This study is an investigation of communicative effectiveness and attitudes in relation to deviation from Standard English in an international church in Stockholm. This church is an English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) setting as the congregation consists almost entirely of people who use English as a means of communication with people who do not share their own first language. The study is based on empirical data from both qualitative and quantitative methods. The spoken language was investigated by analyzing one transcribed sermon and through interviewing two speakers of American English. Also a survey was done with 26 members of the church, obtaining quantitative data as well as several comments from the respondents on their view of the usage of English in the sermons and in the church in general.  The results from the study showed as expected that there were a number of deviations from Standard English when ELF was used in the sermon. However, these caused little irritation and were judged not to cause much misunderstanding. The deviations that did cause some irritation among the respondents from the church were when the wrong word was used as well as when a word was pronounced incorrectly. The results indicated that there was little disturbance regarding the communicativeness and attitudes in connection to the spoken English in this ELF setting.

As a result of globalisation, the number of companies working globally is increasing at an unprecedented pace. Consequently, the need to communicate with people from other countries is getting bigger. In such intercultural communication, a common language must be used to interact. The language of choice is most often English, which is the business lingua franca (BELF) today. Furthermore, email has become the obvious choice of medium when interacting with foreign business associates. The present study was conducted through intensive and extensive analyses, investigating BELF emails written by 21 individuals with 14 different native languages. The data consists of 209 emails. The study follows Bjørge’s (2007) work on formality in emails written in academic settings. The aim of the study was to determine how formal the participants were in greetings and closings and whether they accommodated their language to the respondent. The results suggest that the level of formality mainly depends on the purpose of the email and, to some extent, how formal the correspondent is. The accommodation to the correspondent seems to be individual. The present study wishes to extend knowledge on email communication in BELF settings. The results are likely to be relevant for teachers and students of Business Communication and English as a Second or Foreign Language along with managers in internationally functioning companies, especially as regards what should be considered in BELF communication.

In the field of second language acquisition (SLA), the study abroad context (SA) has gained attention as a site that offers the potential of significant second language (L2) development due to high amounts of input and interaction opportunities compared to at home foreign language (AH) and domestic immersion (IM) contexts (Pérez-Vidal, 2014). In previous research, the SA context has been a country where the L2 is the local language (e.g., English in the United Kingdom). However, with the increase of student mobility programs across Europe, such as ERASMUS, and the status of English as an International Language, another study abroad context is available, one where students can take English-medium classes and use English as a lingua franca in a country where English is not the local language (e.g., Germany, Poland, Spain). In the current study, this new context is operationalized as English as a lingua franca study abroad (ELFSA), the effects of which have received very little attention in SLA to date. By providing an alternative SA context through English medium of instruction on-campus, and English as an international language through off-campus interactions, this new context might bring further insights into the SA phenomenon. Motivated by this gap in the literature, the current longitudinal study aims to investigate the differentiated effects of the SA, ELFSA, and AH contexts on the linguistic development of Turkish undergraduates whose L2 is English. Given the multilingual nature of the ERASMUS context, this study also examines the contextual influences on participants’ perceptions towards multilingualism from a Perceived Positive Language Interaction (PPLI) perspective (Thompson, 2013). The participants of the study were 50 third year Turkish undergraduates, 33 of whom undertook a 16-week ERASMUS exchange semester in Spring 2016. Following a quasi-experimental mixed-methods pretest-posttest design, data were collected via a one-minute spoken and 15-minute written production test to determine linguistic complexity, accuracy, and fluency gains; an Elicited Oral Imitation Test (EIT, Ortega et al., 1999) to measure pre-departure proficiency; a monthly online Language Interaction Questionnaire to investigate the type and amount of language contact; and a dichotomous questionnaire to learn about participants’ perceptions towards multilingualism within PPLI. For triangulation purposes, qualitative data were collected via several open-ended items in the questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. The results of the quantitative and qualitative analysis indicated that the SA and ELFSA contexts were beneficial for English development on most of the measures, yet the former had certain issues for the participants pertaining to the dominant variety and features of spoken English (e.g., weak forms, connected speech, speech rate). The ELFSA was reported to be more multilingual as compared to the SA, also paving the way for seeing further Perceived Positive Language Interaction (Thompson, 2013) among the additional languages that their participants knew. The major difference between the two was described to be the ELFSA participants’ developing an ELF identity towards using English as an L2, as they tended to prioritize fluency over accuracy throughout their exchange semester. The results of the quantitative analysis indicated that the AH group had significantly more gains on written fluency than the two abroad groups. Also, time was found to be a significant factor for lexical development regardless of group differences. In terms of oral gains, main effects of time indicated that the participants as a whole group had significantly different means over time on speech rate and breakdown fluency, the inspection of which showed that the ELFSA had the highest mean differences. As for oral accuracy and lexical complexity, an interaction effect between time and context group was found to approach significance, indicating that both sojourn groups had mean gains on the former, while only the ELFSA had higher mean scores in the posttest for the latter measure. Finally, the data from the semi-structured interviews provided a holistic picture of the interplay between context and development in English. The major finding of the study, thus, indicated that the SA may not be the sole provider for intense L2 input to improve English during a semester abroad; the ELFSA appeared to be equally as beneficial as the SA in terms of linguistic development with a bonus of creating a linguistic identity of an ELF speaker for language learners. The study also provided several empirical and pedagogical implications for those interested in the stay abroad and its influences on L2 development.

This study aims to explore teacher beliefs on accents in the classroom and how they affect classroom practices as well as the teachers views on the LFC approach. Furthermore, the study investigates whether there exists a possible disconnect between teachers and the Swedish National Agency for Education when it comes to deciding what approach to take when teaching English pronunciation. The study is based on semi-structured interviews with five Secondary school and Upper Secondary School English teachers in Sweden, whose work experience ranged from six months to 22 years. The study found that the teachers with more experience were more likely to prefer the inner circle English accents and use them as a benchmark for correctness. Phenomena like the native-speaker ideal, which means to idealize native speakers and view them as better speakers of English, can be linked to the teachers age and experience. Moreover, some teachers expressed feeling pressure from students to sound native-like and felt disfavored as some schools showed a preference for hiring native speakers as English teachers. Thus, a haloeffect for teachers speaking with an inner-circle English accent was identified, which affects students’ and employers’ perception of non-native EFL-teachers. The study also found that while some of the teachers were familiar with the Lingua Franca Core model, none of them had taught it. The study concludes that there is a disconnect between the teachers and Skolverket’s steering documents, as most of the teachers felt that Skolverket does not explicitly call for pronunciation teaching and were unsure of the demands. Furthermore, this calls for clearer demands from Skolverket as well as re-formation programs for experienced teacher to change their beliefs on non-native accents.

English is used as a lingua franca to communicate when interlocutors' do not share a first language (DeBartolo, 2014). This is prominent in academia, where teachers and students in international exchange programs communicate daily in English as a lingua franca (ELF). Previous research suggests that ELF speakers in this context use discourse markers (DM) as a pragmatic strategy to support their output and maintain a comprehensible discourse. However, most previous studies only used small corpora for qualitative analysis. This thesis adds to preceding research by combining qualitative and quantitative analysis of new data from an ELF corpus previously not used from this perspective. The context of the study is ELF spoken between students and teachers during academic consultation hours and possible pragmatic strategies in their use of the DMs yeah, okay and so. The analysis shows frequent use of DMs for both groups, but, perhaps due to the speaker roles, they favour different ones. For example, teachers use the function to explain and elaborate fourfold to students, this supports the nature of teacher exposition. Conversely, students' most frequently used functions indicate an active listener role, such as signalling receipt of messages. The results from this study indicate that, in an academic ELF context, teachers and students frequently use these DMs as pragmatic strategies to support their output and indicate attentiveness.

This thesis examines public relations (PR) communications that use English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) from leading Finnish companies. It analyses a corpus of 90 press releases from 15 export-active companies for linguistic usage, drawing on elements of linguistic theory. In addition, a limited narrative is based on personal interviews to determine typical procedures that are involved in PR content creation. It should have relevance to all who use ELF in a business context, but be of special interest to those involved with PR and marketing. It may also have some relevance to internal international business communications and linguistics.The study was motivated by three factors: how English is a dominant global language that is being used by companies in other countries as an intermediary language, prior research of how Finnish companies use PR and communications within their export activities, and extensive observation obtained whilst working as a journalist, dealing with companies from all around the world.It is believed that many companies may not be communicating efficiently and effectively when using ELF. Even when they do communicate and content may appear to be grammatically correct, its efficacy may be muted, inhibiting audience comprehension and other consequential actions. The research noted that certain linguistic elements were over-represented, which could potentially inhibit communication and comprehension. The resolution is not necessarily drastic and could only deliver wider benefits where implemented.Recommendations include closer attention is made concerning linguistic construction, broader additional research is conducted into the global phenomena and the possible creation of an operational framework to assist deployment of ELF-friendly textual communications, especially within the PR/marketing field.

This paper was aimed at researching the use of English as a lingua franca (ELF) in a business context by the use of linguistic ethnography (LE). Previous research has been primarily either survey- or interview-based or strictly qualitative in its investigation. Using shadowing observations of three employees at a Swedish multinational company and subsequently interviewing the participants about their use of Business English as a lingua franca (BELF), the present study set out to investigate for what kinds of functions and how often these employees use English on an everyday basis. English was shown to be the default language of the multinational company and the findings suggest that employees’ use of language is not only determined by the nature of their work and the business setting, but also by their personal backgrounds. Their education, upbringing, and social experiences since moving to Sweden have come to shape their language use at work and in everyday life. Moreover, there could be subsequent implications for them not only in work-related functions and activities at the company but also in their integration and immersion in Swedish society. Using LE to investigate language choice and use in a corporate setting allows for a more nuanced collection of data, providing a context to linguistic research.

Made available in DSpace on 2017-07-21T14:53:59Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Julia Kalva.pdf: 1356702 bytes, checksum: 76cf64a1012e994eeff176a3503f938d (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-02-24 / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico / In this work we discuss Brazilian students/teacher national identity in a context of foreign language studies and the way English as a Lingua Franca is approached in the classroom. The research focus on student identity and the teaching-learning English as a Lingua Franca approach, once they are related to each other, because when it is learned-taught a new language, new identities are also presented in the classroom. With globalization, identities before seen as stables are now passing through a changing. Thus it is more difficult to say exactly who we are, that is why everything depends on where and the moment we are living. Therefore, we have as a main objective verify how English students and teacher consider themselves in a context where national identity is expressed by the language; process in which many times has the target language identity more emphasized than the local identity. This fact leads us to think about the process of teaching English as a Lingua Franca. The theoretical basis of this work is formed by Jenkins (2006), Seidlhofer (2004), Rajagopalan, regarding to English as a Lingua Franca (2003,2004), Hall (1999, 2005), Woodward (2005), Anderson (2008), talking about national identity and Pennycook (1994), Phillipson (1992), Canagarajah (1999) focusing at linguistic imperialism. The research is conducted in an English course, and participants are an English teacher and his students (intermediated level) from Universidade Estadual de Ponta Grossa; methodological procedures are basically qualitative, including a case study. Data gathered demonstrate that national identity, besides not being seen throughout the materials used for teaching, is emphasized by the teacher, situation that seems to help including teacher and students local identity in the teaching-learning process. However myths concerning teaching English as a foreign language are present in the classroom, and so, teacher and students still keep the need for following a native speaker model. / Nesse trabalho é discutida a questão da identidade nacional de alunos/professores brasileiros de língua estrangeira (inglês) e como a formação desses professores aborda ou não essa questão. A pesquisa tem como foco a formação da identidade do aprendiz de língua inglesa e o ensino de inglês como língua franca, posto que as duas questões se mostram correlacionadas, uma vez que, aprendendo uma nova língua, também tenho contato com outras identidades que irão permear o ensino. Com a globalização, as identidades, que antes até poderiam ser consideradas como “fixas”, agora passam por um processo de mutação, o que torna difícil dizer, com clareza, o que somos; tudo depende do momento em que vivemos ou do lugar em que estamos. Assim, temos como objetivo geral verificar como alunos e os professores de língua inglesa se veem dentro do contexto onde a identidade nacional é expressa através da língua. Esse processo, muitas vezes, tem a identidade da língua-alvo sendo privilegiada em detrimento da língua local, fato que nos leva a refletir também sobre o ensino de inglês como língua franca. O referencial teórico que embasa a pesquisa é formado por Jenkins (2006), Seidlhofer (2004), Rajagopalan (2003,2004), Hall (1999, 2005), Woodward (2005), Anderson (2008), Pennycook (1994), Phillipson (1992), Canagarajah (1999), entre outros. A pesquisa acontecerá na Universidade Estadual de Ponta Grossa/PR, em um curso de idiomas realizado pelo Centro de Línguas Estrangeiras para a Comunidade (CLEC), e os participantes serão os professores e os alunos de nível intermediário desse curso. A forma de avaliação da pesquisa é predominantemente qualitativa, isso em função dos procedimentos técnicos empregados, e a pesquisa pode ser classificada como um estudo de caso. Até o momento, vejo que a identidade nacional de professor e alunos, apesar de não ser vista no material didático utilizado em sala, é bastante reforçada pelo professor, fato que parece colaborar para que os alunos se sintam contemplados com relação à sua identidade local. Entretanto crenças pertinentes ao ensino de inglês como língua estrangeira ainda perpassam a sala de aula, fazendo com que os alunos, e mesmo o professor, sintam necessidade de seguir o modelo do falante nativo.

A língua franca utilizada na comunicação piloto-controlador ainda é pouco conhecida no meio acadêmico. Poucos estudos têm sido dedicados ao seu contexto de uso e ao mapeamento de suas características lingüísticas principais. Esta pesquisa acadêmica apresenta um estudo mais acurado da atividade de controlador de tráfego aéreo, no que se refere ao uso dessa linguagem de especialidade, além de desenvolver um estudo descritivo da língua franca utilizada na comunicação piloto-controlador para a identificação de suas características lingüísticas principais, com o recorte para a produção de material didático. Por meio da utilização do método do Professor André Camlong, a ferramenta computacional denominada STABLEX, fazemos uma análise descritiva, objetiva e indutiva de um corpus lingüístico, constituído dessa linguagem de especialidade. O que se pretende é oferecer subsídios aos professores de língua estrangeira para a produção do seu próprio material didático para o ensino dessa linguagem. É fato que, em determinados contextos de ensino, a necessidade de aprendizagem dos alunos é tão específica, que os materiais prontos para consumo, disponibilizados nas prateleiras das livrarias ou pelas editoras, não são suficientes, cabendo ao professor a tarefa de elaborá-los. No entanto, essa tarefa não tem se mostrado amistosa, já que o professor não dispõe de \"guias de orientação\", cientificamente justificáveis, para fazê-la. Assim sendo, o processo de elaboração torna-se intuitivo e empírico e, na grande maioria das vezes, restringese à adoção de fórmulas já consagradas de apresentação dos conteúdos. Acreditamos ser fundamental o correto entendimento das reais necessidades lingüísticas de um determinado público-alvo, para que haja mais condições de se estabelecerem processos mais ricos e eficientes de ensino e aprendizagem de qualquer língua estrangeira. / The lingua franca used in the communication between pilots and controllers is still not well known in the academic community. Few studies about its use and mapping of its main linguistic characteristics have been made. This theoretical research introduces an accurate study on the language used in the activity of air traffic controllers and develops a descriptive study of the lingua franca used in the communication between pilots and controllers, in order to identify its main linguistic characteristics towards material production. By using the method developed by Professor André Camlong and the computational tool STABLEX, an objective descriptive and inductive analysis of a linguistic corpus constituted by the language used in the ATC specialty has been conducted. The aim of this work is to provide language teachers with subsides for ATC material production hence helping teachers to elaborate materials that meet the very specific needs of their students based on the real needs of the stakeholders so as they can establish a more fruitful and efficient language teaching and learning process.

This paper investigates the roles of disagreement and trust in multicultural teamwork on an English-medium master's programme at an Austrian business university. The teamwork project - assigned by the content teacher - took place mostly outside the classroom and simulated business practice both in terms of the tasks and the multicultural context. Each team comprised two Austrian students and two international students, resulting in an English as a lingua franca (ELF) setting. The teams were observed and audio-/video-recorded, with the analysis focusing on an early stage of the project where they laid the groundwork for the team mental models in terms of establishing the team goals, relationships and communicative practices. Additionally, retrospective interviews were conducted at the end of the project with each of the team members and the lecturer to gain emic insights into the project. The findings suggest a symbiotic relationship between disagreement and trust, in which high levels of trust and the construction of a psychologically safe space allow the team members to disagree with and challenge each other without damaging their relationships, leading to better decisions. In turn, these decisions can contribute to a sense of shared success that strengthens the team's joint identity.