Annual Review of Applied Linguistics (2006) 26, 3–34. Printed in the USA. Copyright © 2006 Cambridge University Press 0267-1905/06 $12.00

1. ENGLISH AS A LINGUA FRANCA IN EUROPE: CHALLENGES FOR APPLIED LINGUISTICS Barbara Seidlhofer, Angelika Breiteneder, and Marie-Luise Pitzl The omnipresence of English in Europe has led to numerous discussions about its widespread functions and special status compared to all other European languages. Yet, many of these discussions conceive of Europe as a group of nation states where English is either a first or a foreign language. This chapter seeks to question this well-established distinction by investigating what is in fact the most common use of English in Europe, namely English as a lingua franca (ELF). The chapter suggests a different way of conceptualizing the language in European contexts and provides an updated overview of empirical research into its lingua franca use. Examples of a particular approach to ELF research are provided in the form of two case studies focussing on different aspects of ELF interactions. These studies demonstrate how users of ELF exploit the possibilities intrinsic in the language to achieve their own communicative purposes. Finally, the chapter highlights some future directions for linguistic research and addresses the challenges that the emergence of ELF poses for various areas of applied linguistics.

A Functional Profile of English in Europe English impinges on everybody’s life in Europe, in many different ways: people watch CNN and MTV, they attend English classes, they encounter commercial slogans such as “The real thing” and “I’m lovin’ it”; hip hoppers as well as bank executives use English in their (very different) everyday activities; companies choose English for internal communication; tourists ask and are given directions in English, and so on. In short, English is everywhere, and we cannot avoid it. Generally speaking, the situation between Moscow and Lisbon is that individuals usually have one first language (sometimes more), and are often exposed to other languages spoken locally, but most of them also have some minimal or extensive contact with English—in public life and popular culture, at school, at work. Since the end of World War II, English has continually gained importance in Europe (Hoffmann, 2000; Truchot, 2002), so that at the beginning of the 21st

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century, the significance of a certain command of English is closely comparable to that of reading and writing at the time of industrialization in Europe (Carmichael, 2000). Accordingly, proficiency in English has become something like a cultural technique (Breidbach, 2003; Neuner, 2002) and is considered an integral part of general education (Huber, 1998), a “basic skill taught in elementary school alongside computer skills” (Graddol, 2004, p. 1330). In 2001, the European Union’s (EU) statistical unit Eurostat found that more than 90 percent of pupils in secondary schools in the EU study English (Pilos, 2001), most of them as their first foreign language (Hoffmann, 2000). In 2005, the same observation still holds true: whether chosen or mandatory, English is unquestionably the dominant language in secondary education (Languages of Europe, 2005). The likelihood is that this dominance of English will steadily rise, a tendency which can be explained by what Myers-Scotton terms the “snow-ball effect”: “The more people learn a language, the more useful it becomes, and the more useful it is, the more people want to learn it” (2002, p. 80). But English does not only enter Europe through European institutions and education, that is in a top-down process, but also individually or bottom-up through popular music, dance, sports, or computers (James, 2000; Melchers & Shaw, 2003; Preisler, 1999). Indeed, “[p]art of the explanation for the strength of the popularity of English is this synergy between top–down and bottom–up processes” (Phillipson, 2003, p. 89). This synergy is also visible when considering the functions which English fulfills in various domains within Europe. For one thing, it is obvious that English occupies a vital role in Europe’s education systems from primary education onwards (Wastiau-Schlüter, 2005). English is the most important foreign language taught in its own right on the primary level, and it is increasingly employed in “content-and-language-integrated learning” (CLIL) from the secondary level onwards (Commission of the European Communities, 2005). One of the most significant trends is the teaching of courses and degrees exclusively in English (Ammon & McConnel, 2002; Murray & Dingwall, 2001; Truchot, 1997), a process stimulated by collective efforts to create a common European higher education area (cf. The Bologna Declaration, http://europa.eu.int/comm/education/policies/educ/bologna/bologna.pdf). A domain directly linked to education is that of scientific research, where English is perceived as a sine qua non for accessing information and publishing findings (Ammon, 2001; Truchot, 2002; Viereck, 1996). Accordingly, the majority of European scientific associations embrace English as the dominant, or indeed sole, language for the exchange of ideas (Crystal, 2003). To secure an international audience, the use of English in scientific journals is similarly unquestioned (Ammon, 1994; Truchot, 2002). As a consequence, scientists seem to “function more as members of an international community having one common language than as members of national communities, both in their writing and in their selection of background readings” (Truchot, 1997; see also Widdowson, 2003, Ch. 5).

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Even though Europe is generally presented, and readily presents itself, as a multilingual area, the supremacy of English is also being established step by step in European politics and various European and international organizations in Europe (e.g., EU, NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organization], UN [United Nations], Council of Europe) (Dollerup, 1996; see also Darquennes & Nelde, this volume). Officially, the European Union, being the most influential European institution, pursues a language policy which promotes multilingualism and equal linguistic rights. Yet, when it comes to in-house communication, official policies are often discarded in order to facilitate the working process (van Els, 2000; Tosi, 2003, 2005). As an example, van Els (2005) notes that all internal and external communication in the European Central Bank (ECB) in Frankfurt is conducted only in English. This restriction to English “amounts to a tacit agreement within the ECB which everyone adheres to, but it is in no sense a matter of official policy. This characterizes the manner in which the EU deals with the problems of internal communication” (van Els, 2005, p. 269). Because of the internationalization of the economies of European countries, English forms an integral part of the professional lives of a growing number of Europeans. A significant number of multinational, but also national, companies have adopted English as their company language, no matter whether they have subsidiaries in English-speaking countries or not (Melchers & Shaw, 2003). The companies do this in order to downplay their national affiliations and to position themselves as transnational companies (Truchot, 2003). The most obvious impact of English in Europe, however, can probably be observed in the public domains such as the media, the internet, advertising, popular youth culture, and entertainment (Berns & de Bot, 2005; Pennycook, 2003; Phillipson, 2003; Preisler, 1999; Truchot, 2002). It is in these domains that English has evidently been spreading beyond the elites. In addition, the (striving for) increased European integration has led to the creation of various informal communication networks and contact situations among “ordinary Europeans” (Labrie & Quell, 1997, p. 23). In these situations, English may very well function “as a direct mediator between participants in a discourse who would otherwise have to rely on translation or a third party” (Breidbach, 2003, p. 20). The current role of English in Europe is thus characterized by the fact that the language has become a lingua franca, a language of wider communication, and has entered the continent in two directions as it were, top–down by fulfilling functions in various prefessional domains and, simultaneously, bottom–up by being encountered and used by speakers from all levels of society in practically all walks of life. So English functions as a lingua franca, enabling people to connect based on common interests and concerns across languages and communities. Despite widespread criticism of its dominance, it has to be acknowledged that English does serve the ideal of European integration and facilitate movement across borders. A particularly striking example of how English functions in this way (and its possible linguistic consequences!) is provided by an online newspaper that is actually called “Abolishing the Borders from Below”:1

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Our Bad English Reputation As you probably noticed the english which is used in this newspaper is very far from its gramatical and stylistic ideals. It is mostly because this is a level of english which most of our corespondents, big part of our readers and most of us (as editors) are using. So at first, we obviously prefare to communicate on this level of english which is understandable for ourslves (!) and secondly, we decided to be rather ‘bad english reputation’ newspaper as to rise a level of language and this way eliminate probably 30-60% of our regular readers, especialy in south and eastern Europe (which could not understand the texts anymore). (http://www.abb.hardcore.lt/) The editors describe the website of “Abolishing the Borders from Below” as a “bimonthly bulletin with information on different political and cultural anarchist/anti-authoritarian activities in Eastern Europe.” What strikes one immediately is the degree of deliberate appropriation of the language, the denial of the authority of the established norm—not surprising in an anarchist publication of course. So the “bad English” is not only used in the interest of effective communication but to represent the anarchic cause: It serves both a pragmatic as well as an ideological function. Whether pragmatic or ideological or both, this use of English as a lingua franca (ELF) is a reality. It declares itself independent of the norms of English as a native language (ENL), and the authors who use it are confident that the ELF they use is better suited to express their identity, and more intelligible for their readers than a “better” English. This passage thus clearly illustrates not only the facts of the spread but also its possible linguistic implications and prompts a consideration of a number of issues involved relating to ELF in Europe: its spread and penetration, how it is conceptualized, the forms it takes, the role it plays in individuals’ lives and in society, what implications its development may have for language attitudes and language teaching, and what future developments might ensue. These are, then, the issues we intend to address in this contribution. What Is English as a Lingua Franca in Europe? So English is all-pervasive. But what do we mean by “English” in Europe? From the situation sketched in the prior section, we can see that there are basically two ways in which English is being used, with two forces at work affecting its development. One is a force for conservation, which perpetuates, or reinforces, existing norms. The second is a force for innovation, which changes existing norms and which we might call norm-developing (Kachru, 1985). It is of course the former which is particularly powerful because it is sustained by the received wisdom that effective communication depends on adhering to established native-speaker norms of correctness. In continental Europe, that is, aside from the United Kingdom (UK) and Ireland, ‘English’ sometimes means ENL that is transferred “intact” to a non-ENL

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context, e.g., through American or British expatriates living in mainland Europe (such as a British Council employee in Vienna), or through the media (such as CNN in, say, Ukraine). Sometimes it means a linguacultural ENL target to strive towards as in EFL instruction in the public and private sectors, with English showing varying degrees of “local color” depending on who does the teaching and what the teaching goals are, but generally maintaining ENL as the unquestioned reference norm. If we define ELF very loosely, these instances of English might indeed be candidates for inclusion under the rubric “ELF,” as they will often include speakers of different language backgrounds communicating through English. But the main focus on English as a native language and the culture that is associated with it remains in place, with the assumption that the primary purpose of the language is to communicate, or even commune, with its native speakers. However, English can also be primarily intended to serve as a lingua franca, where its use is essentially motivated by communicative needs, not linguacultural factors, for instance in scripted conference presentations, international publishing, on official political occasions and for formal business correspondence. Here it serves as a cross-linguistic or international medium of communication, where prestige and communicative effectiveness are seen to be strongly correlated with linguistic correctness. Sometimes, however, we have an English which, as a result of having spread from an ENL context to a non-ENL one, and also motivated by communicative need, is appropriated by its speakers and employed by them as ELF with very little reference to the norms pertaining in ENL contexts, such as when German tourists talk to their Cretan hosts or when Danish, Portuguese and Turkish teenagers interact in electronic chatrooms or also when an Austrian, a Hungarian and a Russian meet in Warsaw to devise a marketing strategy. It is therefore obvious that we cannot just conceive of one monolithic “English” in Europe, but rather something like the situation depicted in Figure 1. It needs to be pointed out, however, that areas A through D in Figure 1 are not hard and fast categories. In particular, the difference between B and C may not be immediately evident. However, if we take the emic perspective of what participants/speakers themselves perceive as paramount, then B is characterized by a goal of language use and learning that is epitomized by native speaker competence and Anglo-American culture(s). Quadrant C, however, is characterized by the goal of successful international communication that does not privilege English native speakers’ language and culture(s) per se, but does accept that, linguistically, ENL is the unquestioned (and unquestionable?) yardstick. So although both B and C adhere and defer to ENL norms, the motivating forces for doing so are different: They could be glossed by “identity” in B and “intelligibility” in C. Comparing C and D, in C the lingua franca function of English is foregrounded while leaving the supremacy of ENL norms in place. In D, in contrast, the lingua franca function of English is also expected to correlate with a gradual change of linguistic norms as the language is appropriated by its speakers.

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English in continental Europe (i.e., non-ENL contexts) perceived as ENL Lingua culturae2

ELF Lingua franca functioning as

A: First language in non-ENL contexts e.g., an American in Paris • ENL forms & culture • endonormative, norm-reinforcing • own norms as a given • focus on own identity

C: Lingua franca in/across non-ENL contexts e.g., a plenary talk at an international conference • ENL forms & culture • exonormative, norm-abiding • others’ norms as a means • focus on international intelligibility

B: Foreign language in non-ENL contexts e.g., an English lesson in Salzburg • ENL forms & culture • exonormative, norm-abiding • others’ norms as a target • focus on (others’) identity

D: Lingua franca in/across non-ENL contexts e.g., UN peacekeepers in Bosnia • non-ENL forms and culture • endonormative, norm-developing • own norms as emerging • focus on international intelligibility

Figure 1: English in continental Europe Acknowledging the distinction between the different meanings of English seems particularly important in the case of Europe, where the uses of the language as a wider means of communication are various and coexist with other languages with their own cultural and political claims. This situation is obviously problematic: The need for a common means of communication is in potential conflict with the ideals of societal multilingualism and individual plurilingualism. This intrinsic difficulty constitutes a challenge for language policy, a key issue to which we will return in the final section of this review. Overview of Recent Empirical Work This contribution is centrally concerned with the communicative functions of English as a lingua franca in Europe, and so deals with the right-hand side of Figure 1, , areas C and D. Area C is typically manifested in “prestigious” writing, e.g., scholarly articles and books, business correspondence and contracts, where the extent to which the actual forms are controlled by ENL speakers is difficult to ascertain (cf. special editing in journals, even translation); users of this ELF generally see themselves as still learning English (whether the researchers studying their English do or not) and think of linguistic correctness essentially as a feature inherent to the genre they are required to conform to. The objective of using ELF in area C is to achieve intelligibility across languages. The thrust of the descriptive work on C typically is a comparison

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between this ELF and ENL in both the spoken and the written medium. The ultimate aim of this descriptive work is often to help (advanced) learners approximate to the ENL target norm of the relevant area (domain, genre) more closely, as in work on English for specific purposes (ESP) or in descriptive work on learner corpora, both of which presuppose the need to conform to existing norms. Area D is typically manifested in spontaneous spoken interaction, such as casual conversation, but also in discussions at international conferences or in business meetings, whenever there is no possibility of “online” editing by ENL speakers (but speakers may of course monitor themselves carefully, or not). Speakers may either see themselves as learners of English or users of English in their own right. Descriptive work on D is usually done for the purpose of understanding how speakers communicate irrespective of whether or not they defer to ENL norms. The thrust of descriptive work thus typically is the identification of salient features of this ELF as the medium of intercultural communication in its own right. From the point of view of the development of ELF as documented by linguistic description, therefore, the most exciting area is D, because it is here that first signs of something like a characteristic emergent European English would be discernable, if one were ever to come about. This, however, is essentially an empirical question for descriptive linguistics that will require far more research than is currently available. Area D is also the area that is most controversial in applied linguistics in that users of ELF could be (and indeed have been) categorized, from a non-ELF perspective, as learners of ENL and distinctive features of their language use construed as simply deficient interlanguage fossilization or errors in need of correction. For all these reasons, area D is given special attention in the following overview. However, whereas the above delineation of area D would appear to be fairly straightforward, it is, like all categorizations, an idealization that abstracts from complex reality. This becomes evident when considering the relatively small number of recent studies whose declared aim is to make a contribution to the incipient description of actual ELF usage in Europe, either by considering European speakers exclusively or by including them in a wider range of L1 speakers. These studies all vary in the research questions they ask, the methodology they employ, the mix of first-language speakers they include, the levels of language they look at, the purposes they pursue and, not least, the researchers’ own attitudes towards ELF they reflect. This is why, on closer inspection, the idea of at least leaving open the option of ELF developing a life of its own is dealt with rather differently by different researchers. Some tend to approach the description of ELF data more through the lens of familiar ENL forms, essentially asking, “How do ELF speakers differ from ENL speakers?” and sometimes also “Which, or how many, mistakes do they make?”—to be brief, we might call this a predominantly “exonormative” approach. Others conceive of ELF differently: For them, it is in principle a language use in its own right (which may or may not develop into one or more distinctly European varieties), essentially asking “How do ELF speakers communicate? What seems important/useful to them?”—this might be termed a predominantly “endonormative” approach. Methodologically, the

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difference between the two approaches is thus the extent to which comparisons with forms as evidenced in comparable ENL data sets are foregrounded—that they are implicit in any description of ELF would seem to be inevitable, if only because of the historical fact that ENL preceded ELF. Another way of characterizing the differences between the two approaches could be that in the first case, the focus is more on a (quantitative) analysis of forms, whereas the second, it is more on a (qualitative) understanding of processes—allowing, of course, for any amount of gradation and interaction between the two. Since Seidlhofer’s (2004) fairly extensive overview of descriptive work on ELF in general, only a small number of new studies have been added, or completed. The overall picture is still of a field very much in its beginning stages and very much in flux. What has also remained is the fact that descriptive work on ELF in Europe is predominantly concerned with the spoken language, and to some extent informal email and e-chat. This is not surprising, as most researchers are aiming to capture spontaneous, unplanned and unedited production in “real time.” Mauranen, one of few published corpus-based ELF studies, regrets that “empiricist traditions such as corpus linguistics should keep away from ELF” (2005, p. 271) and points out that the “English teaching world has been more aware of the changing reality of the English language in the world than the world of descriptive linguistics” (p. 272). In her own study, she focuses on metadiscourse in academic ELF (describing, organizing and commenting on the ongoing discourse) as evidenced in the corpus of English as a Lingua Franca in Academic Settings (ELFA) being compiled at the University of Tampere (www.uta.fi/laitokset/kielet/engf/research/ elfa/), which she compares with the (ENL) Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English (MICASE; www.hti.umich.edu/micase/).3 Her findings show that metadiscursive functions in ELFA are expressed in ways very similar to those evidenced in MICASE but that, from an ENL/MICASE perspective, (a) forms were often approximate rather than accurate; (b) some form-function pairings were ignored; (c) some specific functions of expressions were ignored (Mauranen, 2005). Although this summary of her findings makes Mauranen appear to be firmly in the exonormative group, she also makes some intriguing observations in her paper that are entirely compatible with the endonormative approach, such as her concluding remark that “ELF use is complex and sophisticated, and its differences from L1 English are neither simple nor obvious” (2005, p. 290), and various other intriguing hints to the possibility that ELF speakers may fulfill the same functions without conforming to expected ENL norms. The research question of Mollin (2005), a recently completed doctoral thesis, is clearly expressed in the first part of its title, The Institutionalization of Euro-English? Form and Function of an Emerging Non-Native Variety of English in Europe. This study clearly declares itself exonormative in terms of the distinction made earlier. After a very thorough overview of the spread and functions of English in Europe, Mollin examines her own corpus of “European English” (public discussions, speeches, informal writing by speakers/writers with 20 different mother tongues represented in the EU) for certain features that have been hypothesized to be

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distinctive of ELF in Europe. A comparison of frequencies of lexical and grammatical features in her corpus with those in the spoken component of ICE-GB,4 as well as an attitude study using questionnaires lead her to the conclusion that— within the parameters she has limited herself to for her investigation—the hypothesized ELF features are to be judged as “errors” rather than variety-defining characteristics. Her overall answer to the (implied) question in her thesis title is thus clearly negative. Droeschl, Durham, and Rosenberger’s (2005) seems comparable in goal and methodology with reference to “Pan Swiss English.” There are also two recently completed doctoral theses from a British University that investigate ELF use, both focusing on conversation. Neither of these is limited to ELF in Europe, but both include European speakers. Roberts (2005) compares discourse strategies and conversational style of conversations in international settings with conversations where all the participants share a nationality. Although not aiming at a description of ELF features as such, his thesis might give rise to further research questions relevant to the study of ELF. Prodromou’s main research question is, “Why do even advanced users of English as a Lingua Franca avoid or have difficulty with idiomaticity?” (2005, p. 28). His corpus comprises spontaneous ELF speech produced by 42 proficient L2 users of English, 32 European and 10 Latin American; all are university graduates coming from a variety of professional backgrounds, “but with an emphasis on ELT professionals (teachers, trainers, writers, academics, publishers)” (2005, p. 116). To eliminate all but highly proficient ELF users, some speakers were “excluded on the basis of formal or pragmatic inaccuracy” (p. 121) at the stage of data selection. His hypothesis that L2 speakers “avoid using colorful idioms” is largely borne out in his analysis. In his thesis, Prodromou summarizes the characteristics of idiomaticity, which he concludes with the following observation: What comes easily to the L1-user only comes with great effort for the L2-user; what makes the L1-user sound natural makes the L2-user sound odd; what helps the L1-user sound fast and fluent may slow down the L2-user. The L2-user encounters an idiomaticity which comes from the depths of L1 cultural and interpersonal experience: it comes saturated with the institutionalised and individual uses to which it has been put over the years, at successive socio-cultural moments of face-to-face interaction and in a whole network of highways and byways. (2005, pp. 325–326) The question arises, of course, which insights into general processes at work in lingua franca communication Prodromou’s comparative findings might open up if approached with different research questions particularly crucial to ELF. Of course one can see that the particular, attested idiom of native speaker usage would pose problems for nonnative users. But the interesting question from an ELF point of view is, of course, how the entirely natural process of “idiomatizing” (cf. Sinclair’s 1991 “idiom principle,” pp. 110–115) is realized in ELF talk in its own right. Such a noncomparative perspective would open up new avenues of inquiry into the interplay

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between the demands of ad hoc communicative economy and expressions of identity, as well as the paramount importance of accommodation and face-saving communication strategies in intercultural encounters. It has to be borne in mind that Prodromou’s “SUE’s” (successful users of English) constitute a rather special, morethan-average “anglocentric” sub-group of the totality of ELF speakers. But even when examining their English, Prodromou concludes that “the suggestion that ELF users of English may be bending English to “carry the weight of their experience” (as noted by Achebe, 1975, p. 62) is becoming a reality” (2005, p. 336). This famous dictum by Chinua Achebe might serve as the motto for the following descriptive studies on ELF in Europe, which exhibit a clear endonormative orientation. Penz (2003) is part of a larger postdoctoral study investigating successful intercultural communication among speakers from a variety of European languages. Ahvenainen (2005) investigates problem-solving mechanisms in information exchange dialogues in ELF between speakers of European and other first languages, and problem-solving of a very serious kind is the focus of Guido’s (2005) discussion of the problematic nature of official reformulations of asylum seekers’ oral reports in Southern Italy. Another source of treatments of ELF in Europe (and elsewhere) is the International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 177 (Meierkord, 2006). Cogo (2005) and Cogo, Grundy, Perianova, Tsurikova, and Woodfield (2005) explore ways of expressing identity and culture in ELF. On the basis of her corpus of naturally occurring conversations among speakers from a variety of (mostly) European first languages, Congo challenge the widespread assumption that ELF is culturally void, full of misunderstandings and that speakers use ELF as a neutral tool for communication, but not for identification. Her findings so far show identity to be a complex issue, with ELF speakers’ identities closely bound up with issues of bi-multilingualism and bi-multiculturalism. Dewey (2005) focuses on what he terms innovative features in the lexis and grammar of ELF communications in a globalized framework. He regards these features as emerging as a result of ongoing processes that have a long, important precedent in the development of English in all its contexts. All of the features described on the basis of his natural ELF data are regarded as indicative of emerging patterns and deemed to be systematic, frequent, and communicatively effective. Dewey’s research questions are strikingly similar to Mollin’s, but the emerging findings promise to be intriguingly different. Dresemann (in preparation) and Poncini (2004) focus on business communication (primarily) via ELF, whereas Erling (2004) and Schaller-Schwaner (2005) consider the role of ELF in academic contexts. Poncini emphasizes that, when investigating the business meetings in her study, . . . it is valid to take the meetings as a single culture or a level of culture and to focus on what seems to work as opposed to what does not. This approach could provide insight into how participants’ use of language in such settings could possibly facilitate intercultural business communication. This in turn could

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increase understanding of what contributes to successful communication in multicultural business meetings and what role is played by other situational factors. (Poncini, 2004, p. 59) Poncini’s situated approach seems to be particularly compatible with several Europe-focused studies recently conducted on data sets most of which form part of the Vienna-Oxford International Corpus of English (VOICE; www.univie.ac.at/voice). These include Breiteneder (2005a, 2005b) on verb morphology in ELF; Brkinja (2005) on humor in ELF; Keitsch (2004) on conversational strategies for expressing the interculture of ELF; Klimpfinger (2005) on the role of speakers’ first and other languages in ELF talk; Kordon (2003) on phatic communion in ELF; Pitzl (2004, 2005) on managing miscommunication in ELF business meetings; Šimi (2005) on power in company telephone conferences; Strasser (2004) on pragmatic and lexicogrammatical aspects of the use of ELF in a large Austrian company; and Wagner (2005) on metalinguistic features in the use of ELF in professional contexts and casual conversation. A summary of lexicogrammatical tendiences in ELF, based on samples of the VOICE corpus, can be found in Seidlhofer (2005). What becomes evident from all these studies is that part of the interest (and difficulty) of empirical work on ELF results from the fact that spontaneous ELF communication always has an element of adhoc negotiation of relevant norms, because speakers’ systemic/linguistic and schematic/cultural backgrounds vary from case to case, by definition. It is thus particularly important to understand every speech event in its own right, to appreciate the negotiated nature of the interaction (including speaker relationships, purpose of the interaction, and all the Hymesian factors of the speech event) and the way speakers co-construct the medium of communication to best suit their needs. This can best be done in clearly situated case studies, which yield qualitative findings that can then be examined for possible explanations and further enquiry. For these reasons, we devote the next section to the presentation and discussion of two such case studies. Case Studies As outlined previously, the features observable in ELF data require “unprejudiced description” (Firth, 1996, p. 241), detached from any a priori evaluation based on ENL standards. Given that findings and descriptions of ELF speech are still rather scarce, however, ELF researchers are usually forced to draw on already existing models. Yet, most of these models stem from descriptions of ENL data. In order to bridge this existing descriptive gap, an ELF approach clearly requires several steps: finding a suitable model for the specific phenomenon; abstracting the existing model from its original (in most cases ENL) context; adapting the detached model to the ELF context; analyzing the chosen phenomenon and describing the observed features of ELF in their own right. The present case studies focus on two different linguistic levels, namely lexicogrammar and pragmatics respectively. Yet, they do not only share the ELF

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approach outlined earlier, but also draw on comparable ELF data as the bases for their analyses. Both case studies rely on interactions among experienced and regular users of ELF in professional contexts across Europe. Whereas the first case study is based on working group discussions concerned with European higher education, the second case study draws on an ELF interaction in a business context. Given the professional, work-related nature of the ELF conversations, it is clear that these ELF speakers cannot be labeled language learners but have to be acknowledged as independent language users who appropriate the English language for their specific communicative needs. Accordingly, the English these speakers produce in the recorded contexts clearly belongs to category D. Case Study 1: The “Third Person –s” The first study draws on a small-scale ELF corpus of about 50,000 transcribed words, comprising four working group discussions between representatives of the EU government and national agencies of higher education. The interactions took place in Denmark and Austria in “influential frameworks” (House, 1999, p. 74) of top-level higher education policy-making and represent naturally occurring conversations, highly interactive, non-scripted talk-in-action, with highly specialized content. The participants comprise a group of speakers from 21 diverse linguacultural backgrounds in Europe who are highly experienced, competent and fluent users of ELF. This study focuses on the lexicogrammatical aspect of the morphological marking of third person singular present tense verbs in ELF interactions and is based on a more extensive treatment of this subject (Breiteneder, 2005a). The larger study considers the parallels between the extralinguistic circumstances associated with the ELF data obtained and those under which post-colonial New Englishes have emerged. Although there are findings to the contrary (e.g., Mollin, 2005), the study supports Graddol’s view that “[i]t is difficult not to see the emergence of a distinct form of Euro-English, along the lines of the ‘New Englishes’” (2001, p. 55). In line with the general understanding that extralinguistic aspects have considerable influence on the development of structural properties of a language (cf. Schneider, 2003; Weinrich, 1974), the tendency “not to mark the verb for third person singular in its present-tense form” (Platt, Weber, & Ho, 1984, p. 85), as attested in various New Englishes, is taken as the starting point for the case study. Breiteneder’s data analysis reveals 141 instances of present tense indicative main verbs that combine with third person singular subjects.5 Out of these 141 “slots” which could be filled with the “third person –s”, 29 verb tokens, i.e., 20.57 percent of all cases, show zero marking (henceforth 3sg ). Extract 1 provides an example of 3sg in the data: Extract 16 (S8 = Czech, S1 = Norwegian): S8: that means (.) if he (.) e:rm m- make disser- dissertation work in er french S1: mhm

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S8: he get the diplom {diploma} of charles university (.) and french university can give him also the diplom {diploma} As for the distribution of 3sgØ across speakers, one finds that 14 different ELF speakers with nine different linguacultural backgrounds use 3sgØ. It is interesting to note, however, that no single speaker lacks the “third person –s” completely, i.e. all 14 ELF speakers make use of 3sgØ at some points but stick to the ‘third person -s’ marking (henceforth 3sg-s) at others. Additionally, the data attest 15 instances of what could be called “superfluous” -s marking: in 12 instances, the present tense main verbs receive morphological marking though they combine with overtly marked plural or coordinated subjects; in two instances, morphologically inflected verbs can be identified after the modal auxiliaries can and have to; in one instance, 3sg-s is found with a third person singular past tense verb. Extract 2 provides an illustration of the superfluous use of the -s marker: Extract 2 (S6 = Danish, S1 = Danish): S6: and then it’s (.) it’s (.) it’s (.) perfectly alright that (.) the different (.) networks around e:r the world (.) <5> adopts e:r other <6> principles or even sharper principles (.) S1: <5> mhm S1: <6> mhm Ten individual ELF speakers with nine distinct linguacultural backgrounds use superfluous 3sg-s. It is worthy of note that, with the exception of two individuals, all ELF users either show the intermittent absence of the third person –s marker or its overgeneralization. However, they tend not to do both. In any case, neither any of the 15 occurrences of superfluous -s marking, nor any of the 29 instances of 3sgØ actually hamper mutual intelligibility between the ELF speakers. Repeated backchannels (e.g., hm, mhm, yeah) and straightforward answers from other participants confirm that the third person –s is communicatively redundant. It is apparent that the ELF speakers in the data, all of whom have received formal instruction in English, know the third person –s rule, because no single speaker fails to mark the third person –s completely or consistently overgeneralizes it. Yet, 22 out of 41 speakers disregard the ENL norms in some instances. This observation calls for a comprehensive explanation and invites a detailed consideration of linguistic and extralinguistic environments that might trigger the speakers’ linguistic behavior. Given that no research has yet systematically looked at the lexicogrammar of ELF talk, however, it is necessary to draw on descriptive and interpretative categories that have been used with reference to other Englishes around the world. In fact, 3sgØ and superfluous -s marking as observed in the ELF data are by no means peculiar to ELF talk, but constitute regular features of various varieties

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of English in all three of Kachru’s (1992) circles (e.g., Labov, 1977 and Trudgill, 2002 for ENL; Platt, Weber, & Ho, 1984 for New Englishes). To begin with, the intermittent absence or the overgeneralization of the -s marker might be partly due to the fact that the third person -s constitutes one of the “[g]rammatical idiosyncrasies of Standard English” (Trudgill, 1999, p. 125) and finds itself among the “afunctional grammatical categories” (Trudgill, 2002, p. 92). Both the loss as well as the overuse of the -s affix represent a regularization of the nonnatural system of Standard English and are “chief ways in which simplification is accomplished” (Moag, 1982, p. 44). Moreover, on the phonological level, consonant cluster simplification, which has been identified as a typical tendency in rapid ENL speech and New Englishes (cf. Carter & McCarthy, 1997; Platt, Weber, & Ho, 1984), may be an explanation for 3sgØ in at least five instances of the corpus (Breiteneder, 2005a). On the lexical and syntactical level, three environments appear to be particularly likely to trigger 3sgØ or the overgeneralization of the third person -s, namely subjects that contain (1) a collective head noun, (2) coordination or (3) an indefinite expression (Breiteneder, 2005b). It is in these cases, that the ELF users— similar to ENL speakers (Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech, & Svartvik, 1997)—tend to prioritize the principles of notional concord and proximity over the principle of grammatical concord7 and therefore either use 3sgØ or superfluous 3sg-s. An illustration of these three cases is provided in extracts 3 to 5. In extract 3, the grammatically singular subject ministry is combined with the morphologically unmarked verb decide. It is the principle of notional concord that might prompt the ELF speaker to use 3sgØ in this case: Extract 3 (S1 = Swedish, S9 = Croatian): S1: but universities make suggestions (.) ministry decide? S9: yes In extract 4, the subject is coordinated by and and therefore counts as plural according to Standard English rules (Biber, Johansson, Leech, Conrad, & Finegan, 1999). It seems that it is the principle of proximity that prompts the ELF speaker to employ 3sg-s for thinks: Extract 4 (S15 = French): S15: because (.) the institutions and the network (.) thinks that it’s important. Extract 5 illustrates one of the instances where an indefinite pronoun (everybody) is combined with a morphologically unmarked verb. In accordance with the principle of notional concord, the choice of the verb form may be prompted by the plural meaning of the subject everybody rather than its singular form.

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Extract 5 (S4 = Portuguese): S4: okay. everybody initially talk about it. but (.) since this is a very er expensive field (.) er austria is not er belonging to iso Above and beyond these potential linguistic explanations, the extralinguistic environment of the recorded ELF data may have caused or assisted processes of simplification and regularization of the present tense verb morphology. On the one hand, ELF conversations provide multilingual settings and therefore necessarily create contact situations, which often stimulate simplification processes (cf. Trudgill, 2002). On the other hand, consistent with Labov’s (1970) concept of the vernacular, a strong focus on the content of the interactions rather than on form might trigger 3sgØ or superfluous -s marking. During their meetings, the ELF speakers focus on their joint communicative enterprises and use ELF as a transactional means for the successful exchange of information. They direct their attention not to the language, but rather to the content of their discussions. To let the ELF users speak for themselves, “what really matters is that we are sort of basically understood” (S1 = Danish). Case Study 2: Strategic Miscommunication When analyzing intercultural encounters with regard to the broad area of “miscommunication”, strategic, or intentional, miscommunication is often excluded from the researchers’ theoretical frameworks. Taken to an extreme, one encounters a view whereby the only type of miscommunication considered relevant is the one stemming from participants’ cultural differences (e.g., Banks, Ge, & Baker, 1991). It has been shown that such a narrow approach, which Sarangi (1994) calls “analytic stereotyping” (p. 409), is unfavorable for ELF research (cf. Pitzl, 2004; Poncini, 2004). Even though ELF interactions always happen in multilingual and multicultural settings, there is no reason why one should not expect various types of miscommunication, including strategic miscommunication, in ELF. The second case study presents a segment of a larger study documenting that a spectrum of different types of miscommunication indeed occurs in ELF (Pitzl, 2004). The vast majority of these, however, are local and rather quickly resolved. Although several instances of negotiated nonunderstandings, two instances of preventing miscommunication and one local misunderstanding were observed, neither of these presented great difficulty for the interlocutors (see Pitzl, 2004, pp. 73–114). Only a single instance of sustained misframing appeared to endanger the success of the conversation for several minutes before it was ultimately recognized and resolved (see Pitzl, 2004, pp. 121–127). Furthermore, it became evident that the ELF speakers’ linguistic diversity does not diminish their potential to communicate—and also to miscommunicate—strategically. It is this last issue which the present case study serves to illustrate.

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The ELF data examined for this purpose stems from a business meeting that took place at a branch office of an international forwarding agency in Luxembourg. This meeting was audio-recorded and transcribed and can be considered natural ELF speech. It involves native speakers of German (S1 and S3), who are employees of the forwarding agency, and one native speaker of Dutch (S2), who is a sales representative of an airline and has come to the forwarding agency for a sales visit. Consequently, both parties have definite, if very different interactional goals. These opposing goals as well as the business culture of forwarding are foregrounded during the meeting, whereas the speakers’ primary L1 cultures are in the background (cf. Meierkord, 2002). Within this European ELF business context, the following stretch of conversation occurs: Extract 6 (S1 = German, S2 = Dutch, S3 = German): 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33

S2:

S3: S2: S3: S2: S3: S2:

S1: S1: S3: S2:

okay. (.) i give you ALL the details [S3] it’s a well i got a total list. from from dubai and we just (.) reNEWED the whole list. (.) because we CHANGED ou:r (.) trucking (.) PARTNER actually in dubai to a new one. and this: (.) this <1> one is very good <1> xxx (are) you working with? oh i don’t know i forgot the name (.) <2> [company13]? <2> but before (2) n- no. no? i don’t believe so. (2) no. because WHY we changed it we had some some problems (.) e:r something like (.) i don’t know a YEAR ago. and this trucking company (.) when we BOOKED something (.) okay we ORDERED (.) i don’t know (.) six seven eight trucks (.) and then they show up with only FOUR and the next day ANOTHER four that <3> er well this this is not working <4> properly of course. (.) <3> hhhh <4> mhm but this is pretty normal in <@> dubai: @ <5> @@ <5> ye:s but (.) you know especially NOW because (.) we a:re (.) NOW with this new trucking company (.) they want to perFORM them- (.) -SELF (1) very good because they want to see {say} HEY we are better than this (.) than this (.) OTHER company. (1) <6> and e:r

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34 35 36 37 38 39 40

S1: S2: S1: S2:

<6> with whom are you working now? (1) again e:r [S1]? with WHOM? (.) which trucking company <7> you’re working? <7> i don’t i don’t know. but i i’ll let you know the name of it.

There is one particular aspect of this short stretch of conversation which is noticeable at first glance: S2 is asked the same question twice within only a couple of seconds (line 7 and line 34). Because S2 already utters a response to the first question in line 6, the second question is superfluous, flouting the Gricean maxim of quantity. It can therefore be regarded as an instance of miscommunication. One might suggest that this incidence is simply caused by the fact that S1 was not paying full attention when the question was discussed the first time (lines 7– 13). This seems unlikely, however, when considering S1’s role throughout the meeting: As S1 ranks highest in the company hierarchy and therefore performs the function of the chairperson in the meeting, he is constantly attentive and actively takes part in the proceedings throughout. Consequently, it seems improbable that he would have completely missed S2 and S3’s exchange in lines 7 to 13. Given the highly goal-oriented nature of the interaction, it rather appears that S1 deliberately poses the same question to S2 again. Aware that S2 is unable to provide the requested information (line 9), S1 decides to ask the same question again and thereby intentionally causes an instance of miscommunication. In this, he precisely follows House’s definition of strategic misunderstanding as being “deliberately used by speakers in order to gain an advantage over their interlocutor” (1999, p. 78). Forcing S2 to admit a second time that he does not know the name of the new trucking company in Dubai clearly weakens the sales representative’s position in the meeting. Simultaneously, the employees of the forwarding agency gain strategic advantage. Because both parties are familiar with the rules of the game, i.e., the rules of a sales meeting in a forwarding business, it also needs to be considered how S2 reacts to S1’s strategic question. Looked at in isolation, lines 34 to 40 would simply appear to be a negotiated nonunderstanding, similar to the ones analyzed in Pitzl (2005). In relation to the strategic co-text and context discussed previously, however, S2’s request for clarification in line 36 (again e:r [S1]?) serves to delay his own answer. It can therefore be interpreted as a conscious attempt to mitigate the effect of S1’s strategic maneuver and is another, yet less visible, instance of strategic miscommunication. Of course, it is always difficult for the analyst to state “with even a fair degree of certainty what a speaker “meant” by some utterance or specifying precisely what the communicative effect of the utterance was for the listener” (McGregor, 1985, p. 3). Certainly, the question of intentionality in miscommunication is rather

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complex in this respect. Yet, intentionality and strategic (mis)communication are integral parts of this specific business interaction. The participants are strongly aware of this, which is made explicit in the following: Extract 7 (S1 = German, S2 = Dutch): 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

S1: S2: S1: S2: S1: SX-f: S1:

everything is from [S2] er (that) you have (.) already (.) ye<3>ah <3> it fits <4> on that tape? <4> but that that’s clear (.) SALES. @@ <5> @@@@ <5> PURE sales. @@ @ <@> he has to sell a product (.) to us (.) so (.) that’s the way it is

In this short exchange, in which the researcher is addressed, S1 makes strong statements about S2’s role and his linguistic behavior during the meeting. S2, however, does not object. On the contrary, he supports S1 with a humorous question (line 3) and laughter (line 5). There is no doubt that both parties behave strategically and indeed expect strategic behavior from the other participants. One would not be doing justice to these experienced professionals if one were to deny their high degree of mutual awareness. The fact that these speakers are so-called “non-native speakers of English” who do not share the same linguacultural background by no means restricts their ability to miscommunicate strategically and to deploy the language for their own interactive purposes. Both case studies presented here draw on specific professional contexts of a kind in which ELF is regularly used throughout Europe. They clearly illustrate that ELF users cannot be categorized as “permanent learners” (Medgyes, 1994, p. 83); neither can their English be labeled “half-English” or “garbled English” (Görlach, 2002, pp. 12–13). On the contrary, the analyses reveal that the ELF users are adept at exploiting the grammatical forms and pragmatic functions of English. Study 1 shows how users of ELF take advantage of the built-in redundancy of Standard English grammar and do not hesitate to do away with an idiosyncrasy such as the third person -s, when conveying the message is more important than adhering to grammatical norms. Study 2 exemplifies how ELF users skillfully utilize English for their communicative goals in a sales context. Exploiting the creative and strategic possibilities, they make the language their own. In that manner, the ELF speakers in both data sets exhibit highly effective linguistic behavior. Although, of course, one cannot generalize about ELF in Europe as a whole on the basis of these two case studies, they do nevertheless exemplify some salient features of actually occurring ELF usage that warrant attention, and so give direction to further enquiries.

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Future Directions and Challenges Uncoupling the language from its native speakers and probing the nature of ELF is a special methodological challenge because most of the descriptive and analytic categories and approaches available have evolved through work on fairly stable codes in native-speaker communities, so these cannot automatically be assumed to be appropriate. Hence it is advisable to be tentative and circumspect and to proceed by way of clearly situated qualitative studies with a strong ethnographic element. As more qualitative, hypothesis-forming findings begin to emerge, it will become possible to introduce more controlled, quantitative procedures. This is in accordance with the general (and generally accepted) principle that “methods should be subordinate to research objectives, and not the other way round” (Janicki, 1985, p. 51). What needs to be given priority is the identification of salient features of ELF. This, as Janicki says, “is necessary, as our knowledge of the phenomenon is extremely small” (1985, p. 53). It is interesting to note that in 1985, Janicki was discussing the then-new area of studying “the foreigner’s language” and facing the same methodological questions ELF researchers are now. At this stage, then, there is an urgent need for significantly more qualitative studies to be conducted, the data from which can then be incorporated into emerging larger corpora of ELF as used in different settings and by a range of first-language speakers.8 It would seem premature to ask questions about the degree to which ELF in Europe can be regarded as an actual variety (Euro-English) in any meaningful sense before a better understanding has been achieved of the general processes at work in such an unprecedented situation of language spread. As more descriptive findings become available, it will be interesting to see how they relate to issues of standardization versus self-regulation as discussed, for example, in a special issue of the International Journal of the Sociology of Language highlighting these two processes (Meierkord, 2006). One area that the conceptualization and description of ELF is bound to impinge on is second language acquisition (SLA) research. This brings to mind the important debate sparked off by Firth and Wagner’s 1997 article,9 especially of course, their contention that mainstream SLA suffers from “a skewed perspective on discourse and communication, which conceives of the foreign language speaker as a deficient communicator struggling to overcome an underdeveloped L2 competence, striving to reach the ‘target’ competence of an idealized native speaker” (1997, p. 285). Entirely in keeping with the remarks made above about the desirability of qualitative ELF research, Firth and Wagner contend that “SLA research requires a significantly enhanced awareness of the contextual and interactional dimensions of language use, an increased ‘emic’ (i.e., participant-relevant) sensitivity toward fundamental concepts, and the broadening of the traditional SLA database” (p. 285). It would be interesting to revisit the Firth and Wagner article (and those who challenged it) nearly 10 years on and to relate their observations and claims to insights emerging from descriptive ELF research.

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But it is not only research on the use and learning of the language code where an ELF orientation is having an impact. The emergence of an endonormative conceptualization of ELF use raises interesting questions for social psychology and sociolinguistics. Here, a particularly important and lively research area concerns issues of language attitudes and identity (Cheshire, 2002; Duszak, 2002; Joseph 2004a, 2004b; Pavlenko & Blackledge, 2004; Pölzl, 2005; Simon, 2004). Jenkins (in press b) is entirely devoted to the exploration and discussion of attitudes and identity as they relate to ELF, particularly among nonnative teachers of English. Jenkins’ recent and current research investigates the responses to her earlier work on the phonology of ELF (see overview in Seidlhofer, 2004) in relation to standard (native speaker, NS) language ideology and accent attitudes, and explores the impact of these two phenomena on ELF identities (see also Jenkins, 2005a, 2005b, in press a). Clearly the increasing prominence of ELF by its nature poses a considerable challenge to existing established attitudes towards the nature of English and its teaching. It is therefore important to address concerns voiced by teachers and learners of English in Europe. Valuable contributions to this area of investigation come from various parts of Europe: Adolphs (2005) discusses students’ attitudes in the United Kingdom, Hafner (2003) and Ranta (2004) concern Austria and Finland respectively, and McCaughey gives us an up-to-date glimpse of how Russian teachers of English are now also encountering new ideas about ELF: Understanding British culture is not the main goal of every Russian. But speaking and understanding English, can be a way of accessing any culture. Russian is used in communicating with those from the former USSR countries, but this too is likely to change in the coming decades, as fewer denizens of those countries study Russian, and more study English. The position in the Russian Far East is quite different from that of St Petersburg, and learners are as likely to use their English with someone from Japan, North or South Korea, or China as they are with a native English speaker. The language teaching community in Russia needs to come to terms with this idea. It is still tantamount to heresy to suggest an English lingua franca be taught in schools, that such a language is not a corruption and a poorer model of British or American English. Will the Russian linguistic community ever look to international English for its standards? (McCaughey, 2005, pp. 448–459) It stands to reason that these are also “testing times for testers”—the title of Jenkins’ first paper in the ‘Point and counterpoint’ exchange with Lynda Taylor in ELT Journal (Jenkins, 2006a, 2006b; Taylor, 2006; see also Elder & Davies, this volume). This intensive discussion encapsulates all the difficult issues that the emergence of ELF has also set in train—for testing research as well as the testing industry. Here again, the crucial point is that much more descriptive work on ELF is urgently needed, as this is bound to affect in very significant ways just what is, or can be, tested.

ENGLISH AS A LINGUA FRANCA IN EUROPE

The current scarcity of reliable, representative empirical findings on features and processes characteristic of ELF usage by European speakers means that we need to be very cautious not to make premature claims about the teaching and testing of ELF. But this state of affairs does not preclude implications for actual classroom pedagogy from being vigorously discussed in applied linguistics (cf. contributions in the second part of this volume; and Rubdy & Saraceni, 2006). It will take some time, however, until the growing awareness of the emergence and significance of ELF will bring about change in the actual practice of English teaching. However, there have been developments in European education which indicate a quite radical reappraisal of the principles and practices of foreign language education. One of these is the rethinking of the common practice of teaching individual foreign languages as separate subjects in the curriculum, and with exclusively native linguacultural models in mind. In particular, there is the teaching of language awareness in general (rather than focusing only on particular languages), the objective of which is to foster an understanding in learners of how language in general operates in similar or different ways across communities with different languages. This idea has already been put into practice in Denmark, France, Germany, and Switzerland (cf. Phillipson, 2003) and is a welcome development in language education that might perhaps have been given more room in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (Council of Europe, 2001), especially given its obvious relevance to the problem of the dominance of English as a foreign language in European schools (Seidlhofer, 2003a, pp. 22–23; see also Lüdi, 2002; Tosi & Leung, 1999). The language awareness movement in schools will be able to benefit from the growing body of research into the linguistic awareness in multilinguals (Jessner, 2006), which is also one of the areas covered by the journal Language Awareness (published by Multilingual Matters)10. Another development relevant to the role of ELF is content-and-languageintegrated learning (CLIL).11 This is the re-emergence of the concept of contentbased instruction, currently very popular with many European school authorities, which, in principle, could involve any foreign language. In practice, however, it turns out to be “content-and-English-integrated-learning” (CEIL), in the vast majority of cases. This fact, in turn, has given rise to concerns about the danger of a (partly covert) Anglo-American hegemony exerted through CLIL practices, as discussed in the debate entitled “Learning English or learning in English: Will we have a choice?” at the 2005 IATEFL Conference (cf. http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianweekly/ story/0,12674,1395532,00.html—see particularly the contribution by David Graddol entitled “Spoken everywhere but at what cost?”). Similarly, TESOL held a symposium in Istanbul in September 2005 addressing issues in dual language education from a variety of perspectives (see http://www.tesol.org/s_tesol/ sec_document.asp?CID=250&DID=3115). The developments of both language awareness and CLIL, like ELF, are directly related to the central question of European language policy, namely just how English (in all its guises) can or should relate to all the other several languages of Europe (and vice versa) at the individual as well as at the societal level12 (Ahrens,

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2003; Gupta, 2001; Lever, 2003; Phillipson, 2003). These are, then, interesting times for linguistic research, language policy and language education in that they have a real contribution to make to sociopolitical and socioeconomic debates in today’s Europe, in all of which English (in all the forms included in the areas in the diagram in Figure 1) is bound to figure quite prominently. The crucial question is how Europe, and the EU in particular, will deal with its complex linguacultural situation: on the one hand, Europe is a mosaic of relatively small countries, heterogeneous in terms of ethnic groups and languages. It is an important tenet of the current European ideology that these diverse groupings should possess rights and share resources in the most equitable way possible. Unlike other parts of the world, which are much more multilingual, Europe is home to a relatively small number of languages. These, however, with very few exceptions have institutional status, and most are national languages which represent a long heritage of sociocultural identity for their speakers (see also Wright, 2000; 2004; this volume). On the other hand, the EU is striving hard to put into practice what its programmatic name expresses: to become a true community beyond the boundaries of nation states and individual languages. And obviously, what would seem to be crucial for a sense of community would be to have a common language, a role for which English is the primary candidate, both “desired and dreaded” (Hüllen, 2003). This state of affairs thus looks like an irresolvable dilemma: In order to have a sense of community, a common language is needed, but having a common language is seen as a threat to European multilingualism. How can one promote a common language for the community while supporting equal rights for all community languages at the same time? In this dilemma English thus finds itself in a truly pivotal position. It will not be possible to resolve it if we adhere to traditional concepts of European languages essentially mapped onto European nation states because this would mean that the language which is the strongest candidate for a lingua franca function is at the same time the “property” or “prerogative” of two of the member states of the EU that are home to the native speakers of “English”, Ireland and the United Kingdom. We contend that the only way out of this quandary is to welcome next to the familiar, long-established ENL an essentially different English, ELF, as an independent concept whose linguacultural norms are not controlled by native speakers. Uncoupling any language from its native speakers is, of course, a challenging idea that will require a considerable effort of adjustment of attitudes and long-established concepts of just what a language is. Some proposals as to how this situation might be approached have been put forward (Brumfit, 2005; House, 2003; Neuner, 2002; Seidlhofer, 2003a). It will not come as a surprise that the subtitle of Graddol (2006) is Why global English may mean the end of ‘English as a Foreign Language.’ NOTES 1. Many thanks to Bill Templer for pointing this out to us.

ENGLISH AS A LINGUA FRANCA IN EUROPE

2. Cf. Pölzl (2005, p. 16ff). 3. Because ELFA speakers come from both inside and outside Europe, this study is not limited to academic ELF speech by Europeans. But all the speech events took place in Finland, so in that sense we are concerned with ELF in Europe. 4. http://www.ucl.ac.uk/english-usage/projects/ice-gb/index.htm 5. The primary verb be in its function as a main verb is excluded from the following discussion for reasons of limited space and the fact that it forms a special case as an irregular verb which is inflected on all persons in the present tense (am, is, are). 6. All extracts quoted conform to the VOICE Transcription Conventions [2.0]. The general format of these conventions uses capital letters solely for marking emphasized speech; thus all nonemphasized words including names of countries and languages, are decapitalized. Furthermore, numbered tags are used to indicate overlapping speech and the @- symbol is used to indicate laughter. A comprehensive explanation of the transcription conventions is available on http://www.univie.ac.at/voice. The first languages of the respective ELF speakers are given at the beginning of each extract. 7. Grammatical concord is defined as “[t]he rule that the verb matches its subject in number,” notional concord is “agreement of verb with subject according to the notion of number rather than with the actual presence of the grammatical marker for that notion,” and the principle of proximity denotes “agreement of the verb with a closely preceding noun phrase in preference to agreement with the head of the noun phrase that functions as the subject” (Quirk et al., 1997, p. 757). 8. This is taken into account in decisions regarding the compilation of the VOICE corpus (www.univie.ac.at/voice), and has been discussed in countless interesting hours among the present authors and Theresa Klimpfinger, Kathrin Kordon, Stefan Majewski, and Henry Widdowson. 9. All articles contributing to this debate appeared in the same issue of Modern Language Journal, 81(3), except Susan Gass' contribution, which appeared in Modern Language Journal, 82(1). The controversy (Firth and Wagner plus all the authors who opposed their ideas, but not those who basically agreed) is reprinted and commented on in Seidlhofer 2003b. 10. See also the L3 Bibliography compiled by Britta Hufeisen und Nicole Marx available at http://www.spz.tu-darmstadt.de/projekt_l3/Bibliography/bibliogr.html 11. Cf. http://www.clilcompendium.com/ 12. The question of how EU institutions themselves cope with their large number of official languages, and how the roles of official and working languages relate and are put into practice, has been a matter of lively and controversial discussion, both within

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EU bodies themselves as well as in scholarly debate. Because a consideration of this large area of discussion would go well beyond the scope of this article, readers might want to consult Dollerup (1996), McArthur (2003), Melchers & Shaw (2003, ch. 6.2.2), Phillipson (2003, ch. 4), Tosi (2003; 2005) and van Els (2005) for information as well as some provocative ideas.

ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY Ahrens, R. (Ed.). (2003). Europäische Sprachenpolitik. European language policy. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter. This volume is a collection of papers on problematic issues of language policy in the European Union from a variety of linguistic, applied linguistic and interdisciplinary perspectives. In this multiplicity of approaches, special attention is given to the role of English as the recognized lingua franca in Europe in many contributions and the impact of English on professional domains, national contexts as well as language teaching and learning in Europe is considered. Gnutzmann, C., & Intemann, F. (Eds.). (2005). The globalisation of English and the English language classroom. Tübingen: Narr. The bulk of recent empirical work on English as a lingua franca is currently almost exclusively found in unpublished PhD and MA theses. This collection of papers, therefore, has to be given credit as one of the very few books which also include descriptive research into English as a lingua franca. The contributions of this volume approach the globalization of English and its possible consequences for the language classroom from a variety of different, sometimes controversial, perspectives and cover topics like the political and sociocultural dimensions of the globalization of English, linguistic and sociolinguistics exemplifications, pedagogical implications and the related issue of teacher education. The book also offers a section on teaching and learning applications of the globalization of English with a focus on the current situation in Europe. Graddol, D. (2001). The future of English as a European language. The European Messenger, X/2, 47–55. This article pins down some of the central questions about the impact of English in Europe. Mainly focusing on the member states of the EU, it addresses the conflicts between the concept of English as a second language and Europe’s national languages ideology, between the promotion of Europe’s linguistic diversity and the exceptional role of English in Europe. By relating what is happening in present-day Europe to the old European linguistic order, Graddol tackles the question of the future of

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English in Europe, speculating about its indigenization and emphasizing that the future of English as a European language will by no means take the form of a single monolithic development. Melchers, G., & Shaw, P. (2003). World Englishes: An introduction. London: Arnold. This is a linguistic textbook which provides a general introduction to the global spread of English, principles of linguistic variation and different ways of classifying English around the world. The book is then divided into three chapters, each dealing with the English encountered in one of Kachru’s three circles. The focus is clearly on the “Inner Circle” and the “Outer Circle,” but the liberal, if fairly condensed, section on the “Expanding Circle” also addresses issues like the rise of English, its domains of use and linguistic manifestations, its effects on other languages as well as future implications for teaching. This makes the book a useful contribution to the theme of this chapter. Phillipson, R. (2003). English-only Europe: Challenging language policy. London: Routledge. This book presents a fervent argument for a strong language policy in Europe and the European Union in order to protect and ensure equal linguistic rights for all European citizens. Promoting multilingualism, the book challenges the predominant position of English within Europe and criticizes the policies that support it. On this note, the last section presents recommendations for action on language policies with regard to national and supranational language policy infrastructure, the EU institutions, research, language teaching and learning.

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