ELF English as a Lingua Franca Pavel Kurfrst

ELF (English as a Lingua Franca) Pavel Kurfürst Ústav cizích jazyků LF UP leden 2004

Oxford je dnes hluboce evropský i díky svému každodennímu pouličnímu životu. (. . . ) Dnes tady máme víc kaváren než hospod. Jsou plné německých, italských, španělských, polských, českých, řeckých, finských, švédských a ruských studentů. (. . . ) Václav Havel mi kdysi řekl, že jsou tři druhy angličtiny: „Existuje typ angličtiny, kterou Češi mluví se Španěly a Italové s Rusy. Té rozumíte stoprocentně. Z americké angličtiny pochytíte tak asi 50 procent. A pak je tu anglická angličtina, z níž není rozumět ničemu. " Angličtina v oxfordských kavárnách většinou spadá do první a druhé kategorie. Dnes se jí říká (. . . ) English as a Lingua Franca (ELF). Timothy Garton Ash ředitel Centra evropských studií, St. Antony's College, Oxford New Statesman, MF DNES, červen 2003

n n n ELF – English as a lingua franca ELFE – English as a lingua franca in Europe (Euro-English) EIL – English as an international language (International English) English as a world language (World English) English as a global language (Global English) English as a medium of intercultural communication

lingua franca n traders’ language in Mediterranean: the mixed language used chiefly by merchants throughout the Mediterranean ports until the 18 th century, consisting mainly of Italian with elements of French, Spanish, Greek, Arabic, and Turkish (late 17 th century, from Italian) n n any of various languages used as common or commercial tongues among peoples of diverse speech something resembling a common language Encarta, Merriam-Webster

global spread of English (world language) n n does not mean that everybody on earth speaks English nothing to do with the qualities of the language result of totally different factors, namely political, military, and economic status of English as a medium for global communication predicted by E. Sapir (US linguist and anthropologist) in 1931

global spread of English (world language) n n 19 th and early half of the 20 th cent. : Britain - one of the world’s leading industrial and trading nations, the biggest colonial power of the world and one of the world’s leading military powers after World War II: leadership role taken over by the US

For the spread of English the end and the aftermath of the Second World War have been decisive. During the war the populations of the occupied countries looked to the English-speaking nations for help in their liberation from tyranny; the English- language broadcasts from the UK and the US stood for freedom and peace. Had the English-speaking nations lost the war, German and Japanese had now been world languages! After 1945 English chiefly symbolised progress and a better material future (cf the Marshall Plan) Arthur van Essen University of Groningen, The Netherlands. Babylonia, The Journal of Language Teaching and Learning, 2002

global spread of English (world language) n n other factors over the past century: development and explosive growth of the new communication technologies (e. g. wireless, telephony, telegraphy, the Internet, satellite-tv) – communication in English on a truly global scale international organisations using mainly English as their working language (eg UN, WHO, IMF)

global spread of English (world language) n n language of science and technology, particularly natural sciences (in Germany 98 % of all physicists claim English as their working language, as against 8 % of all students of law) a person’s lack of proficiency in English may result in inequality

Many non-native speakers (NNSs) associate ‘English’ with native-speaker (NS) English and culture, as they were taught to do at school. But many more NNSs the world over use English to interact with other NNSs without giving a single thought to anything related to the English of England or the language and cultures of English native-speaking nations. For such language users (and their numbers are growing by the day) English is not ‘English’ in the restricted sense of ‘relating to England or its people or language’ (New Oxford Dictionary of English, 1998), but just a useful tool for communication between people of varying linguistic and cultural backgrounds in a variety of communicative contexts. Arthur van Essen University of Groningen, The Netherlands. Babylonia, The Journal of Language Teaching and Learning, 2002

English is England’s language but the world’s treasure Liu Dailin China Central Radio and TV University, 1996

English as a lingua franca in Europe n n n particularly suitable as Europe's lingua franca functional flexibility spread across the world already "de-nativised" to a large extent: the global number of nonnative speakers is now substantially larger than its native speakers (about 4: 1) no longer "owned" by its native speakers

English as a lingua franca in Europe n n n remarkable diversification of the English language into many nonnative varieties has not been described so far some kind of European-English hybrid which, as it develops, will increasingly look to continental Europe rather than to Britain or the United States for its norms of correctness and appropriateness

ELFE – Jennifer Jenkins n n Department of Education and Professional Studies, King's College London University data from interactions among nonnative speakers of English to establish which aspects of pronunciation cause intelligibility problems a pronunciation core, the Lingua Franca Core

ELFE – Jennifer Jenkins n n core features (crucial for intelligibility): consonant sounds except for th (both voiceless as in think and voiced as in this) vowel length contrasts (eg the difference in length between the vowel sounds in the words live and leave)

ELFE – Jennifer Jenkins n non-core features (crucial for intelligibility): exact quality of vowel sounds word stress "typical rhythm of British English„ (with lots of "little" words such as articles and prepositions pronounced so weakly as to be hardly audible)

ELFE – Jennifer Jenkins n n n unlikely that th will be a feature of ELFE accents since nearly all continental Europeans have a problem in producing it not clear at this stage whether the substitute will be s and z (used by many French- and German-English speakers) or t and d (Italian- and Scandinavian-English speakers), or regional variations if users of s and z outnumber users of t and d the former will become the accepted ELFE variant

ELFE – Jennifer Jenkins n n n but the British-English distinction between voiced and voiceless consonants is likely to be maintained in ELFE the loss of this distinction proved to be a frequent cause of intelligibility problems in the research (eg a German-English speaker's devoicing of the final sound on the word mug so that it sounded like muck rendered the word unintelligible to an Italian-English speaker.

ELFE – Barbara Seidlhofer n n n Department of English, Vienna University lexicogrammar features findings similar to Jenkins' research into pronunciation - they also involve many of those features often regarded, and taught, as particularly "typical" of (native) English

ELFE – Barbara Seidlhofer n no major disruptions in communication happened when speakers committed one or more of the following "deadly grammatical sins": using the same form for all present tense verbs, as in you look very sad and he look very sad not putting a definite or indefinite article in front of nouns, as in our countries have signed agreement about this

ELFE – Barbara Seidlhofer n n treating who and which as interchangeable relative pronouns, as in the picture who. . . or a person which… using isn't it? as a universal tag question (ie instead of haven't they? and shouldn't he? , as in They've finished their dinner now, isn't it?

English as a lingua franca (in Europe ) n n n for ELF(E) to function properly mutual intelligibility must be ensured the need for international standards its aim is international intelligibilty among non-native speakers, rather than the imitation of native speakers

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