Abstract Multinational corporations operating in Sweden often use English as their official corporate language. The employees are expected to communicate using English both internally and with external business contacts. English used for communication between people with different mother tongues is commonly referred to as ELF, English as a Lingua Franca, and when used in business contexts it is referred to as BELF, Business English as a Lingua Franca. This study was conducted to explore how BELF is used in the pharmaceutical sector in Sweden and what elements of BELF are challenging or necessary for successful communication. In the study five informants were interviewed about their experiences. The study showed that the informants use BELF for all types of communication and are comfortable with English as a lingua franca yet often switch over to Swedish if there are only Swedish speakers present. It was also found that clear, somewhat simplified English with focus on content and getting business done was preferred over grammatically correct and native sounding English. The respondents viewed an industry specific vocabulary as highly important bordering to a pre-requisite. The findings of this study support previous research in the field indicating that there is little difference when it comes to BELF for the pharmaceutical industry compared to other industries.

Poles comprise the largest group of migrants in Scotland. The Scottish Government’s plan has been to attract and retain them to counter the issues of Scotland’s aging population and insufficient labour force, as well as to promote cultural diversity and tolerance (Scottish Government, 2013). However, research on Polish migrants’ experiences suggests that there is a discrepancy between the rhetoric of retaining migrants in a tolerant and inclusive society and the reality, in which Poles tend not to integrate with the local communities and to work below their skill-set and education level (Kobialka, 2016). This is clearly detrimental to the aforementioned government goal of ensuring their emotional and financial well-being and sense of belonging. The existing, and predominantly sociolinguistic, research attributes these issues almost exclusively to the migrants’ “little knowledge of English” (Weishaar, 2008: 1252), whilst overlooking findings from social psychology that suggest that there is more to a person’s ‘relationship’ with the language than just proficiency. These findings suggest that one’s self-concept, or the sum of beliefs about him/herself, is strongly connected to language and may influence his/her everyday decisions and behaviour (Rubio, 2014). Thus, this current study investigated the experiences of Polish migrants in Scotland from this under-researched perspective, focusing on the relationship between the migrants’ self-concept and the English language, referred to as English Language Identity (ELI), as a concept potentially playing a central part in the migrants’ experiences. Gaining an understanding of the migrants’ ELI was believed to be crucial, in order to determine ways of preparing future learners of English to face their potential migration experience with confidence and high self-esteem. In this longitudinal mixed methods study, 20 Polish migrants were interviewed twice and they each submitted electronic journals, in which they reflected on their language-related experiences. Additionally, the findings were validated through a structured questionnaire completed by 378 respondents in the final stage of the study. The data analysis revealed that the participants’ ELI was a dynamic relationship manifested during social encounters in which they made evaluations of how successfully they managed to express their ‘desired self’, or self-concept, and based these evaluations on their perceptions of the ‘ascribed selves’. The perceived communication failure or success, resulting respectively from discrepancy or match between these selves, influenced the participants’ self-esteem, which, in turn, had an impact on their future behaviour and a range of decisions, including the decision of whether or not to remain in Scotland. This dynamic interplay between the desired and ascribed selves that essentially defined the participants’ ELI was influenced by their self-assessed English competence, beliefs about other people’s perceptions of migrants and their general beliefs about the language and its speakers. The latter, based on the assumption that Native English Speakers (NESs) are linguistic experts and ‘owners’ of the language, influenced the participants’ understanding of communication success/failure and of linguistic ‘correctness’, as well as their self-assessed English competence. These findings, coupled with findings from the fields of social psychology, sociolinguistics and English Language Teaching (ELT), were used to make suggestions for English language classrooms and for general pedagogy in Poland and Scotland to reconsider its content, in order to foster the learners’ self-growth, build their self-esteem and prepare them to recognise and address various forms of prejudice and stereotyping.

Researchers are becoming increasingly interested in responding to the effects of the English language’s viability as a Lingua Franca. English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) is being used predominantly in communication from one non-native speaker to another, and descriptive studies are just beginning to emerge (Dewey 2007; Jenkins, 2000; Seidlhofer, 2004). This report offers a theoretical overview showing ELF’s increasing relevance, and reviews empirical studies that have investigated how ELF is manifesting in the field of language education. These empirical studies are gaining significant traction, specifically in relation to descriptive linguistics, sociolinguistics, and applied linguistics (House, 2003; Mauranen, 2003). In order to investigate a formal description of ELF, recent empirical work is reviewed after two seminal articles were published that helped gain viability into ELF as a distinct research area (i.e. Seidlhofer, 2001; Mauranen, 2003). Such reviews of empirical studies through the use of corpora are not meant to distinguish ELF as a distinct variety of English, but to simply allow for a deep description of how ELF is being used currently. Also discussed are the developments to English language pedagogy and directions for future research as ELF scholars begin to re-conceptualize what is meant by language context and communication in ELF. / text

While the importance of English as a lingua franca (ELF) in business and the media is well-studied, little attention has been paid to ELF in tourism. This study analyzes postings on websites such as TripAdvisor (http://www.tripadvisor.com/), which feature non-professional reviews of international travel destinations and services, in order to evaluate the effects of cultural capital, stereotypes and relative power on: expectations of English availability in non-English speaking countries, evaluation of the language spoken by EFL speakers (e.g. hotel clerks, shop owners), and attitudes towards speaking the local language.This study explores the issue of speech accommodation between the tourists and the local hospitality industry workers and other residents (Giles, Taylor, and Bourhis, 1973; Giles, Coupland, and Coupland, 1991; Giles and Powesland, 1997) and the likely factors leading to convergence/divergence as indicated by attitudes towards language choices. Website excerpts will show the circumstances in which travelers expect the locals (who deal with tourists) to speak English as well as how much of the local language the travelers are willing to learn and use.Findings indicate that the tourists' willingness to take responsibility for linguistic accommodation, tolerance for restricted English proficiency levels, and attitudes towards being exposed to the local culture and language differ according to the presumed cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1986, 1991; Hanks, 2005) - often governed by stereotypes - and relative power of the interlocutors, the visited location and the local language. The role of ELF in the tourism sector and attitudes toward the local residents and language(s) are highly relativized, such that the specificity of the local context must be taken into account. Proficiency in the English language itself is, in some locations, the source of presumed higher status and symbolic of luxury. The second important dynamic demonstrated to affect the levels and type of language expectation is the degree to which the traveler desires interaction with and exposure to the local culture, or wants to stay with familiar experiences in an "environmental bubble" (Cohen and Cooper, 1986). The differences in expectation of ELF demonstrate that traveler attitudes towards specific locations are key to determining linguistic needs.

This study aimed to explore whether non-native English-language teachers were aware of the existence of the English as a Lingua Franca paradigm and to examine their aspirations and preferences for themselves and their students as learners of English. Five research questions guided the study: 1) What variety of English do non-native teachers aspire to for themselves? 2) What variety of English do non-native teachers aspire to for their students? 3) What environments (native vs. non-native) do they consider to be most conducive for the acquisition of English? 4) Do they emphasize accuracy vs. intelligibility? 5) Is there a relationship between their aspirations and their preferences for accuracy and/or acceptability? The findings provided empirical evidence that non-native English teachers are aware of the different English varieties. The participating teachers seemed to put higher emphasis on intelligibility than on grammatical accuracy if they thought that certain utterances would not impede international communication. The results also revealed a dual orientation in participants' aspirations, where their awareness of the diversity of English varieties and their emphasis on intelligibility was paradoxically contradicted by their own strong preferences for native-like models of pronunciation and lexical knowledge.

This is a case study on the communication between Nordic and Chinese business people using English as a lingua franca in their business communication. The aim of this paper is to establish if misunderstandings in communication occur between Chinese and Nordic language speakers (Finnish and Swedish) in a business environment and, if they do, what the nature of these misunderstandings is. In this paper, recorded conversations are analysed to establish if there are misunderstandings between the parties. The recordings were made at a global industrial company in Sweden and in China. Interviews with the participants were also carried out in order to establish their own ideas concerning the communication flow and to find out if the participants are themselves aware of using any particular communication strategies when interacting with one another. The results of the case study show that there were some misunderstandings in the communication between Nordic and Chinese business people; however, there were not any particularly serious misunderstandings with respect to the company’s business aims and objectives. The results indicate that the parties use communication strategies to enhance their messages and to determine if a message has been conveyed successfully. The strategies that were commonly used were confirmations in the form of follow-up questions and speaking slowly. Written or non-verbal communication were found to be used as a supplement to verbal communication. A strategy that the participants themselves noted as successful was keeping their messages short and simple. This is also known as the KISS-principle. The result of the study indicates potential misunderstandings caused by the Chinese using Yes as an act of active listening rather than agreement and it is suggested that an awareness of this cultural difference may help improve the intercultural communication between the parties.

This report first reviews issues emerging from English usage as a lingua franca, including distinctions among errors and variations in L2 English, attitudes toward L2-accented English, and communication strategies among non-native English speakers. Informed by the English learning as a second language literature, this report provides some suggestions for English teachers in Taiwan to help their students improve interactions with English speakers around the world. These suggestions involve promoting students’ respect for errors and accents in different varieties of English, which is expected to help students improve their own learning habits in order to lower their concerns about their “Taiwanese English.” The suggestions also encourage teachers to integrate issues regarding communication among non-native English speakers into English classes since these issues are often not the focus of traditional English classes in Taiwan. / text

The standard ideology, embedded in discourses of traditional language teaching, has been found to have an influence on non-native speakers' linguistic identities. It manifests itself in their preoccupation with grammatical correctness and accent, and consequently in shaping negative self-perceptions, by focusing on the lacks in proficiency relative to the native speaker model. Some of the recent studies, however, reported contrasting findings. They reveal a weakening of this influence, which stems mainly from the current role of English as a global lingua franca. The ultimate goal of this study is to explore the English non-native students' perceptions of their English, as it served as a main shared resource for socializing within their community, in order to find whether and how this decentralization, combined with the "real life" use of English within an informal environment of an Erasmus community of practice, might impact their linguistic identities. The theoretical part of this study consists of three sections. Firstly, it provides a description of the concept of English as a lingua franca and its development. The second part explicates the relation between ELF and linguistic identity whereas the third part introduces the community of practice approach, which has been employed both as a...

In his paper “ELF and the alternatives” Ian MacKenzie considers a number of options that are presently under discussion as possible alternatives to the use of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF). Their scope includes translation (a short section of two paragraphs only), code switching, receptive multilingualism, and Esperanto. It is the presentation of the latter approach that I want to address in this comment. As MacKenzie ’s bibliography contains two articles of mine and as these seem to be important sources on which the author bases his argumentation, I suppose that I should react to his paper.

In his paper “ELF and the alternatives,” Ian MacKenzie considers a number of options that are presently under discussion as possible alternatives to the use of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF). Their scope includes translation (a short section of two paragraphs only), code switching, receptive multilingualism, and Esperanto. It is the presentation of the latter approach that I want to address in this comment. As MacKenzie’s bibliography contains two articles of mine and as these seem to be important sources on which the author bases his argumentation, I suppose that I should react to his paper.