural. Don’t say globalizations. Don’t leave articles out of noun phrases: don’t say The China is number 2, say China is the number 2. Don’t say play greater role, say play a greater role. And so on. And it is not only that what Ban Ki-Moon says is ungrammatical and so does not conform to the norm of correctness. It does not conform to the norm of NS idiomatic usage either. To a NS ear, for example, there are oddities of phrase here. The world is going through global communication? The world is experiencing, or, going through a process of global communication would be more idiomatically usual. The economic situation in Europe is going down – no that does not sound right. It should be something like the economic situation is deteriorating. And so we could correct Ban Ki-Moon’s ELF and make it like ENL. This, we might say, is what he should have said: . . . the world is going through a process of globalization and global communication. China is the number 2 economic power in the world . . . I think that combined economic power can play a greater role than it has been doing up to now. While the economic situation in Europe and other places is deteriorating there is again an expectation that the countries in this region can play a better and greater role in global affairs. We might suggest that the Director General of the United Nations might take English lessons to make him more competent, or at least to improve his performance, and while we are at it we might do some remedial work on his pronunciation as well, which also falls well short of NS standards. In this way we might hope to make his English more like that of a native speaker from Britain, or the USA or Australia. But why should he be required to use English like an Englishman, or American or Australian? He is a Korean, so why should he not be a Korean in English? Why should he deny his identity and assume the identity of somebody else? Ban Ki-Moon’s English can be said to be incompetent in that it does not conform to NS norms, but this does not make him incapable of communicating. On the contrary. The interviewer has no problem understanding what he has to say – she does not say, Excuse me Secretary General, I think what you want to say is Countries in this region can play a better and greater role . . . the economic situation is, not are, deteriorating, not going down. It is obvious that though Ban Ki-Moon’s performance does not measure up to NS competence, it nevertheless shows him to have acquired considerable communicative capability. He would not otherwise be able to do his job, and there is no other job I can think of that makes such challenging demands on the use of English as a communicative resource. You may call his English defective in form, but it is nevertheless effective in function. So where does his communicative capability come from? Like most other users of ELF, Ban Ki-Moon has been taught English at school. According to Wikipedia, he was ‘a star student, particularly in the English language’, and furthermore he has a Master’s degree from Harvard. But the English that he

218 H G Widdowson puts to use so effectively is not ENL – the native speaker English he has presumably been taught, it is not ETFL. What he puts to use is English as a lingua franca, ELF, which corresponds more closely to the English he has learned, ELFL. So ELFL can be said to contain ELF within it: ELFL. What Ban Ki-Moon has done is what countless numbers of other users of English as a lingua franca do, whether they are from Korea or Japan or anywhere else, namely to subvert what they have been taught as competence so as to convert it into capability (for further discussion on the concept of capability see Widdowson 2003). Of course, some learners succeed in subverting and converting better than others. After all, to do so means to resist all the institutional pressures on them to conform, and there are penalties for not conforming. Non-conformity is associated with failure. So the development of ELF capability is inhibited by the teaching of ENL competence. So why is it, we need to ask, that in spite of all these pressures to conform, in spite of all the coursebooks which, on educational authority, represent what has to be learned, in spite of all the different approaches and techniques that teachers are recommended to follow, learners still do not learn what they are taught? The answer I suggest is not that we have not yet found the way to get them to hit the target but that we are getting them to aim at the wrong target and this is because these norms of correctness and NS usage represent a reality that learners cannot engage with because it is radically different from their own. To go back to the norm of authentic usage as revealed by corpora, for example, that learners are recommended to conform to. As one of its advocates puts it: The language of the corpus is, above all, real, and what is it that all language learners want, other than ‘real’ contact with the target language? (McCarthy 2001: 128) But how ‘real’ can the learners’ contact with actually performed ‘target language’ really be? How, for example, would they make contact with the following sample taken from a corpus that McCarthy himself has been involved in assembling: a transcript of an authentic NS conversation. S1. Now I think you’d better start the rice S2. Yeah . . . what you got there? (4 s pause) S2. Will it all fit in the one? S1. No you’ll have to do two separate ones S.3 Right . . . what next? (17 s pause) S.3 Foreign body in there S.2 It’s the raisins (Carter and McCarthy 1997: 65)

Competence and capability 219 So what kind of contact would Japanese learners of English for example make with this text? In the first place, there are some things that would make it difficult for any reader, let alone learners, to connect with the text at all. ‘Will it all fit in the one? Will all what fit in the one what? ‘What are these people actually referring to? ‘Foreign body in there’. In where? And what’s all this about a foreign body? These difficulties arise because what we have here is a text without the context that would make it real for the participants in this interaction. The insider participants in this conversation are in the know about the context and can connect up with it, outsiders like us are not in the know and cannot make the connection. So contact with ‘real’ language does not make it real for you unless you can replicate the context which gave it reality in the first place. If, as a learner, you are not in the know about what is going on, if you cannot realize what these people are referring to with these fragments of language, and how they are using them to relate to each other and to achieve their communicative purposes, then the fragments simply become a collection of linguistic forms – an interrogative sentence here, a noun phrase there. All you can do is focus on the forms isolated from their communicative function. What is real for these NS users is not at all real for NNS learners in Japan or anywhere else (for further discussion see Widdowson 2003, 2012). And it is how learners engage with English to make it real for themselves that is crucial. So how would they do this? They can only do it, I suggest, by relating the language to their own reality rather than trying to relate it to somebody else’s. Now a key part of that reality is the learners’ experience of their own language. This is generally suppressed in ETFL but is active in ELFL because learners will quite naturally draw on this experience in their processing of this other language. They know how their own language works and will be naturally inclined to suppose that English works in the same kind of way – that what matters about linguistic form is how it gets adapted to serve a communicative function, that some parts of language carry more communicative weight than others, that many features of correctness are communicatively redundant and only serve as conventional markers of social identity in a particular community and have no real significance elsewhere. So something tells them – their own experience of language tells them – that correctness is not always needed for effective communication: that they can get by without it. Most of the so-called mistakes that are so persistent and which teachers spend so much time trying to eradicate have little if any communicative value – this is why learners keep on making them. They see no point in correction. And we need to note that some of these so-called mistakes show that learners are capable of making creative use of the unused potential of English, and so are evidence of learning beyond conformity. To take one example: The Cambridge Grammar of English claims to be a comprehensive guide to

220 H G Widdowson contemporary English: as I mentioned earlier, it carries on its cover a ‘Real English guarantee’. It tells us, for example, that the expression ‘discuss about’ is wrong. ‘About is not used with the verb discuss’ (Carter and McCarthy 2006: 23) But learners do say ‘discuss about’ as do many users of English as a lingua franca. So why do they do it? If you can quite ‘correctly’ have a discussion about something and you can think about something, and talk about something, so discuss about would seem entirely regular. And this is not an isolated example: if, for example, you can, correctly, complain about something, why should explain about something be wrong? The same applies to reflect about. The Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary will tell you that you can reflect on something and reflect upon something but there is no mention of reflect about, so learners, deferring to this authority, will assume it is incorrect. Don’t say it! But learners keep on saying it. And not just learners – I have said ‘reflect about’ myself in this talk. And the expression ‘discuss about’ is of frequent occurrence in the use of English as a lingua franca (see Seidlhofer 2011). The point is that it is entirely natural to exploit the regularity within English in this way. What both learners and users are doing when they produce these forms is making strategic use of an existing encoding convention. And there is no negative effect on communication. ELF users like Ban Ki-Moon, even if they know what the NS norms are, do not act upon their knowledge because in their contexts of use and for their purposes they are quite capable of making effective use of their linguistic resources without conforming to these norms. And this exploitation of the potential of the language is a continuing process. If and when contexts and purpose arise which do require a closer conformity to NS norms, then this capability for use will enable ELF users quite naturally to adjust their language accordingly. A capability for language use is also a capability for further language learning. Linguistic forms serve communicative functions. As Michael Halliday puts it: The particular form taken by the grammatical systems of language is closely related to the social and personal needs that language is required to serve. (Halliday 1970: 142) It follows from this that as the social and personal needs of users of English worldwide vary, so the form of the language will naturally vary accordingly. NS competence is necessarily tied in with the contexts of use and the communicative purposes of NS communities, so it must also follow that if English is used by other people in different contexts and for different purposes, this competence no longer corresponds with their social and personal needs.

Competence and capability 221 I began this chapter by raising the question of what teachers of English teach, and this, I have argued, leads us to think about who they are teaching it to. They are interdependently related, and how the subject ‘English’ is conceived crucially depends on how this relationship is defined. The established way of thinking about the subject has been to give primacy to the what as the dominant factor in the relationship, with the who in a subordinate dependent role. What I have suggested is that this dependency should be reversed. One way of putting this is by reference to the meaning of the verb ‘to teach’. Grammatically it can take two objects, separately or combined. Separately we can either have: Teachers teach something: Physics, History, English. Or: Teachers teach somebody: students/pupils. And these sentences can be grammatically combined in two different ways. One way: Teachers teach English to students. Here English is the direct object and is, one might say, given primacy. This I suggest is how the teaching of English is generally conceived with the primary focus on what is to be taught, what, defined in NS terms, is to be unilaterally transmitted to students: take it or leave it. But another combination is possible: Teachers teach students English. Here the focus is on the students. The dependencies, one might say, are reversed: instead of thinking first of the language to be taught and making students adapt to it, you think of the students first and make the language adapt to them. Another way of putting this is by reference to the acronym TESOL. This, as the name of a well known association, stands for Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages. This little preposition, to, implies the very order of priority that I am arguing should be reversed: it is English for Speakers of Other Languages that needs to be taught: not an established and approved native speaker language which is unilaterally imposed but language speakers of other languages can naturally engage with as a communicative resource and that they can associate with their ‘other’ languages, and so relates to their reality and to their requirement. Even such a small and seemingly trivial change of preposition might, by exploring its possible implications, lead to the kind of rethinking about the subject I have been arguing for. To summarize what I have been saying. The orthodox assumption, or received wisdom of TEFL – in Japan and everywhere else – is that the English to be taught is English as a native language: ENL. The objective is to get learners to conform to norms of correctness and usage and so achieve NS competence. But this English that is taught as a foreign language ETFL is not what is actually learned as a foreign language ELFL. In spite of all kinds of expert recommendation about how to get learners to conform and achieve this competence in the so-called target language, most learners do not do so. Where

222 H G Widdowson ELFL does not match up with ETFL it is considered a failure. Little if any credit is given to ELFL since most assessment is based on what is taught not on what is learned. The reason why learners do not conform, I suggested, is because ENL represents a reality that they cannot engage with because it is radically different from theirs. They will naturally seek to relate English the foreign language to the familiar experience of their own language and this, I argue, leads them instinctively to focus on those aspects of English that have most value as a communicative resource. Consequently, what is learned can be put to effective use when learners become users of English as a lingua franca. Their incompetence does not make them incapable as communicators. They have clearly learned a strategic capability for using the linguistic resources of English adapting them as appropriate to the various contexts and for the various purposes of global communication. Earlier, I referred to two realities: the reality of ENL as an insider language and the reality of EFL as an outsider language, and I have suggested that the essential problem of TEFL as a subject was how these two realities could be related. My general point is that if we continue to base the subject TEFL on ENL then the realities will always be unrelated and cannot be reconciled. ELFL will always be at odds with ETFL and the result will always be, in varying degrees, a pedagogy of failure. But we can rethink the subject as it has been traditionally defined. And we can do this by taking account of a third reality that I talked about. This is the reality of English as a lingua franca, English as used in the immensely wide range of contexts in our digitalized, globalized world, and which reveals quite clearly how users of the language are capable of effective communication without conforming to the norms of ENL. This capability, I have argued, has its origins in the learning of English as a foreign language – that ELF and ELFL are closely related. English now becomes more like an insider language – its features made less foreign and more familiar, related more closely to the learners’ own reality. There has been much talk about learner autonomy, about teachers allowing learners to take the initiative. This way of thinking of the subject, which gives primacy to who rather that what is to be taught, would be a way of putting such ideas into practice. So one way of rethinking our subject is to take our bearings not from ENL but from ELF, and to abandon the objective of NS competence in favour of encouraging and supporting the natural development in learners of communicative capability. TEFL would then not be a matter of teaching learners how to correctly accumulate quantities of language but essentially how to engage in the process of what has been called languaging (e.g. Swain 2006); the strategic use of the resources of English to express themselves and communicate with others (for further discussion see Seidlhofer 2011). Such rethinking of course poses considerable challenges. But it also offers opportunities to make TEFL in Japan, and elsewhere, more effective and

Competence and capability 223 realistic as a subject, more real for learners, and more attuned to the changed role of English in a world which ‘is going through global communication and globalizations’, to quote the words of a user of English as a lingua franca, and surely a role-model for any learner of English, the Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-Moon. I cannot claim to speak with anything like the same authority. But I hope that in exploring the pedagogic implications of ELF, I have said something that might prompt Japanese teachers to reflect about, and discuss about, alternative ways of thinking about the subject they teach.

Note 1

This chapter is a slightly modified version of an article first published in the Journal of Asia TEFL 12.1, 2015. It has been reproduced here with permission.

References Carter, R. and M. McCarthy 1997. Exploring Spoken English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Carter, R. and M. McCarthy 2006. Cambridge Grammar of English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Halliday, M. 1970. Language structure and language function. In J. Lyons (ed.), New Horizons in Linguistics. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. Reprinted in M.A.K. Halliday and J. Webster 2002. On Grammar. Collected Works of MAK Halliday, Vol. 1. London: Continuum. McCarthy, M. 2001. Issues in Applied Linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Seidlhofer, B. 2011. Understanding English as a Lingua Franca. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Swain, M. 2006. Languaging, agency and collaboration in advanced second language proficiency. In H. Byrnes (ed.), Advanced Language Learning: The Contribution of Halliday and Vygotsky. London: Continuum. Swan, M. 2005. Practical English Usage. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Widdowson, H. 2003. Defining Issues in English Language Teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Widdowson, H. 2012. Closing the gap, changing the subject. In J. Huettner, B. Mehlmauer-Larcher, S. Reichl and B. Schifner (eds), Theory and Practice in EFL Teacher Education. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.

14 Large-scale assessments of English for academic purposes from the perspective of English as a lingua franca Yasuyo Sawaki

Introduction Large-scale academic English language tests are often criticized for not reflecting the rich variation in the English language (Davidson 2009). While this issue has been raised in the context of world Englishes, it is relevant to the consideration of English as a lingua franca (ELF) as well.1 With the growing interest in how the notion of ELF affects English language instruction, learning and assessment, a relevant question that deserves close investigation is how we might go about assessing the English ability required for communication in a globalizing society. McNamara (2014) argues that adequately addressing this issue poses a major challenge to the current conceptualization of communicative language testing. Heated debates about this issue have continued between proponents of ELF and language assessment researchers for about a decade now (e.g. Canagarajah 2009; Elder and Davies 2006; Elder and Harding 2008; Jenkins 2006; Jenkins and Leung 2013; Taylor 2006). While the viewpoints expressed by these two groups have not often resonated with each other, collaboration between them to explore how to assess ELF is essential. This is because the demand for an English language assessment that can provide an accurate estimate of what a test taker would be able to do in the English language in real-life ELF communication is expected to grow with further increase of ELF speakers in the future. Among key issues raised concerning how to go about assessing ELF are the adequacy of existing English language assessments in addressing this issue and possible approaches to designing new ELF assessments. Some ELF researchers, such as Jenkins and her associates (Jenkins 2006; Jenkins and Leung 2013; Jenkins et al. 2011) and Canagarajah (2009), have expressed critical opinions about existing English language assessments, particularly in terms of their dependence on standard English (SE) norms. Jenkins and her associates, for instance, claim that existing English language tests do not take into account important characteristics of English used in ELF communication. One of the criticisms of Jenkins and her associates, a point similar to that of Canagarajah (2009), is that existing English language tests do not properly treat various types of accommodations (adjustments to speech) that deviate from SE norms

Assessments of English for academic purposes 225 and are common in communication among non-native speakers (NNSs). Jenkins (2006) claims, for example, that accommodations such as convergence between two speakers’ forms and avoiding the use of certain forms (e.g. idioms) that are unknown to the interlocutor in NNS–NNS communication are penalized in tests based on SE norms. Jenkins argues that this is unreasonable because communicative effectiveness, rather than accuracy, should be primary in ELF communication and thus test takers should not be penalizedd as long as these accommodations lead to communicative success. On the other hand, some language assessment researchers have argued that Jenkins’ (2006) points may not fully reflect the current practice of second language assessment. In her response to Jenkins’ article, Taylor (2006), providing examples as to how the interactive communication criterion for the Cambridge ESOL speaking examinations is defined, describes how contextappropriate language accommodations that lead to effective communication are likely to be awarded credit rather than penalized. A relevant point made by Elder and Davies (2006) is similar to Taylor’s point. This is that the field of language assessment has already experienced a ‘softening’ of SE norms in the recent movement toward communicative language testing, again suggesting that current assessment practice, which values communicative effectiveness, may already address concerns of ELF researchers, such as those raised by Jenkins, at least to some extent. A related question is whether assessing ELF requires a new test designed specifically for ELF speakers. A major issue of concern raised in the literature in relation to this point is the current lack of a codification of ELF. This led Seidlhofer et al. (2006) to reason that it may still be premature to design an ELF assessment. Meanwhile, acknowledging the needs for further descriptive work on ELF, Jenkins (2006) proposes to take an interim approach. This is to base assessment criteria on empirical ELF data rather than on SE norms with the focus on the success of communication among NNSs (instead of that of NNS communication with native speakers [NS]). However, the lack of a codification of ELF and its ‘fluid, flexible, contingent, and often non-native-influenced’ nature (Jenkins and Leung 2013: 1612) can pose a major obstacle in assessing ELF. As pointed out by Brown (2014), this is because designing an assessment hinges on a clear identification and understanding of the target ability of interest. Accordingly, Brown suggested taking two other approaches, namely, incorporating more varieties of world Englishes into existing assessments to better reflect different NNS norms as a short-term goal and using a locally defined norm in cases of developing a test for local use. Meanwhile, Elder and Davies (2006) argue that the direction would depend on how ELF will be defined in the future. On the one hand, if we define ELF as the use of English in different contexts that involve NNSs in various ways, we might as well employ the ‘soft version of Standard English testing’ (Elder and Davies 2006: 294), which refers to relaxing SE norms to accommodate the variability of ELF. The target construct assessed in this case would be SE communication because ELF, in this sense, would still be

226 Yasuyo Sawaki dependent on SE norms. In this approach, existing English language tests (e.g. TOEFL® and IELTS™) may be used by making adjustments to the test delivery and scoring systems to an extent to which the target construct and the meaning of the test score do not change. For instance, stimulus texts used as part of test tasks can be reviewed carefully to eliminate potential bias against those test takers who lack background knowledge and experience in terms of certain topics or genres. In speaking assessment, expert NNS/ELF users who can adjust their speech to the needs of ELF speakers may be used. Raters who score test taker responses may also be trained to penalize only errors that can lead to miscommunication. On the other hand, Elder and Davies (2006) argue that, if we define ELF as a new language to be codified, the target construct is no longer dependent on SE norms and, thus, new tests that are designed and developed specifically for ELF would be required. According to them, such tests would essentially be assessments of a type of English for specific purposes (ESP) that may have design features unique to ELF communication. As an example, for the sake of ensuring authenticity, speaking tasks may be designed to simulate language use tasks that are familiar to ELF speakers (e.g. NNS–NNS communication for international business negotiations). Moreover, intelligibility rather than accuracy may be emphasized in scoring, while strategic competence, which plays an important role in ELF communication, may be defined as part of the target construct. Whichever of the above mentioned approaches we might take, however, Elder and Davies state that an ELF test would not look radically different from existing English language tests because the field of language assessment has already experienced a greater acceptance of interlanguage approximations and a greater emphasis on meaning as compared to the case in the past. Research has also been conducted on the development of ESP assessments. The foregoing discussion suggests that there has been a strong call from ELF researchers such as Jenkins (2006) for transforming English language assessments to accommodate characteristics of ELF in assessments. Meanwhile, language assessment researchers such as Elder and Davies (2006) do not necessarily think that assessing ELF requires new approaches that are drastically different from existing ones. In order for us to fully examine the validity of each side’s claims, it seems essential to turn to concrete examples of current assessment practice instead of discussing such practice in the abstract. A discussion of how to go about assessing ELF should be based on an accurate understanding of the current assessment practice in a specific assessment context, such as the test purpose, operationalization of the target construct in the test design, and the definition and implementation of the scoring criteria. Otherwise, we cannot make reasonable judgments about the degree to which existing English tests for use in a particular context should be adapted for assessing ELF, or how similar or different an ELF test should be from existing ones. With the above as the background, this chapter describes the current assessment practice in large-scale academic English tests in relation to assessing

Assessments of English for academic purposes 227 ELF. Specifically, I will discuss two existing English language tests, the IELTS Academic test and the TOEFL iBT test (henceforth, IELTS and TOEFL iBT, respectively), as primary examples. While these tests have often become targets of criticism in previous discussions of assessing ELF, such criticisms should be examined in light of the various constraints under which these tests operate. These constraints are due to the high-stakes nature of decisions made regarding test takers based on those tests. At the same time, however, many IELTS and TOEFL iBT test takers are expected to work in academic contexts where a substantial number of NNSs are engaged in NS–NNS and NNS–NNS communication in various forms. Thus, in considering how to better address the issue of assessing ELF for academic purposes, it is worth examining the degree to which the current assessment practice adopted in these two major testing programmes reflects important features of ELF communication. The two tests to be described here have some important similarities and differences. As for similarities, IELTS and TOEFL iBT are both administered and used for making score-based decisions about test takers in multiple countries, primarily for admission of international students to academic programmes in English-medium higher education institutions. Moreover, both tests are designed to assess academic English language ability in four modalities (reading, listening, speaking and writing), despite various differences in the definition of academic English language ability reflected in the test design. The use of conventional assessment formats for testing listening and reading (e.g. a written test format based on multiple-choice and/or short-answer items) as opposed to the use of performance assessment formats for testing speaking and writing abilities is another similarity. A difference between them is the countries and regions where the tests are used. IELTS is used primarily in the UK, Australia and Europe, whereas TOEFL iBT is used mainly in North America. Another difference lies in test delivery. IELTS is a paper-based test, while TOEFL iBT is an Internet-based test. They differ from each other in how to assess speaking and writing abilities as well. Each IELTS test taker completes writing tasks on paper and makes a separate appointment for taking the speaking portion of the test, where each test taker has a face-to-face interview with an examiner. In contrast, the TOEFL iBT test taker word-processes his/her responses to writing tasks by using a computer keyboard. In the speaking section, he/she speaks into a microphone to respond to a series of speaking tasks designed to elicit monologues. In the remaining sections of this chapter, I will focus primarily on how listening and speaking abilities are assessed in IELTS and TOEFL iBT. First, I will briefly describe four key assessment concepts that we need to keep in mind in this discussion: test purpose, validity, reliability and fairness. Next, I will discuss features of these tests with a special focus on two issues that directly affect the appropriateness of score-based inferences made about test takers’ academic English language ability: (i) the relationship between the domain definition (language demands in academia or what the test taker has to do with the language for academic work) and the task design (what test takers need to

228 Yasuyo Sawaki do to complete test tasks), and (ii) the assessment criteria (how test taker responses are scored). Finally, based on a summary of the review results, possible directions for further research on these tests from the perspective of assessing ELF will be proposed.

Key assessment concepts: test purpose, validity, reliability and fairness Before we delve into a discussion of the current assessment practice of the IELTS academic test and the TOEFL iBT test, a review of key assessment concepts is in order. The first is test purpose, which is closely linked to how a test score is used. Whenever we administer a test, the primary interest lies in making inferences about test takers’ language abilities based on their test scores for a particular purpose. Thus, in a nutshell, the test purpose largely determines the appropriate test design. For example, an academic English test used for making student admission decisions should adopt a design that allows one to make a good inference as to whether a candidate has a good enough English language ability to succeed in an academic programme. Among key concepts that affect the appropriateness of the score-based inference are validity, reliability, and fairness. Validity is defined as the extent to which a test score can be interpreted as a measure of the target construct. We need to ensure that an academic English language test taps into language abilities that are important in academia. To do so, test tasks should reflect characteristics of frequent and important language use tasks that students encounter in academic contexts. Moreover, test taker performance should be assessed against criteria that adequately reflect different aspects of language ability required for academic work. Second, reliability refers to the consistency of information obtained from assessment. That is, examinee performance must always be scored consistently, no matter whom the test takers are, when and where they take the test, or who scores their responses. Finally, while fairness has been conceptualized in various ways, it is defined here as the absence of bias in a test design. In other words, no specific subgroup should be advantaged or disadvantaged due to the presence of bias in the assessment content, procedure or scoring method. A point that we need to take into account in the subsequent discussion is that various aspects of test design are driven from a test’s purpose and use. A challenge related specifically to assessing academic ELF in a large-scale test for high-stakes decision-making is the fact that the test taker population comprises NNSs coming from diverse contexts of language use. Despite the heterogeneity of the test taker population, a test needs to be reliable and valid and fair to all individuals taking a given test.

Reviewing current assessment practice in IELTS and TOEFL In this section, I will discuss current assessment practice as implemented in the IELTS Academic test and the TOEFL iBT test with a special focus on two

Assessments of English for academic purposes 229 issues: the relationship between the domain definition and task design and the assessment criteria. Domain definitions and task design When we design a test, one of the first things that we need to do is to define the target language use (TLU) domain (Bachman and Palmer 1996) by analysing language demands in the context in which a given test is used. An adequate analysis of the TLU domain is critical to ensure test validity because both construct underrepresentation and overrepresentation limit interpretability of a test score for the intended purpose. In the case of TOEFL iBT, for instance, language demands in academic programmes in higher education in North America were examined by combining a few different approaches to understanding the TLU domain as part of a larger programme of research for conceptualizing, designing and validating the test. An example among such studies is Rosenfeld et al.’s (2001) large-scale job analysis survey of students and faculty members in undergraduate and graduate programmes across various disciplines conducted at 22 universities in the USA and Canada. The goal of the study was to identify features of key language use tasks in conducting academic work. To this end, each participant in Rosenfeld et al.’s study rated a variety of task statements involving reading, listening, speaking and writing in English listed in the survey (e.g. ‘Make appropriate inferences based on information in a lecture, discussion, or conversation’ for listening, ‘speak clearly and accurately enough to make presentations in class’ for speaking) in terms of the frequency of their occurrence during academic coursework and the degree of their importance for academic success in his/her own programme. Statistical analyses of the survey data identified a set of important language use tasks across different subject areas for faculty and undergraduate and graduate students separately. In another study, Biber et al. (2002) developed and analysed a 2.7 million word corpus of spoken and written academic English by collecting written materials used in and out of class on campus (e.g. textbooks, course packs, university catalogues, brochures) and audio-recordings of naturallyoccurring spoken data in different registers (e.g. service encounters on campus, class sessions, study groups) at four universities in the USA. By conducting factor analyses on the frequency of occurrence of various linguistic features, Biber et al.’s study identified the characteristic use of lexis and grammar associated with different communicative functions across registers. Results of studies to describe the TLU domain, such as those above, have informed assessment task design. In TOEFL iBT, all sections are designed with key features of academic language use tasks in the TLU domain in mind. In the listening section, for instance, the test taker listens to an academic lecture and completes a table to organize important details presented by the instructor. This is similar to what one might do to learn key points of a lecture or discussion in class. The speaking section involves tasks that integrate modalities. In one task, the test taker reads about an academic topic, listens to a lecture

230 Yasuyo Sawaki on the same topic, and orally summarizes how the two relate to each other, just as he/she might do while preparing for and attending an academic lecture. Meanwhile, the IELTS Academic test employs academic tasks only in the reading and writing sections, while the tasks in the listening and speaking sections are shared with the IELTS General Training test.2 Similar to TOEFL iBT, the reading section includes tasks that have the test taker identify the main point of each paragraph in a reading passage. The writing section contains a task where the test taker prepares a written summary of results depicted in graphically represented data. Both types of tasks are expected to be frequently encountered during coursework in academic programmes. Another important feature of the task design relevant to assessing ELF is the degree to which the listening component of a given test adopts NNS accents, as opposed to NS accents, in the input text. This is an important issue of consideration because the decision concerning which accent to adopt in listening assessment is directly related to construct representation as well as test fairness. Currently, both IELTS and TOEFL iBT employ multiple NS accents spoken in the UK, Australia, New Zealand and North America (ETS n.d.; IELTS n.d.a).3 These are attempts to better reflect in the test design characteristics of the English language international students are exposed to while studying overseas. However, neither test adopts NNS speech as part of input materials for assessing listening. While the importance of considering test takers’ exposures to NNS varieties is acknowledged in the assessment literature (e.g. Enright et al. 2008; Taylor 2006), this decision is supported by previous empirical studies that exhibited a significant impact of L1 accent familiarity, particularly familiarity with NNS accents, on test taker performance. For instance, Major et al. (2002) conducted a study on the effects of accent familiarity on learner performance on the TOEFL listening section. They found a significant effect of familiarity with different NNS accents on listening test scores. In this case, the observed patterns were rather unpredictable. These results suggest the possibility that, because examinees of these tests come from different linguistic backgrounds and so differ greatly in their familiarity with different NNS accents, there is a possibility of bias against those who are unfamiliar with a certain NNS accent if it were to be used as part of the listening input materials. More recent studies have indicated, however, that whether the use of an NNS accent adversely affects learner performance may depend on the task design and the characteristics of a speaker’s accent (e.g. Harding 2008, cited in Elder and Harding 2008; Ockey 2014). Such studies may offer insights into how to incorporate NNS accents into English language tests while sufficiently controlling task design features that may cause fairness concerns for high-stakes assessments. Assessment criteria The second important issue of consideration is the assessment criteria that are adopted for assessing test takers’ speaking performance on open-ended

Assessments of English for academic purposes 231 assessment tasks. In performance assessments where human raters evaluate test taker performance based on a set of scoring criteria, two factors in combination provide the de facto definition of the target construct: (i) how the target construct is defined operationally in the scoring criteria and (ii) how those criteria are implemented by raters. The first point of consideration concerns how different levels of performance are operationalized in the rating scales for the IELTS and TOEFL iBT tests. Features of current assessment practice, not only in these two tests but also in language assessment in general, can be summarized in terms of three points. First, contrary to common belief, there has been a movement toward defining the top level in terms of the performance of a competent user instead of that of a nativelike user. A major reason for this change is the difficulty of defining a native speaker as well as performance variations seen even among native speakers (e.g. Bachman and Savignon 1985; Davies 2003). Second, as noted by Taylor (2006), there has been a shift from the ‘deficit’ model, which focuses on penalizing test takers based on what they cannot do, toward the ‘can-do’ model, which focuses instead on what test takers can do, as exemplified by the recent development of the ALTE Can-Do Statement and the Common European Framework of Reference (Council of Europe 2001). Third, the assessment criteria emphasize communicative effectiveness, where accuracy is considered as one of many aspects that explain the quality of language performance. The definitions of the different levels of performance on the speaking rating scales for IELTS and TOEFL iBT mirror the trends noted above. First, both tests take account of multiple aspects of speaking ability in their definitions of the rating scales. IELTS defines four components, fluency and coherence, lexical resource, grammatical range and accuracy, and pronunciation, while each of the TOEFL iBT rating scales for the integrated tasks and independent tasks defines three components: delivery, language use and topic development, along with a general description of a given level of performance.4 It is worth noting that both tests give equal weights across the components defined in the respective tests. Next, the definitions of top level performance focus on what the test taker demonstrates that he/she can do and on the effectiveness of communication. For instance, below is the definition of the grammatical range and accuracy and pronunciation components for the top level of IELTS speaking, band 9: Grammatical range and accuracy • Uses a full range of structures naturally and appropriately • Produces consistently accurate structures apart from ‘slips’ characteristic of native speaker speech Pronunciation • Uses a full range of pronunciation features with precision and subtlety • Sustains flexible use of features throughout • Is effortless to understand (Fluency and Coherence and Lexical Resource descriptors not presented) (IELTS n.d.b)

232 Yasuyo Sawaki While the accuracy of structure and pronunciation is indeed mentioned, the definition emphasizes the top level of performance as speech that is natural and flexible and does not require listener effort. This is similar to the point made by Taylor (2006: 53), who stated that, in the performance descriptors for the KET (Key English Test) level of the Cambridge ESOL examinations, ‘Use of non-standard forms in grammar and pronunciation . . . is only relevant to the assessment if it impedes communication.’ Likewise, the definition of the top level of TOEFL iBT speaking, level 4, focuses on the intelligibility and coherence of test taker speech. In terms of language use, the primary feature considered is the effectiveness of the use of grammar and vocabulary. In particular, the language use descriptor in the independent speaking rubrics below (ETS, 2004) explicitly states that systematic errors may be present in top-level performance, but that they ‘do not obscure meaning.’ Thus, it is fair to say that, in both tests, the primary characteristics of top-level performance are defined as intelligible and effective speech for communication that can be understood without considerable listener effort, where the listener here means the rater, despite the potential presence of nonintrusive linguistic errors. General description The response fulfills the demands of the task, with at most minor lapses in completeness. It is highly intelligible and exhibits sustained, coherent discourse. A response at this level is characterized by all of the following: Language use The response demonstrates effective use of grammar and vocabulary. It exhibits a fairly high degree of automaticity with good control of basic and complex structures (as appropriate). Some minor (or systematic) errors are noticeable but do not obscure meaning. (Delivery and Topic Development descriptors not presented) (ETS 2004) Another critical aspect concerning the assessment criteria is exactly how the rating criteria are implemented by raters in scoring because this directly affects the construct definition as well as the reliability and fairness of the tests. In particular, it is important to take account of the characteristics of raters who actually score test taker responses based on the rating scales. For instance, there is a difference between the two tests in the extent to which NNSs serve as raters. According to Carey et al. (2010), IELTS employs both NS raters as well as NNS raters from the outer-circle in Kachru’s three concentric circle model of world Englishes. (Carey et al.’s study featured Indian raters born in India, 90 per cent of whom were L2 speakers of English.) In contrast, TOEFL iBT employs ‘U.S.-based raters who are primarily native speakers of English’

Assessments of English for academic purposes 233 (Xi and Mollaun 2011: 1251). While the policy adopted by TOEFL may seem restrictive, previous empirical studies of language test performance provide an explanation for this decision. Those studies examined the effects of raters’ linguistic background on rating results, such as similarities and differences among NS raters who speak different inner-circle varieties of English (Chalhoub-Deville and Wigglesworth 2005), among NS and NNS raters with different degrees of exposure to L2 accented English (Carey et al. 2010) and among NS raters with differing experience of studying test takers’ L1 (Winke et al. 2012). These studies collectively showed that the variety of NS English spoken by raters and accent familiarity can affect scoring results, although the effect may be small. Meanwhile, another line of research compared the rating performance of NS and NNS raters in speaking performance assessment. Among recent investigations into this issue are Kim’s (2009) comparison of Korean-speaking NNS raters and Canadian NS raters’ performances on a computer-mediated simulated English speaking test and Zhang and Elder’s (2011) comparison of the performances of NNS raters and NS raters from the US, Canada and New Zealand on the national College English Test-Spoken English Test (CET-SET) in China. Results of both studies showed that there was no statistically significant difference between NNS and NS raters in terms of severity, although there were some qualitative differences in features of test taker performance that they attended to while scoring. Another recent study worth noting is Xi and Mollaun’s (2011) study on the training of highly proficient Indian bilingual raters for scoring TOEFL iBT speaking responses. When Xi and Mollaum compared rating performance between an Indian rater group that went through a regular training package and an Indian rater group that underwent a special training package for Indian raters, the latter exhibited a noticeable improvement in rating consistency, performing more similarly to TOEFL iBT raters. While the results above show that NS and NNS raters can, in fact, perform quite similarly when they evaluate test takers’ speaking responses, the conditions under which these studies were conducted should be noted. The Indian raters in Xi and Mollaun’s (2011) study employed the TOEFL iBT rating scales, which came with explicit and detailed level descriptors, and the raters were ‘expected to evaluate performance on the TOEFL iBT Speaking section against standard English norms by educated speakers (Xi and Mollaun 2011: 1233). Thus, their study suggested that NS–NNS raters could perform similarly when they (i) were expected to perform like NS raters and (ii) used explicit rating scales. However, the study does not tell us whether this would still be the case even if they are allowed to make their rating judgments more freely. In fact, the studies by Kim (2009) and Zhang and Elder (2011) cited above employed rating scales where no explicit definition of performance characteristics at each level was provided so that the raters in their studies could rely on their own rationales for awarding a certain score. As noted above, the lack of statistically significant difference in the severity of speaking judgments between NS and NNS speakers found in these studies suggests that NS and NNS raters’ judgments may,

234 Yasuyo Sawaki in fact, be quite similar to each other, even in the absence of explicit predetermined assessment criteria.

Discussion and conclusion To summarize the discussion above, it can be said that both the IELTS Academic test and the TOEFL iBT test pay due attention to various reliability, validity and fairness issues to ensure that the test design is appropriate for the purpose of assessing, in a large scale, the English ability of test takers who are expected to work in various academic contexts in the future. For instance, the TLU domain is carefully defined to identify features of various language use tasks that are relevant to academic work, while the test tasks are designed to reflect their salient characteristics. The operationalization of the target constructs in the speaking rating scales is based on the performance of an effective (competent) user instead of that of native user. Here, the emphasis is on effective English language use in performing a range of academic language use tasks, although unobtrusive linguistic errors may be present even at the top level. Meanwhile, the approaches taken by the two testing programmes are cautious in terms of the adoption of NNS language use practice primarily in consideration of test bias that needs to be minimized in high-stakes English language assessments. This is seen in the adoption of NS varieties only as the input materials for assessing listening in both testing programmes. Moreover, in speaking assessment, TOEFL iBT takes a relatively stricter approach than IELTS in allowing primarily only NS raters whose standard is considered as the benchmark. In sum, in relation to the current argument of ELF assessment in the present chapter, the ‘softening’ of SE norms, as pointed out by Elder and Davies (2006), seems to be demonstrated in the definitions of the speaking rating scales. At the same time, other aspects of test design, such as sampling input materials for listening in both tests and implementing the speaking rating scales in TOEFL iBT with an NS rater standard, show the presence of SE norms in the test design. Taylor’s (2006) response to Jenkins (2006) provides some important reasons why SE norms are used in these testing programmes in consideration of stakeholder needs. For one reason, Taylor stated that the varieties of English that students want to learn do not necessarily correspond to those they are exposed to. For instance, a student may wish to learn a variety of English that can be understood by a large number of people no matter in what context he/she might end up using English for communication in the future. Thus, from this perspective, focusing on widely recognized varieties of English in a test is deemed to be a reasonable approach. Another reason provided by Taylor is the generalizability of test results required in large-scale testing. Large-scale language tests such as IELTS and TOEFL iBT are used across different countries with differential academic language demands across programmes and institutions. The test taker population also comprises NNSs

Assessments of English for academic purposes 235 with diverse linguistic and educational backgrounds. These factors necessitate a focus on testing features of the English language that are shared across different academic contexts to ensure (i) appropriateness of the test content for assessing aspects of academic language ability that are important in various academic programmes, and (ii) fairness to each individual in the heterogeneous test taker population. While the nature of large-scale English language tests such as IELTS and TOEFL iBT described above limits the degree to which they can accommodate the fluidity and flexibility of ELF in the assessment design, further research into how best to assess ELF in high-stakes academic English assessment contexts must continue. First, the appropriateness of the description of the TLU domain can be revisited by analysing the extent to which it reflects the language use of NS and NNS members in various academic contexts. For instance, the studies by Rosenfeld et al. (2001) and Biber et al. (2002), cited above as those that informed the definition of the TLU domain in the development of the TOEFL iBT test, did not report details about the language backgrounds of the study participants. This limits the utility of the study results for understanding characteristics of ELF communication that might actually be reflected in the study data. While the student survey respondents in Rosenfeld et al.’s study were international students, no information about the faculty member participants’ language backgrounds, including their NS/NNS status, was reported. Moreover, because Biber et al. collected naturally-occurring academic texts that students are exposed to in academic programmes, it is possible that at least some of the faculty members who developed the written materials, as well as some of the students and faculty members involved in the recordings, were NNSs. Furthermore, it might be worth comparing various linguistic features of academic language corpora collected for designing language tests, such as Biber et al.’s (2002), as well as learner corpora based on test taker assessment responses (e.g. the Cambridge Learner Corpus cited by Taylor 2006), against those observed in ELF corpora developed in non-assessment contexts (e.g. Jenkins 2000; Mauranen 2003; Seidlhofer 2001). Such an analysis would allow one to examine the extent to which the speech elicited in the two testing programmes corresponds to important features of ELF communication in non-assessment contexts. This would coincide with the suggestion by Jenkins (2006) to base assessment criteria on empirical ELF data. Second, in revising an existing test or developing a new one, it is worth exploring the possibility of incorporating task types that are prevalent in ELF communication. One example is paired or group oral assessment for NNS–NNS communication. As noted by Elder and Davies (2006), Elder and Harding (2008) and Taylor (2006), group oral tasks have already been employed in some English tests other than the two testing programmes reviewed in this study. If future research confirms those task types to be critical in ELF communication in academic settings, incorporating them would enhance construct representation in a given test.

236 Yasuyo Sawaki Finally, in terms of assessment criteria, it would be worth examining the degree to which the speaking rating scales, where a certain degree of relaxing of NS norms is observed, actually reflect a range of communication strategies employed by ELF speakers. That is, as the descriptive work for ELF proceeds, the type of strategies for communication that could be rewarded in large-scale tests such as IELTS and TOEFL iBT and those that could not need to be explicated. For instance, how to score code-switching (e.g. Canagarajah 2009) in a conversation during a speaking assessment may depend on how it is actually used by a test taker. On the one hand, if a test taker strategically introduces an expression in his/her L1, followed by an explanation of its meaning in English, it might be rewarded as an effective communication strategy. On the other hand, the use of such an expression without a sufficient explanation in English would be penalized as its use is likely to lead to a communication breakdown unless all individuals involved in the assessment of a given speech event, namely, the test taker(s), the interviewer, and the rater, share the test taker’s L1. There may be other communication strategies that are currently not reflected in the rating criteria but could potentially be considered with further research. Another area that deserves a close examination is the comparability of scores assigned by certified raters and those assigned by individuals involved in ELF communication in academic contexts (e.g. students enrolled in content courses and their professors, including both NSs and NNSs). Such studies would clarify how similar or different scores provided by certified raters in the testing programmes are as compared to the judgments made by individuals who routinely interact with NNSs in specific contexts of academic ELF use. As noted by Elder and Davies (2006), previous rater background studies in ESP based on indigenous assessment criteria (Douglas 2000) adopted by participants in different communicative contexts (e.g. studies comparing rating results provided by language experts and those in a certain profession) would inform the research design. Wherever we may start the investigation of the degree to which large-scale language tests such as IELTS and TOEFL iBT can adequately satisfy the needs of assessing ELF in academic contexts, a challenge is the variability of ELF. As suggested by previous researchers, ELF is systematic but fluid at the same time (Jenkins et al. 2011). This is because ‘ad hoc negotiation of relevant norms’ (Seidlhofer et al. 2006: 13) is prevalent in spontaneous ELF communication. It may be the case that in large-scale testing programmes, where fairness and generalizability are important, a reasonable approach might be to focus on salient features of ELF that are shared across a variety of academic ELF communities, if enough of such features are identified in future research. Alternatively, provided that such an approach turns out to be inadequate as a method to assess ELF, a viable approach may indeed be like Brown (2014) and Elder and Davies’ (2006) second approach described above, to develop ELF assessments for local use for the assessment of test takers in a specific ELF community. Either way, further communication and closer collaboration

Assessments of English for academic purposes 237 among ELF and language assessment professionals would help us figure out a reasonable avenue forward.

Notes 1

2 3

4

This paper follows the definition of English as a lingua franca (ELF) by Jenkins (2007: 1): ‘A contact language used among people who do not share a first language.’ Following Jenkins (2007: 2–3), (i) no distinction is made here between ELF and a frequently used similar term, English as an international language (EIL) (p. xi); and (ii) it is assumed that ELF communication can involve not only nonnative speakers (NNSs) but also native speakers (NSs) of English. The IELTS General Training test is intended for use for general purposes. The TOEFL iBT used to employ texts reflecting features of North American English only. However, accents spoken in the UK, Australia and New Zealand were introduced to the TOEFL iBT listening and speaking sections as of March 2013 (ETS n.d.). The TOEFL iBT speaking section employs two rating scales: one for the independent speaking tasks and the other for the integrated speaking tasks. Both rating scales are defined in terms of these three aspects of speaking performance, where each aspect is described for the independent and integrated tasks separately (ETS 2004).

References Bachman, L. F. and A. S. Palmer 1996. Language Testing in Practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bachman, L. F. and S. J. Savignon 1985. The evaluation of communicative language proficiency: A critique of the ACTFL Oral Interview. The Modern Language Journal 70, 380–397. Biber, D., S. Conrad, R. Reppen, P. Byrd and M. Helt 2002. Speaking and writing in the university: A multidimensional comparison. TESOL Quarterly 36(1), 9–48. Brown, J. D. 2014. The future of world Englishes in language testing. Language Assessment Quarterly 11, 5–26. Canagarajah, S. 2009. Changing communicative needs, revised assessment objectives: Testing English as an international language. Language Assessment Quarterly 16, 229–242. Carey, M. D., R. H. Mannell and P. K. Dunn 2010. Does a rater’s familiarity with a candidate’s pronunciation affect the rating in oral proficiency interviews? Language Testing 28(2), 201–219. Chalhoub-Deville, M. and G. Wigglesworth 2005. Rater judgment and English language speaking proficiency. World Englishes 24(3), 383–391. Council of Europe 2001. Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Davidson, F. 2009. World Englishes and test construction. In B. B. Kachru, Kachru, Y. and Nelson, C. L. (eds), The Handbook of World Englishes. New York: Wiley. Davies, A. 2003. The Native Speaker: Myth and Reality. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Douglas, D. 2000. Assessing Languages for Specific Purposes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Elder, C. and A. Davies 2006. Assessing English as a lingua franca. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 26, 282–301.

238 Yasuyo Sawaki Elder, C. and L. Harding 2008. Language testing and English as an international language: Constraints and contributions. Australian Review of Applied Linguistics 31(2), 34.1–34.11. Enright, M. K., B. Bridgeman, D. Eignor, R. N. Kantor, P. Mollaun, S. Nissan, D. E. Powers and M. Schedl 2008. Prototyping new assessment tasks. In C. A. Chapelle, M. K. Enright and J. M. Jamieson (eds), Building a Validity Argument for the Test of English as a Foreign Language(tm). New York: Routledge, pp. xx–xx. ETS 2004. iBT/Next Generation TOEFL test: Independent speaking rubrics (scoring standards). Retrieved 18 July 2014, from: www.ets.org/Media/Tests/TOEFL/ pdf/Speaking_Rubrics.pdf ETS (n.d.) TOEFL iBT test content. Retrieved 18 July 2014, from: http:// www.ets. org/toefl/ibt/about/content/ IELTS (n.d.a) Question types – Listening. Retrieved 18 July 2014, from: www.ielts.org/ test_takers_information/question_types/question_types_-_listening.aspx IELTS (n.d.b) Speaking: Band descriptors (public version). Retrieved 18 July 2014, from: www.ielts.org/pdf/Speaking%20Band%20descriptors.pdf Jenkins, J. 2000. The Phonology of English as an International Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jenkins, J. 2006. The spread of EIL: A testing time for testers. ELT Journal 60(1), 42–50. Jenkins, J. 2007. English as a Lingua Franca: Attitude and Identity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jenkins, J., A. Cogo and M. Dewey 2011. Review of developments in research into English as a lingua franca. Language Teaching 44(3), 281–315. Jenkins, J. and C. Leung 2013. English as a lingua franca. The Companion to Language Assessment IV:13:95, 1605–1616. Kim, Y.-H. 2009. An investigation into native and non-native teachers’ judgments of oral English performance: A mixed methods approach. Language Testing 26(2), 187–217. McNamara, T. 2014. 30 years on – evolution or revolution? Language Assessment Quarterly 11(2), 226–232. Major, R. C., S. F. Fitzmaurice, F. Bunta and C. Balasubramanian 2002. The effects of nonnative accents on listening comprehension. Implications for ESL assessment. TESOL Quarterly 36(2), 173–190. Mauranen, A. 2003. The corpus of English as a lingua franca in academic settings. TESOL Quarterly 37(3), 513–527. Ockey, G. 2014, June. Critical Issues in Assessing L2 Listening Ability: Construct and Consequential Validity. Symposium presented at the 36th Language Testing Research Colloquium, Amsterdam. Rosenfeld, M., S. Leung and P. K. Oltman 2001. The Reading, Writing, Speaking, and Listening Tasks Important for Academic Success at the Undergraduate and Graduate Levels (TOEFL Monograph Series No. 21). Princeton, NJ: ETS. Seidlhofer, B. 2001. Closing a conceptual gap: the case for a description of English as a lingua franca. International Journal of Applied Linguistics 11, 133–158. Available at: www.univie.ac.at/voice/documents/seidlhofer_2001b.pdf Seidlhofer, B., A. Breiteneder and M.-L. Pitzl 2006. English as a lingua franca in Europe: challenges for applied linguists. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 26, 3–34. Taylor, L. 2006. The changing landscape of English: implications for language assessment. ELT Journal 60(1), 51–60.

Assessments of English for academic purposes 239 Winke, P., S. Gass and C. Myford 2012. Rater’s L2 background as a potential source of bias in rating oral performance. Language Testing 30, 99–123. Xi, X. and P. Mollaun 2011. Using raters from India to score a large-scale speaking test. Language Learning 61(4), 1222–1255. Zhang, Y. and C. Elder 2011. Judgments of oral proficiency by non-native and native English speaking teacher raters: Competing or complementary constructs? Language Testing 28(1), 31–50.

15 Using pragmatic strategies for effective ELF communication Relevance to classroom practice Jagdish Kaur

Introduction The past decade has witnessed an exponential rise in research into the use of English as a lingua franca (henceforth ELF) in global encounters. There are now several ELF corpora (VOICE, ELFA and ACE), an ELF-dedicated journal, an ELF-dedicated conference which is into its seventh year in 2014 and numerous published works as well as PhD dissertations on the subject. Early research by Jenkins (2000) on ELF phonology and Seidlhofer (2004) on ELF lexicogrammar have been followed by studies on a range of areas connected to the use of English in lingua franca settings (see Jenkins et al. 2011 for an overview). As empirical research on the use of ELF continues to flourish, a clearer picture of ELF is emerging as findings reveal how English is strategically used by its ever-increasing numbers of non-native speakers to perform a wide range of functions in a growing number of domains. Although some of the early work on the phenomenon tended to be more features oriented, there is now expressed focus on the processes and practices associated with the use of ELF. Scholars researching ELF do not set out to identify common linguistic features in order to evidence an ‘emerging variety’ of English used for international communication, rather their interest lies in identifying the pragmatic strategies and practices used by its speakers in communication (Cogo 2012) as well as the processes that underlie the linguistic forms used and the functions these forms perform (Seidlhofer 2011). Findings from research on the nature of ELF point to variability as a defining feature, which has implications for English language pedagogy.

The nature of ELF Two terms invariably used when describing the phenomenon of ELF are ‘diversity’ and ‘variability’. Mauranen explains the ELF context as ‘a hybrid of many backgrounds’ (2007: 244) involving participants of diverse nationalities, ethnicities, cultures and linguistic as well as social backgrounds, communicating in a variety of Englishes at different levels of competence. As a result of the

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diversity and unpredictability associated with the ELF context of use, English when used as a lingua franca is neither fixed nor stable; it is instead highly variable and fluid, causing any effort to give form to ELF to remain elusive. ELF is after all functionally defined as it concerns how speakers use the English they have learnt in a range of different circumstances to construct and interpret meaning in interaction and in doing so, achieve their communicative goals. While there is no defining form of ELF, what stands out in ELF communication is the supportive, cooperative and consensual nature of the interactions (Seidlhofer 2001) and the speakers’ use of various pragmatic strategies in this regard. Although ‘the sheer range of variability in the use of English is phenomenal’ (Maley 2009: 191) in ELF settings, communication in ELF is far from fraught with problems of understanding or communication trouble that one might expect to find in such circumstances. Perhaps it is because speakers are aware of and sensitive to the variability and fluidity inherent in the use of ELF that interactions are characterized by the acceptance of variation and the joint pursuit of understanding which allow speakers to successfully communicate in a language that is non-native to most. Research on ELF pragmatics particularly reveals that participants use common interactional practices like repetition, paraphrase, comprehension checks, explanations and clarifications as well as collaborative completion of utterances in their interactions as they negotiate meaning and co-construct understanding in English (Kaur 2010; Mauranen 2006; Matsumoto 2011; Pitzl 2005; Watterson 2008). The use of the aforementioned to a large extent accounts for the low incidence of overt misunderstanding noted in ELF communication as they allow speakers to address potential problems of understanding before they can become real problems. Findings also point to the use of accommodation strategies like repetition and code-switching by speakers keen to increase the intelligibility of what they say (Cogo 2009). Others like Mauranen (2007) note participants’ use of various explicitness strategies like rephrasing, topic negotiation and discourse reflexivity to increase communicative clarity. Following Mauranen, Kaur (2011) observes how various self-repair strategies that involve lexical replacement and lexical insertion also contribute to enhancing the clarity and comprehensibility of what is said. While the use of pragmatic strategies is not confined to ELF contexts only, it is conceivable that they are used with greater frequency to perform a wider range of functions in ELF communication than in native speaker conversations as a result of the diversity and variability associated with ELF. Many of the aforementioned practices and strategies reflect the adaptive use of English as participants accommodate to the ELF context of use and to their interlocutors who may speak any one of the numerous varieties of English at a level of proficiency ranging from novice to expert user. While non-native varieties of English manifest the influence of the local language(s) and culture(s) where English has been learnt, when used for international communication, speakers can be seen to make adjustments and adaptations to their English to suit the new context of use, thus seeking commonalities as they downplay the

242 Jagdish Kaur differences. Seidlhofer explains the process as follows: ‘the participants gauge a level of language at which they can operate, and settle on ad hoc, pro tem norms that are adequate to the task and commensurate to the command of the linguistic resources they have in common’ (2011: 18). As the constellation of participants and the context of use change, the process repeats itself taking into account a new set of variables.

Implications of ELF research for ELT As findings of empirical research continue to shed light on the nature of ELF communication and the many practices and procedures associated with it, there is now growing interest in how these findings can inform second or foreign language pedagogy. Researchers like Jenkins (2012) and Seidlhofer (2011) strongly stress the need to re-assess current practices in English Language Teaching (henceforth ELT) particularly with regard to the classroom models referred to for teaching purposes. Jenkins questions why students ‘are still being encouraged to aim for the kind of English that British or North American English speakers use among themselves’ (2012: 487) when in all likelihood they will use the English learnt for international communication with other non-native speakers like themselves rather than with its native speakers. In a similar vein, Seidlhofer suggests that when determining learning objectives, reference should be made to ‘what people actually do with the language they have learnt, how they actually communicate in English as an additional language’ (2011: 187) rather than setting native speaker competence as the target. The issue of how ELF findings can inform second language pedagogy is not without controversy, however. There are criticisms aplenty against what has been perceived as an attempt to put forward an ELF model, based on actual non-native speaker use of English, to replace current native speaker models in the classroom (see e.g. Kuo 2006; Maley 2009; Sowden 2012). Allegations that the ELF movement is ‘encouraging the use of ELF’ (Sowden 2012: 91) imply that ELF has a definite and distinct form whose use can be promoted and taught, which in fact it has not. The variability and fluidity that mark the use of English in lingua franca settings make it challenging, if not impossible, for ELF to be codified and prescribed as a model for teaching. While early conceptualizations of ELF, which were in essence work-in-progress, made cautious reference to an ‘emerging’ variety of English, these have become the basis for continued criticisms against ELF in spite of attempts to clarify the ELF position. Cogo is explicit when she states that ‘the aim of research in this field is to describe and make sense of the processes in operation in lingua franca talk and the strategies used by its speakers, not to uncover “core” features’ (2012: 99) with the aim of giving form to ELF. While debates on a viable classroom model of English relevant for future ELF communication continue, there is growing consensus on the need to raise learners’ awareness of the global spread of English (Jenkins 2012) and the variability of the language across contexts and communities (Cogo 2012;

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Sewell 2013). Further, given the absence of a defining form of English when used as a lingua franca, an ‘ELF-oriented approach’ needs to concern itself with the use of English rather than the form that it takes. Findings from ELF research have much to offer in terms of identifying the practices and skills that support and promote effective communication in ELF. Learners need to be equipped with the knowledge and ability to deal with the variability and instability inherent in English when used as a lingua franca in order to enable them to achieve communicative effectiveness. Maley, although harsh in his criticism of ELF work, acknowledges this when he says that ‘we should be inducting students into an awareness of diversity and of strategies for dealing with it’ (2009: 197).

Pragmatic strategies in use As ELF is in essence about language use, it is only fitting that an ‘ELF-oriented pedagogy’ is geared towards promoting and enhancing the effective use of English in lingua franca communication. As previously mentioned, speakers using ELF employ various strategies and practices, including those designed to clarify and raise the explicitness of talk and to pre-empt as well as repair problems in understanding, in order to facilitate communication in the lingua franca. It is essential that teachers incorporate learning activities that enhance learners’ use of such strategies to maximise the effectiveness of their communication in ELF. Specifically, materials need to be designed that provide learners with opportunities to: • •

engage in the mutual pursuit of understanding, particularly in the context of potential and/or real instances of breakdown in communication; enhance the explicitness and clarity of their speech, particularly in contexts where ambiguity in language use can adversely impact the comprehensibility of what they say.

In designing materials that provide practice of the aforementioned, teachers are encouraged to consider how such strategies are in fact used in real life by participants interacting in ELF settings. Below, I refer to examples from my own work (Kaur 2009, 2010, 2011) to illustrate how some of these strategies are used by participants to negotiate meaning and co-construct understanding in interaction. The extracts examined come from a corpus of 15 hours of recordings of spoken interaction involving 22 participants of 13 different linguacultural backgrounds (see Appendix A). The participants, who are mainly postgraduate students pursuing an International Master Degree at a university in Kuala Lumpur, made audio recordings of their outside-the-classroom discussions of group assignments and projects, consultations with course instructors and conversations on more general matters, over a period of ten weeks. The recordings were transcribed following the notation system developed for Conversation Analysis (see Appendix B).

244 Jagdish Kaur Pursuing mutual understanding The practice of repeating oneself is commonly employed to provide the recipient with another hearing of a segment of talk that may have proved problematic. A speaker may employ repetition as a means to address a displayed misunderstanding or a non-understanding that is signalled by a request for a rehearing of prior talk. Even in cases where the recipient may not have asked for a recapitulation of what was said, the speaker needs to be sensitive to other suggestions of a problem such as an inappropriate response or prolonged silence, as in Extracts 1 and 2, respectively. Extract 1 01 02 03 04 05

D: how was your proposal . . . (0.8) for Halimah class? S: huhhuh (1.4) D: how was your proposal for Halimah class? S: which er: which proposal?

D’s inquiry about a research proposal they had been assigned to write (line 1) fails to elicit an appropriate response. Following S’s response in the form of a minimal laugh token in line 2 and a further silence of 1.4 s, D repeats himself which then leads to a request for clarification. If a repetition fails to elicit a response, the speaker may then resort to a paraphrase that not only provides redundancy but also clarifies meaning through a reformulation of the message, as in Extract 2 below. Extract 2 01 V: so can someone . . . (0.6) hold that dual citizenship in: Burma? 02 . . . (1.0) dual? . . . (1.4) double citizenship? can someone hold 03 it in Burma? V orientates to the silence on the part of his interlocutor as an indicator of possible non-understanding. After failing to elicit a response in the first instance, V repeats the word ‘dual’ which he then reformulates as ‘double’ when the recipient fails to respond after a pause of 1.4 s. The paraphrase does eventually lead to a response in the next turn. A repetition of a particular detail is also an effective means to enhance recipient understanding when the speaker is unsure if shared understanding has been achieved. In Extract 3 below, K’s response in the form of a muted minimal response (line 2) is not a particularly strong indicator that he has understood the meaning of D’s prior utterance (see Schegloff 1982). This causes D, in lines 3 and 4, to not only repeat the point he is trying to make but to also elaborate on it and to provide a reformulation of it.

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Extract 3 01 D: why not just your: focus at the: last ten: years 02 K: ºuhhuhº 03 D: the last ten years like er: from nineteen: ninety five to nine04 to: two thousand: . . . (0.6) five. . . . (0.8) so you have to focus 05 for: ten years. An alternative to repeating is to paraphrase a segment of the prior utterance following a muted minimal response, as in Extract 4 below. Extract 4 01 M: =so before I- I: get my degree I join because at that time you 02 know er eighty eight crisis in Burma 03 S: ºuhhuhº 04 M: er you know democra: democratic crisis in Burma sos ers there’s 05 er university close about three years M paraphrases the ‘eighty eight crisis’ in Burma as the ‘democratic crisis’ in what appears to be a move to clarify meaning in the event that the first formulation was not understood. M thus orientates to S’s muted minimal response as insufficient evidence of shared understanding having been achieved. Participants in interaction may also repeat or paraphrase prior overlapping talk to provide the recipient with a second hearing of what was said in overlap, as illustrated below. Extract 5 01 M: yeah huhh.hhh so they: you know er their salary is not- not more 02 than fifteen US dollar per mo:nth but outside money is about 03 S: huhhuh [under the table 04 M: [eight hundred US dollar- eight hundred US dollar05 dollar: per month are for the lower= In Extract 5 above, M repeats the segment ‘eight hundred US dollar’, which originally overlapped with something S was saying. The repeat provides S the opportunity to re-hear a detail that he may have missed due to the noise created by the overlapping talk (see Schegloff 1987). That participants orientate to overlapping talk as potentially problematic is further evidenced in the next extract where similar circumstances elicit a paraphrase of a segment of talk uttered in overlap.

246 Jagdish Kaur Extract 6 01 02 03 04 05 06 07

A: have you worked before in between? . . . (0.7) [as a- [except the lecturer’s job? D: [er: [no yes no [no I’m jus::t] A: [so you carried on] teaching? you were teaching? D: yes.

A’s move to paraphrase the segment of talk from line 5 which was uttered in overlap can be seen as an attempt to pre-empt a problem of understanding that could arise as a result of the overlap. Both Extracts 5 and 6 illustrate the speaker’s awareness that overlapping talk can threaten the achievement of shared understanding due to the noise produced, which may reduce the clarity of the talk. As the extracts above illustrate, repetition, which provides redundant material, and paraphrase, which adds clarificatory information, are used by participants in ELF communication to increase the comprehensibility and accessibility of prior talk when there are signs to suggest that mutual understanding may be under threat. In the context of ELT, teachers are encouraged to consider how examples of real use of ELF can translate into teaching materials and learning activities that promote close monitoring of talk and sensitivity to suggestions of problematic understanding. Difficulty in understanding, as illustrated above, may manifest itself in the form of prolonged silence, an inappropriate response, lack of uptake, a muted minimal response and overlapping talk that can be addressed through the use of common practices like repetition and paraphrase of potentially problematic segments of talk. Enhancing communicative clarity In addition to employing various interactional strategies to address potential or real problems in understanding, participants communicating in ELF have also been observed to take various self-repair measures to raise the explicitness of what they say (Kaur 2011). Again, this points to awareness on the part of the participants of the need to be clear and precise when communicating in a context marked by diversity and variability. In addition, participants also repeat themselves in specific ways that reflects an attempt to be clear and comprehensible to their interlocutors. The first four extracts below illustrate several different self-repair moves employed by the speaker that seem designed to provide for greater communicative clarity. In essence, the self-repair practices comprise either a lexical replacement or a lexical insertion, both of which display a move from a general meaning to a more specific one. In Extract 7, the speaker, S, replaces the term ‘people’ with ‘students’ when discussing the issue of plagiarism in academia with his interlocutor.

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Extract 7 S:

er do you-have you- have you found some . . . (0.5) truth that how people- how students think about plagiarism?

The term ‘students’ is much more precise and exact in meaning when used in the context of academia than the more general term ‘people’. The self-repair thus reflects a move that appears motivated by a desire to minimize ambiguity and to increase explicitness. In Extract 8 below, the lexical replacement entails substituting the use of a pronoun with its referent which again sees a move towards explicitness. Extract 8 V: yeah and Japan too these three countries are very good in e-commerce and they’re making a lot of money from it . . . (1.4) a lot of money from e-trade Although the pronoun ‘it’ clearly refers back to its referent ‘e-commerce’, used within the same utterance, the lack of comment from V’s interlocutor during the 1.4 s pause may be the reason for V’s move to partially repeat the preceding segment of talk and to replace the pronoun ‘it’ with its referent ‘e-trade’, i.e. a reformulation of ‘e-commerce’. V, who in all likelihood is aware that pronoun usage can contribute to problems in understanding, seeks to improve on the clarity of meaning by increasing the explicitness of his utterance. Participants in ELF communication have also been found to employ lexical insertion as a form of self-repair to enhance communicative clarity. Extract 9 below illustrates a case in point. Extract 9 D: I think that after . . . (0.5) you see er the the five member states- the five original member state is indonesia, thailand, phillipine, malaysia is the biggest country D, on the subject of the regional organization ASEAN, inserts the word ‘original’ in a partial repeat to make it clear that he is not just referring to any five of its 10 member countries but to the five founding members. The insertion of this qualifying lexical item seems designed to disambiguate meaning and prevent misunderstanding. In other cases, participants perform self-repair when they insert the subject or object noun (or pronoun) of a sentence that had been left out in the preceding segment of talk, as in the extract below. Extract 10 V: er: you know what- can you: can you send to me? send to- send that article to me, send to Ray, let’s study that article.

248 Jagdish Kaur V, in the extract above, cuts off his ongoing utterance to insert the object noun phrase ‘that article’ which had been omitted in the preceding question. Although the talk preceding the extract provides sufficient context from which the recipient is able to determine the object to be sent to V, V’s move to insert the missing object noun phrase suggests a desire to increase the clarity of his utterance and avert a problem in understanding. Both the lexical replacements and insertions presented above display effort on the part of the speaker to be specific and explicit. The original lexical item used in Extracts 7 and 8, and the omission of the qualifying lexical item in Extract 9 and the object noun in Extract 10 reflect ambiguity in language use which can result in vagueness in the meaning conveyed. By substituting with more specific terms and making reference explicit, the speaker is seen to be emphasizing communicative clarity which can contribute to increasing the comprehensibility of the utterance. In addition to the above forms of self-repair, the participants in the study also employ specific forms of self-repetition that display an attempt to clarify meaning and improve on the recipient’s understanding of the speaker’s utterance. The next four extracts illustrate the speaker’s use of parallel phrasing, key word repetition, combined repetition and repaired repetition that can be seen to be foregrounding certain segments of talk oriented to as important in making meaning (Kaur 2012). Parallel phrasing, which ‘occurs more or less naturally in listings’ (Norrick 1987: 254) is not only employed for rhetorical effect (Johnstone et al. 1994) or emphasis (Tannen 1987) but as the extract below illustrates, this form of repetition with slight variation can also function to increase the explicitness of talk and enhance communicative clarity in ELF communication. Extract 11 L: you should come up first if- if you have some idea benefit okay can benefit A what’s the benefit A oh like that, B like that, C like that at least we we can have clear V: [yeah L: [not not a mix together ºyou know okayº. In the extract above, L and V are attempting to explain to R how he should write his section of their joint essay. L, who tries to drive home the point that each benefit or advantage of the phenomenon in question needs to be discussed separately, one after the other, employs parallel phrases in the form of ‘x like that’. As R had not written his part in the manner expected, L’s use of parallel phrases seems specifically designed to make meaning clear and enhance R’s understanding of what is required. Speakers also repeat words and phrases that are considered key to understanding their message. By repeating the key word(s), the speaker facilitates recipient understanding by narrowing down the range of items to only that which is considered crucial, as in the extract below.

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Extract 12 D: yes. I think we do not necessary to write a:: questionnaire but we have to: make a: step step A: oh step D: step Just prior to the extract above, A and a fellow course-mate, R, had touched on the matter of designing a questionnaire for an assignment that had been set for a particular course. D, however, informs them that they only need to explain the research design and outline the ‘step’ or procedure to be followed. Repeating the key word ‘step’ allows D to draw and focus A’s attention on that which D orientates to as significant in understanding his message. A more powerful means of improving on the clarity of expression involves combined repetition, i.e. combining key word repetition with a reformulation of the item(s) in question, as illustrated below. Extract 13 L: =we want [the hard copy one ah hard copy, a print out maybe show to us V: [ºohº In the talk preceding the extract above, there had been some confusion displayed with regard to whether L expected his course-mates V and R to bring notes of ideas for their joint essay or copies of relevant articles to their next meeting. In the extract above, L attempts to increase communicative clarity by not only repeating the item ‘hard-copy’ but also following it with a synonym, i.e. ‘print-out’. While the repetition foregrounds the key piece of information, the synonym provides the recipient with an alternative formulation of the item in the event that the original formulation was not understood. The participants in the study also repeat themselves to improve on communicative clarity immediately following a repair move. Repair segments not infrequently display various forms of speech perturbation that can adversely impact the comprehensibility of the segment in question. Repetition of the repair segment thus affords the recipient another hearing of the talk, minus the perturbations, as shown below. Extract 14 D: why you: not come ºtomorrowº ah yester[day S: [yesterday D: why you not come yesterday? A possible slip of the tongue prompts D to perform immediate repair by replacing the item ‘tomorrow’ with ‘yesterday’. It is likely that the disruption

250 Jagdish Kaur to the original utterance resulting from the repair causes D to repeat himself. The repetition thus addresses any impairment to the clarity of the utterance that could have resulted from the repair move.

Discussion and conclusion The overview presented above illustrates some of the strategies that participants communicating in an ELF setting employ to pursue mutual understanding in potentially problematic sequences of talk and to improve on the clarity and comprehensibility of their speech. Faced with variability and instability in the Englishes used, the participants’ use of the aforementioned strategies contributes to and supports effective ELF communication. Common practices such as repetition and paraphrase of prior talk afford the speaker the means to facilitate recipient understanding when there are signals to suggest that shared understanding may not have been achieved such as when a question or comment is met with silence, lack of uptake or a muted minimal response. Deterding (2013), in his study on misunderstandings in ELF, found a large number of misunderstandings and non-understandings to be masked by the participants’ use of silence and minimal responses. Based on feedback obtained from the participants in his study, Deterding identified 147 misunderstandings in six and a half hours of ELF conversations of which 59 were signalled by silence and 46 by the use of a minimal response. Thus, while previous findings point to a low incidence of displayed misunderstanding in ELF communication (see e.g. House 1999; Kaur 2011; Mauranen 2006), Deterding observed that ‘the listener does not overtly signal the misunderstanding, adopting the “let it pass” strategy’ (2013: 139) instead when faced with a problem in understanding. Deterding’s findings underscore the need to not only develop in learners the ability to monitor ongoing talk for signs of difficulty in understanding but to also promote the use of strategies such as repetition and paraphrase when there is uncertainty, no matter how slight, as to whether shared understanding has been achieved. Strategies that allow speakers to increase the explicitness and clarity of what they say, either through self-repair or self-repetition, also contribute to more effective communication in ELF as these practices facilitate the process of arriving at shared understanding. Further, by striving for explicitness and clarity from the outset, participants in ELF communication seek to pre-empt problems of understanding that can result from the variability and instability present in the Englishes used. Thus, in addition to relying on particular strategies to address problems when they surface, the participants also anticipate difficulties and work at being proactive. The ability to use language that is explicit and clear, even to the extent of self-interrupting to address any vagueness in the language used in an ongoing manner, provides for greater communicative effectiveness particularly in ELF communication where dysfluencies and nonstandard usage can obscure meaning.

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While discussions of the implications of ELF research for ELT to-date have tended to focus on the importance of creating in learners awareness of language change and variation (e.g. Cogo 2012; Sewell 2013), this in itself is insufficient in developing effective communicators who are able to deal with the variability present in ELF. Such awareness-raising must in fact be complemented by learning activities that develop and reinforce learners’ ability to: • • •

•

select lexical items that are precise and exact in conveying meaning in a given context; modify and adjust speech through, for example, lexical replacements and insertions to increase the clarity of what they say; closely monitor the unfolding talk for signs of difficulty in understanding that can take the form of lengthy pauses, inappropriate responses, lack of uptake, muted minimal responses, etc. and repeat, paraphrase and ask direct questions in contexts where mutual understanding is under threat.

Practices such as repetition and paraphrase, which create redundancy and may be regarded as superfluous in native speaker conversations, provide participants in ELF interaction with effective means of negotiating meaning and achieving shared understanding. Similarly, self-repair practices like lexical replacement and insertion, which may be considered disruptive to the smooth flow of conversation, afford the speaker the means to work at producing talk that is comprehensible and accessible. What appears obvious from the extracts examined above is that in ELF communication, different norms of language use apply. Practices perhaps considered undesirable in native speaker communication are the very same ones that contribute to greater clarity and communicative effectiveness in ELF talk. Awareness and an understanding of how participants in ELF communication use various pragmatic strategies to communicate more effectively is a prerequisite for teachers to make informed choices about their classroom practices. While ELT practitioners are in a better position to decide on the kinds of methods, materials and learning activities that are likely to work in their classrooms, taking into account the local context and the various constraints faced, providing learners with opportunities to engage in meaningful interaction is encouraged (see also Matsumoto 2011; Murray 2012). Learners, for instance, could benefit from information gap activities that are based on ELF-type situations which require them to be explicit in their use of language to accomplish the tasks set. Such activities, if realistic and meaningful, can motivate learners to actively participate in the interaction, employing various pragmatic strategies to achieve shared understanding in order to complete the tasks. Similarly, collaborative problem-solving tasks and role plays, again based on ELF-type situations which are both meaningful and realistic, can provide learners with opportunities to use the kinds of strategies illustrated above. Recordings of ELF interactions which display participants successfully using

252 Jagdish Kaur pragmatic strategies to negotiate meaning and co-construct understanding can serve as models for learners to base their own interactions on. While the kinds of activities suggested above are not new to ELT, the focus in this case is on the learner’s ability to communicate effectively, not always or necessarily using language that is correct by native-speaker standards. Regardless of the model of English referred to for teaching purposes, variability will continue to be a defining feature of ELF. In fact it is conceivable that any move to replace current standard models with models based on nonnative speaker use of English may result in even greater variability in the Englishes used for lingua franca communication. In this regard, sufficient attention needs to be given to developing learners’ strategic competence, namely the ability to use strategies adeptly and skilfully for effective communication in ELF.

Appendix A Table 15.1 Participants according to ethnicity, mother tongue and role

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15

Ethnicity

Mother tongue

Role

No.

Burmese Cambodian Filipino-Chinese Indonesian Italian Korean Laotian Malaysian-Malay Malaysian-Chinese Malaysian-Indian Nigerian Spanish Sri Lankan Thai Vietnamese

Burmese Cambodian Chinese Indonesian German Korean Lao Malay Chinese Tamil Igbo Spanish Sinhala Thai Vietnamese

Student Student Lecturer Student Research Student Student Student 2 Students, 1 Lecturer 3 Students, 1 Research Student Research Fellow Student Lecturer Student Student Student

1 2 1 1 1 2 1 3 4 1 1 1 1 1 1

Appendix B The transcription notations used in the chapter are as follows: [ ]

= . . . (0.5)

a left square bracket marks the onset of overlap a right square bracket marks the end of overlapping talk; this feature, however, is only indicated when it can be accurately discerned an equal sign marks latching a hyphen marks a cut off a numeral placed within parentheses following three dots marks a pause of 0.5 s and above

Pragmatic strategies for ELF communication : ? . , ºsoftº (one) ()

253

a colon marks a stretched sound a question mark marks rising intonation a full stop marks falling intonation a comma marks continuing intonation degree signs mark speech that is relatively softer than the surrounding talk words within parentheses mark the transcriber’s uncertainty of the actual words produced empty parentheses represent segments of talk that could not be transcribed

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254 Jagdish Kaur Mauranen, A. 2007. Hybrid voices: English as the lingua franca of academics. In K. Flottum (ed.), Language and Discipline Perspectives on Academic Discourse. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 243–259. Murray, N. 2012. English as a lingua franca and the development of pragmatic competence. ELT Journal 66(3), 318–326. Norrick, N. R. 1987. Functions of repetition in conversation. Text 7, 245–264. Pitzl, M-L. 2005. Non-understanding in English as a lingua franca: Examples from a business context. Vienna English Working Papers 14, 50–71. Available at: www.univie.ac.at/Anglistik/Views0502mlp.pdf [accessed 28 September 2008]. Schegloff, E. A. 1982. Discourse as an interactional achievement: Some uses of ‘uh huh’ and other things that come between sentences. In D. Tannen (ed.), Analyzing Discourse: Text and Talk. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, pp. 71–93. Schegloff, E. A. 1987. Recycled turn beginnings: A precise repair mechanism in conversation’s turn-taking organization. In G. Button and J. R. E. Lee (eds), Talk and Social Organisation. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, pp. 70–100. Seidlhofer, B. 2001. Closing a conceptual gap: the case for a description of English as a lingua franca. International Journal of Applied Linguistics 11, 133–158. Available at: www.univie.ac.at/voice/documents/seidlhofer_2001b.pdf Seidlhofer, B. 2004. Research perspectives on teaching English as a lingua franca. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics 24, 209–239. Seidlhofer, B. 2011. Understanding English as a Lingua Franca. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sewell, A. 2013. English as a lingua franca: Ontology and ideology. ELT Journal 67(1), 3–10. Sowden, C. 2012. ELF on a mushroom: The overnight growth in English as a lingua franca. ELT Journal 66(1), 89–96. Tannen, D. 1987. Repetition in conversation: Toward a poetics of talk. Language 63(3), 574–605. Watterson, M. 2008. Repair of non-understanding in English in international communication. World Englishes 27(3), 378–406.

Index

academic contexts: dynamic communication 111–131; ELF research 57–131; findings of research 115–127; global academia 29–46; large-scale assessments of English 224–239; methods/data for research 114–115; research background 112–114 academic language: English as 30–31, 44; own-language use in discourse 59–69 ACE see Asian Corpus of English adaptive use of ELF 241 adjacency pairs, disagreement 73 age factors 183 American spellings 50 approximation process 36–37, 38–39, 43 articles 36–37, 39 Asian contexts: BELF 142; ELF communication 124 Asian Corpus of English (ACE) 22–23, 26 assessments: criteria 230–234; English for academic purposes 224–239; key concepts 228 authenticity, ENL 22, 215, 218 backchannel signals 62 behavioural norms, ELF 91–92 BELF see business lingua franca border-crossing communication 172–173 brevity 53 British universities 70, 84 business lingua franca (BELF) 135–136; dynamics of 143–145; as enabler 150–151; future perspectives/open issues 151–152; key issues in research

136; MNCs’ use 135–142; research methodology 142–145; scholars/ disciplinary frameworks 140–142; theoretical issues 143, 149 business managers’ multilingual practices 146–151 business perspectives 133–209; see also companies capability, English as subject 213–223 casual conversation 70–89 CEFR see Common European Framework of Reference CEFR-J (Common European Framework of Reference for Japanese English learners) 181–182 China, Japanese expatriates working in 156–178 CI see cooperative interruption clarification: behavioural norms 92; communicative clarity 246–250; interruption 103 classroom practice, pragmatics 240–254 co-completion, interruption 102–103 code-switching: assessments 236; BELF in MNCs 148; from ELF to JLF 115–119; ELF talk 65–67; intentional use 128n Cogo, A. 142 Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) 18, 173–175 Common European Framework of Reference for Japanese English learners (CEFR-J) 181–182 communication: ability to communicate 167–169; dynamics of 111–131

256 Index communicative capability, ELF 217–218 communicative clarity enhancement 246–250 communicative competence, ENL 214 communicative conventions, BELF 145 communicative dispositions 169, 170 communicative environments, SILS 124–127 communicative function, ELFL 219 communicative norms, BELF converging 151–152 communicative preferences: BELF 139; ELF interactants’ use 65, 67; L1-based varieties 59 communicative resources, ELF 26–27 companies, English language skills for 180–193; see also business perspectives competence, English as subject 213–223 complex content, English language for companies survey 186 complexification process 37 confirmation questions, disagreement 78 conflict-management perspective 153n conformity 26–27, 215 contextual factors, BELF 151 continuous sentences 107n conventions: BELF 145; disagreement study 86; ELF interactants’ use 65, 67; interruption sequences study 95 conversation analytic approach 70, 72–73, 84 cooperative behaviour 40–41, 91–92 cooperative interruption (CI) 94, 95, 101, 102–104, 107 cooperative principle: disagreement 79, 84–85; interpretation 129n corpus-based approach, interruption sequences 90–91 countabilization 52–54 cultural knowledge 170 culture 30, 41, 47, 138, 145, 152 ‘daily conversation’, companies survey 189–190 DAs (discourse activities) 147

datasets, interruption sequences 95 data types: academic context study 114–115; casual conversation study 73–74; Tokyo’s ELF information provision 197–201 dependency 221 dialect levelling 43 dialects 35 dictionaries 52 disagreement: ELF casual conversation 70–89; interruption and 94, 95, 106; previous studies 71–72; study findings/discussion 74–84; theorizing 72–73 discourse activities (DAs) 147 discourse structuring, yes/yeah/ja variants 62 dispositions for expatriates 167–171 dispreferred responses, disagreement 73, 75 diversity in ELF 240–241 educational implications: BELF 145; English language for companies survey 191–192; Japanese working in China 173–174 Ehrenreich, S. 141 EIL (English as an International Language) 19–20 ELF see English as a lingua franca ELFA (English as a Lingua Franca in Academic Settings) 35 ELFL see English learned as a foreign language ELT (English Language Teaching) 242–243 emic categorization, SILS students 113–114 encoded forms, ENL 214 English: academic context in Japan 111–131; characteristics of BELF 136–137; definition 17; as disabler 139–140; ELF contribution to 41–43; ELF degenerating 32–34; expansion 29; future directions 43–44; global context 17–28; global lingua franca 29–46; language skills for companies 180–193; large-scale assessments 224–239; proficiency levels 191;

Index 257 rethinking as subject 213–223; teaching skills/ideologies 157–160; wiping out other languages 30–32 English as an International Language (EIL) 19–20 English as a first or Native Language (ENL) 18–20, 22; description of 214–215, 218; EFL relationship 222; norms 216; TESOL and 221 English Language Teaching (ELT) 242–243 English learned as a foreign language (ELFL) 216, 218–219, 221–222 English as a Lingua Franca in Academic Settings (ELFA) 35 English as a lingua franca (ELF): assessing 224–239; code-switching to JLF 115–119; common concerns 30–34; conceptualizing 15–56; contribution to English 41–43; definition 20, 90, 195, 237n; discourse/interaction 39–41; effective communication 240–254; ENL relationship 222; features/processes 35–37; Japanese academic context 111–131; as a ‘language’ 180; as language contact 34–35; learners to users 111–131; nature of 240–242; prominent features 35–41; research in academic contexts 57–131 English for Specific Purposes (ESP) 78, 180–181, 191, 192n, 226 English taught as a foreign language (ETFL) 216, 221–222 ENL see English as a first or Native Language ‘enregisterment’ concept 141 equality, ELF communication 123–124 ESP see English for Specific Purposes essentialising notions, BELF 143 ETFL see English taught as a foreign language exclamations, interruption 104 Expanding Circle 31, 33, 113–114, 183 expatriates working in China 156–178 explicitness feature, ELF 207, 250 face negotiation 72 fairness, assessments 228

fixing 43 floor-taking interruption 94, 101 focus groups 129n foundational dispositions 169–170 French 33–34, 49 gaze orientation, disagreement 86–87 gender, companies survey 183 generalization, unmarking trend 52 genre theory, ESP 191 German 61–64, 66; interaction with Japanese 150–151; MNCs 135–136, 146–151 gestures, disagreement 75, 77–78, 81–83 Global 30 Program 112–113 global academia, changing 29–46 global context, English in 17–28 globalization: pedagogic concerns 216–217; sociolinguistics of 21 global lingua franca, English as 29–46 good language, assessment of 32–33 grammar 199, 201–202, 207, 231–232 group discussions 119–127 group oral assessments 235 han-jun Japa group category 128n hegemony, BELF and 152 hesitation markers 64 hiring 167 homogenization of languages 31–32 House, J. 3, 6–7, 34, 71, 79, 91–92 Hülmbauer, C. 149 hybrid discourse 67 hybrid languages 148, 151, 153n, 240 identity 120–127, 143–144 ideologies, teaching English 157–160 IELTS test 227, 228–234, 235–236, 237n II see intrusive interruption imperative clauses 204–205 indirectness in interaction 150 information provision: mutual understanding 70–89; Tokyo’s ELF information provision 194–209 Inner Circle 21–22, 31, 33, 43, 183, 196, 197–199, 201, 206–208, 233 intaa group category 114, 127, 129n

258 Index intelligibility, English 32–33, 37–39 international business perspectives 135–155 Internet 29; see also online access interruption: definition 93; forms of 92–94, 98–101; functions of 92–94, 101–106 interruption sequences: ELF discussions 90–110; research methods/data 94–95; study results/discussion 96–107 interviews: academic contexts 119–127, 129n; business contexts 147, 150; Japanese working in China 160–162, 164 intra-turn interruption (ITI) 93, 95, 98–101, 107 intrusive interruption (II) 94, 95, 101–102, 105–106, 107 irregularity, language 47–50 ITI see intra-turn interruption Japanese (JLF), code-switching from ELF 115–119 Japan/Japanese: English-medium academic context 111–131; expatriates 156–178; interaction with German 150–151; Tokyo’s public transport information 194–209 Jenkins, J. 34, 53, 140–141, 224–226, 240, 242 JLF see Japanese jun-Japa group category 111, 113–114, 116–117, 119–121, 126 Kachru, B.B. 19, 22, 31 Kankaanranta, A. 140–141, 151–152 Kaur, J. 4–5, 11, 92, 94 kikoku group category 114, 127, 129n Kirkpatrick, Andy 23–24 kizukai term 125–127 knowledge, expatriates 167–171 L1-based varieties 34–35, 59, 66–67; see also similects landscape analysis, ELF information provision 194–209 language: changing 29–46, 47–56; choices 166; ELF as 180; irregularity/

particularity 47–50; Japanese working in China 156–178; mix 164; power issues and 140 large-scale assessments, academic purposes 224–239 large-scale surveys, companies 180–193 latching 93, 104 lexical insertion 247, 251 lexicon 199, 201, 207 lingua francas, history of 31 linguistic identities, BELF 143–144 linguistic soundscape/landscape analysis 194–209 listening ability assessments 227, 230 listening skills, companies survey 186 ‘logical thinking’, companies survey 189, 190 Louhiala-Salminen, L. 140–141 managers 146–151, 161 Mandarin 162–163, 165–166, 175n manufacturing sector 160 markers: so 63–64; yes/yeah/ja variants 62; see also pragmatic markers Mauranen, A. 3–6, 11, 91, 103, 107, 140–141, 240–241 mediation 92 meetings, companies survey 187, 191 MICASE corpus 42 micro analytic perspectives 153n micro-level processes 37–39 mitigated disagreement 71–72, 74 MNCs see multi-national corporations multilingualism: BELF in MNCs 146–151; discourse 67; teaching English 157–159 multi-national corporations (MNCs) 135–142, 146–151 multi-word units of meaning 41–43 mutual intelligibility, ELF speakers 37–39 mutual understanding: information provision 70–89; pursuing 244–246 native speaker English (NSE), BELF distinction 137 native speakers (NSs) 18–19, 107n; assessment criteria 231–233; BELF communication 137; meaning of

Index 259 English 213–215, 217; NNS communication 123; norms 121–123; pragmatic fluency 71; reality 219 negotiation 78, 82, 188–189, 190 neoliberal discourse 172 NNSs see non-native speakers non-essentialising notions, BELF 143 non-native speakers (NNSs): assessments 227, 230, 232, 235; BELF communication 137; meaning of English 213; NS communication 123; reality 219; standard English deviations 225 norms: behavioural 91–92; communicative 151–152; ENL 216; NS norms 121–123; standard English 224–226, 234 nouns: pronunciation 198; repetition 202, 207 NSE see native speaker English NSs see native speakers Olympics, Tokyo, Japan 194, 208 one-day shadowing 146–147, 149 online access, VOICE corpus 24; see also Internet opinion-giving, research 129n oral communication in China 164–165 originals, good language 33 outcome-oriented interactions 72 Outer Circle 3, 19, 21–22, 31, 33, 113–114, 183 overlap: disagreement 78; interruption distinction 92–93, 99; mutual understanding 245–246 ownership of English 21 own-language use, academic discourse 59–69 particularity of language 47–50 part-of-speech (POS) tagging 24 pedagogic concerns 211–254 pedagogic interruption 103–104 perception studies, BELF 142–143 performance assessments 231, 233 personal needs, ELF users 220 personal qualities, working in China 171 pictograms 206, 207 plural markings 202

plural suffixes 51–52 plurilinguality 147–149 policy implications: BELF 145; Japanese working in China 173–174 politeness 72–73, 84, 200, 204 positive politeness strategy 84 POS (part-of-speech) tagging 24 power issues: language-related 140; NSNNS communication 123 pragmatic fluency 71, 79, 85n pragmatic markers 66–67 pragmatics: strategies use 240–254; Tokyo’s ELF information provision 199–200 preference structure, disagreement 73, 75, 84 prepositions 36–37, 39 pronouns 202, 207 pronunciation 19, 100, 197–198, 231–232 proper nouns 198 public spaces, ELF in 195 public transport 194–209 questionnaires 182 Räisänen, Virkkula-Räisänen, T. 141 rapport-building 138 rating criteria, assessments 232–233 reading skills, companies survey 184–185 reality, NS versus NNS learners 219 recognitional onset 93 regularization strategy 25, 27 relational talk, BELF 138 relative pronouns 26 reliability, assessments 228 repetition 246 rhetorical skills 192n ryugakusei group category 114, 127 Scandinavian 33 School of International Liberal Studies (SILS) 112–114, 124–127 scientific innovations, language changes 49–50 scoring systems, assessments 226, 236 Seidlhofer, B. 4–6, 11, 34, 42, 106, 113, 140–141, 180, 195, 203, 205, 225, 240, 242

260 Index self-deprecation 75 self-initiative other-repair see pedagogic interruption seminar presentations 115–119 SE norms see standard English norms shadowing managers 146–147, 149 signs, Tokyo’s public transport 197, 201–206 SILS see School of International Liberal Studies similect contact 43 similects 35; see also L1-based varieties simple content, companies survey 186 simplicity feature, ELF 207 simplification of ELF processes 35–37 simultaneous dual languages 147 simultaneous talk 93 skills: English language 180–193; expatriates 167–171; teaching English 157–160 social needs, ELF users 220 socio-cultural adjustments, BELF 152 socio-cultural communicative conventions 145 sociolinguistics: BELF contexts 151; ENL 22; globalization 21 so marker 63–64 soundscape analysis, Tokyo’s public transport 194–209 speaker perceptions, BELF in MNCs 146–151 speaking ability assessments 227, 229–231, 233 speaking skills, companies survey 186 spelling changes 50–51 spoken language, Tokyo’s public transport 195, 197–201 standard English (SE) norms 224–226, 234 structural changes, ELF processes 36 suffixes 51–52 surveys, companies 180–193 syntax 39–40, 204–205 target language use (TLU) domain 229–230, 235 task design, assessments 229–230 Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) 221

Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) 221–222 teaching language: English as subject 213–223; Japanese working in China 156–178 technological innovations, language changes 49–50 TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) 221–222 TESOL (Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages) 221 test purpose, assessment concepts 228 three-word sequences 38 TII see turn-initiating interruption TLU domain see target language use domain TOEFL iBT test 227, 228–234, 235–236, 237n Tokyo, public transport information 194–209 topic change interruption 94, 95, 105 TRP (transition relevance place) 77 train announcements, Tokyo 197–201 transcription conventions: disagreement study 86; interruption sequences study 95 transition relevance place (TPR) 77 translations 33, 165 transportation, Tokyo 194–209 trigrams 38 turn-initiating interruption (TII) 93, 95, 98–101, 107 turn numbers, interruption sequences 96–98 turn-taking rate, jun-Japa group 120–121 unfinished sentences 107n universals: BELF convergence towards 145; English as universal language 171–173 unmarking trend, language changes 47–56 unmitigated disagreement 70–89 validity, assessments 228 variability in ELF 240–241 verbs 42 VOICE corpus 23–24, 26

Index 261 Waseda University, SILS 112–113 WE (World Englishes) 19–20 Widdowson, H.G. 4, 10, 11, 106 word numbers, interruption sequences 96–98 World Englishes (WE) 19–20 writing skills, companies survey 186

written communication: Japanese working in China 164–165; Tokyo’s public transport 195, 197, 201–206 yes/yeah/ja variants 61–63 yoji jukugo compounds 205