doi: 10.1017/S0266078408000163 20 English Today 94, Vol. 24, No. 2 (June 2008). Printed in the United Kingdom © 2008 Cambridge University Press

English as a lingua franca:between form and functionMARIO SARACENI

A critique of the notion of English as a lingua francabetween global rules and global roles

Introduction

In this paper I wish to discuss some aspects ofthe current debates about the concept of Eng-lish as a lingua franca. In doing so, I will use arecount of the pre-publication stages of the vol-ume English in the World: Global Rules, GlobalRoles, co-edited by Rani Rubdy and myself(2006) as a starting point, to set the scene, andwill move to more theoretical considerations inthe second part of the paper.

The pre-history of English in theWorld

The initial idea behind English in the Worldbegan to germinate in 2002, nurtured by dis-cussions between co-editor Rani Rubdy andmyself, encouraged, inspired and helped alongby invaluable input from Alan Maley. Thethree of us were at the Institute for EnglishLanguage Education (IELE) of AssumptionUniversity, Bangkok, teaching on Master’sdegrees in English Language Teaching and inEnglish Language and Literatures. That partic-ular environment was a fundamental source ofinspiration. We were teaching in English,about English, in a prototypical Expanding-Circle setting, with students from about fifteendifferent countries. The international composi-tion of the student population mirrored anequally variegated faculty, with each teachercoming from a different part of the world. Sig-nificantly, only one of us – Alan Maley himself– was from an Inner-Circle country. It is diffi-cult to imagine a better setting for the birth ofa book entitled English in the World.

In those ideal environmental conditions, twoof the courses I was teaching at the IELE were

called ‘English as a World Language’ (in theMA in ELT) and ‘World Englishes’ (in the MA inELL). The choice of these two names was dri-ven by a mere administrative necessity to havetwo distinct titles. Admittedly, one course hada more pedagogical focus and the other a liter-ary one, but the theoretical and ideologicalunderpinnings were the same. This superficialdistinction, however, soon came to acquire amore important significance. Rather trivially,this took place as I was queried by some of mystudents about the choice of those two differ-ent titles. From a semantic point of view atleast, they could indicate two very differentapproaches to the same subject. It was all tooapparent: the idea of a singular English, usedaround the world, or that of a plurality of Eng-lishes used in different parts of the world?

The question seemed to echo the famousQuirk-Kachru debate that had taken place on

MARIO SARACENI is a seniorlecturer in English Languageand Applied Linguistics at theUniversity of Portsmouth, UK.He previously lived andworked in Thailand, where hetaught on graduateprogrammes at AssumptionUniversity, Bangkok. He

received his PhD at the University of Nottingham,UK, where he began his career in academia. Hepublished and delivered conference papersinternationally in the areas of his researchinterests: ‘World Englishes, Discourse Analysis,Stylistics and Multimodality’. He is currentlyworking on a monograph entitled ‘The Relocationof English‘, to be published by Palgrave in 2009.

English Today just over a decade earlier. Buttime had passed since those almost mythologi-cal pages of academic history had been writ-ten. The most notable indicator that these weredifferent times was the presence of a new partythat had entered the scene in a very visibleway: the party of English as a Lingua Franca(ELF). ELF was all new, exciting and, above all,based on empirical research.

But, somehow, we were not entirely con-vinced. We were not entirely convincedbecause we saw the ELF programme almost asa heuristic of Rundolph Quirk’s view of Englishas an international language, almost a re-pro-posal of it, under a different guise. Thisrequires some explanation. Purist positionsabout International English had come repeat-edly under criticism in the world Englishes(WE) literature long before the Quirk-Kachrudebate (see, among others, Kachru, 1982 and,for a full review, Bolton, 2005). The discoursewas clearly delineated so that conceptions ofBritish English as an ideal model were con-strued as anachronistic at best and patronisingor even racist at worst. With its pluralistic andegalitarian approach, the WE school of thoughtseemed to offer the only valid alternative ana-lytical model of the complex sociolinguistics ofEnglish in the world.

The debate was not only based on sociolin-guistics but also on ideology. It was conser-vatism versus liberalism. The idea that therewere as many Englishes as there were countriesin which English was used gradually gainedmomentum and became common currencyeven outside academia. The WE positionenjoyed relatively unrivalled and undisputedsuccess for a while. The forefront position of theWE paradigm did not remain completelyunchallenged for very long. Towards the begin-ning of the new millennium, some of the WEtenets began to feel somewhat restrictive, as theimportance and the presence of English becamemore firmly established in the expanding circle.Consequently, the WE model displayed somelimitations as it was relevant more to Outer-Circle settings, where different varieties of English are used intranationally, than toExpanding-Circle countries, where English ismainly used as an international language.

These observations came from scholars whowere developing a different model of analysisof English in the world (e.g. Jenkins, 2000; Seidlhofer, 2001). It was a model whichemphasised the role of English as a lingua

franca (ELF) for international communicationrather than the peculiarities of each variety ofEnglish used intranationally. Jennifer Jenkins’sThe Phonology of English as an InternationalLanguage (2000) was seminal. In a way, it wasa manifesto – a demonstration of how thingscould be done differently. Her study was basedon empirical research and, because of this, itsfindings were persuasive and devoid of ideo-logical concerns. In addition, these findingsallowed the book to provide clear proposals forthose involved in the pedagogy of English. Themain one being that it is not necessary to spendtime and energy in teaching and learning allaspects of phonology in an attempt to emulatenative speakers and it is instead advisable toconcentrate one’s attention on those discrep-ancies (from native-speaker models) whichcause actual problems of intelligibility. Jenk-ins’ work was based on the classification andthe description of core and non-core featuresof phonology among speakers of Englishworldwide. For obvious reasons, the studycould not – physically – be as comprehensive asit ideally should have been, but it provided aclear indication of the direction of ELFresearch.

The direction was one which emphasisedempirical description of the use of English as alingua franca worldwide. It was a challengingand daunting task. But it was also a task theaccomplishment of which was seen as necessaryaccording to the following line of reasoning:

● for most users of English around the worldthis language is a convenient and practicaltool for international communication; this isa very different use from that of English as aNative Language (ENL), which has the func-tion of a national language;

● consequently, ENL cannot represent a validor relevant model for learners of English as aforeign language;

● despite the fact that the above two pointshad been repeatedly made in the academicdiscourse about English in the world, verylittle change was discernible in actual lan-guage pedagogy, where ENL continued to beregarded, unchallenged, as the preferredmodel;

● a new model, therefore, needed to be devel-oped, alternative to ENL and closer to theneeds of international users of English;

● in order for it to be as relevant as possible tothe people it was principally meant for, this

ENGLISH AS A L INGUA FRANCA: BETWEEN FORM AND FUNCTION 21

model should be based on empirical descrip-tion of the ways in which successful non-native speakers of English actually use thislanguage as a lingua franca.

On first reading, the ELF project seemed notonly wholly reasonable, but also desirable.However, as I said earlier, we were not entirelyconvinced.

We could see three positions:

● one, traditional and purist, which saw ENLas the only viable option and the best modelof English for the world; although it hadbeen virtually ousted from English languageteaching as academic discourse, this posi-tion was the dominant one in English lan-guage teaching as industry, which continuedto regard the Native Speaker as the ultimatearbiter of linguistic norm and the ideal lan-guage teacher;

● another, the WE paradigm, which wasagainst a monolithic ENL and for a plu-ralised and pluricentric view of English inthe world;

● the third one, which sought an alternativemodel to ENL, more relevant to people forwhom English is a lingua franca for interna-tional communication.

What did not convince us about the ELFapproach was, crucially, that it seemed to wantto replace one model with another. If a Britishor American ENL model was deemed exonor-mative for most learners of English around theworld, so would be, we suspected, any othermodel that was intended to be suitable forusers of English around the globe, fromArgentina to Vietnam, passing through Vienna,Cairo and Beijing. We saw ELF as an attempt todescribe a one-size-fits-all model of Englishand it was in this sense that, to us at least, ELFdid not seem, in the substance, very differentfrom Quirk’s idea of International English.

Another fundamental point that made usvery sceptical was that the ELF project wasbased on the assumption that ELF speakerswere ‘not primarily concerned with emulatingthe way native speakers use their mothertongue within their own communities’ butwere only interested in ‘efficiency, relevanceand economy in language learning and lan-guage use’ (Seidlhofer, 2001:141). Consider-ing that they were made within a discoursewhich elected empirical research as the solecredible way forward in the field, we were

somewhat baffled by these kinds of statements,which were at once confidently conclusive andaltogether data-free.

Our uneasiness with the way ELF was con-ceptualised was augmented by the descriptionof the prototypical user of ELF as a jet-setterbusy attending international conferences orbusiness meetings, which seemed rather alienin the context in which we were operating.Most of our postgraduate students were teach-ers or would-be teachers of English. Some ofthem came from extremely poor countries suchas Myanmar and Laos and the majority fromdeveloping countries such as Thailand, China,Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Philippines. Ourstudents were going to teach English to peoplefor whom this language was not only a pass-port to a better career and education, but alsosomething that would grant them access to abody of knowledge and possibilities of commu-nication that would otherwise remain virtuallyunreachable. If our students and their own stu-dents did not necessarily represent the mosttypical user of English in the world (it isextremely difficult to suggest any credible sta-tistics here), I would be very reluctant toaccept that:

A Hungarian educationalist coming toCopenhagen to discuss qualificationequivalences in European higher educationwith her Finnish colleagues; a Korean salesrepresentative negotiating a contract with hisGerman client in Luxembourg; a SpanishErasmus student chatting with local colleaguesin a student hall in Vienna. (from the VOICEwebsite)

are in any way representative of the populationof speakers of English and the circumstances inwhich they actually use English on a globalscale.

However, despite our reservations about theELF rubric, we certainly did share one of itsfundamental concerns, namely that despite thequantity and quality of the academic discoursearound English in the world, there seemed tobe very little tangible change in actual Englishlanguage teaching practice. At the same time,we were aware that the world Englishes schoolof thought had perhaps suffered from an exces-sive amount of ideology at the expense of morepractical matters and that its ideas were gener-ally more relevant to Outer-Circle settings thanExpanding-Circle ones.

We felt that it would be useful to voice ourconcerns, throw them into the arena in a rather

22 ENGLISH TODAY 94 June 2008

provocative way, and invite some of theexperts in the field to engage in a constructivedebate. To quote our introduction to English inthe World:

The diversity of views on the subject clearlyindicates that a debate would be timely in orderto sharpen our perceptions and clarify thinkingabout this important global phenomenon. Sucha debate should also lead to a betterunderstanding of the pedagogical implicationsinvolved ... The power that English andspeakers of English wield today makes itimperative that many of the controversialaspects relating to English as an internationallanguage be addressed. Identifying concernsthat are particularly interesting or contentiousfrom either point of view (EIL/EFL or WorldEnglishes), will hopefully not only help advancefurther thinking among the scholarlycommunity but yield important pedagogicalinsights that can feed into teachers’ andlearners’ classroom experience. (Rubdy &Saraceni, 2006:15)

The central strand of conceptualisation thatour book sought to disentangle was the rela-tionship between world Englishes and Englishas a lingua franca and whether these twoapproaches were in binary opposition. I do notwish to provide a self-indulgent review of thebook here, nor do I dare say to what extent itsaims were achieved. I will, however, highlightone fundamental point that has clearlyemerged out of that asynchronous discussion.That is, all the contributors to the volumeexpressed, explicitly or implicitly, the necessityto clarify ideas and concepts or to dispel mis-understandings. On reading the variouspapers, one notices a detectable endeavour, apressing urgency, almost a struggle, to shedmeaningful light onto at least some of the keyterminology commonly used to describe theroles, varieties and users of English in theworld. In fact, at the risk of clumsily steppinginto self-praise for a moment, I believe that ourvolume had the considerable merit of provid-ing our invited contributors with a commonspace that they could use to explain notionsthat were, perhaps, somewhat obfuscated bymisinterpretation or by polysemic ambiguity.

That space expanded after English in theWorld. In this expanded space, attempts to fur-ther clarify the position of ELF, both in its ownright and in relation to WE, have multiplied. Inthe next part of this paper I wish to address thisissue from an epistemological perspective,

with particular regard to the very term ‘Englishas a lingua franca’.

The epistemology of English as alingua franca

Many of the contributors to English in theWorld have subsequently produced importantpublications to further elucidate the ideas thatthey had expounded in our volume (and else-where). Two of those are Andy Kirkpatrick’sWorld Englishes: Implications for InternationalCommunication and English Language Teachingand Jennifer Jenkins’s English as a LinguaFranca: Attitude and Identity, both published in2007. In English in the World, both authorsarticulated positions in favour of a descriptionof English as a lingua franca, and both authorssee WE and ELF not as antagonistic but asaspects of the same phenomenon, namely theexistence of varieties and uses of English out-side and beyond ENL that need to be grantedfull recognition.

What I would like to do here is to engage inan epistemological exercise with the aim ofunderstanding exactly what is meant by Englishas a lingua franca. The reason why I feel thenecessity of such an exercise is twofold. First ofall, in her book, Jenkins contends that in our callfor papers Rani and I had ‘so seriously misun-derstood’ (Jenkins, 2007:19) what ELF wasabout that she and Barbara Seidlhofer felt theyhad to ‘set the record straight’ (ibid.) and, forthat purpose, they ‘corrected [our] misrepre-sentations of ELF researchers’ position on thediversity of world Englishes’ (ibid.). However,despite their best efforts, ‘a number of majormisconceptions about ELF remain’(2007:29–30, endnote 13) in our introductionto the volume, a clear reflection of the fact thatwe were ‘completely failing to grasp’ (ibid.) thereal meaning of ELF. As a partial consolationand slight reassurance about our intellectualability, Jenkins adds that Rani and I are not the only ones guilty of misunderstandingand/or misrepresenting ELF, as ‘[t]he samekinds of misconceptions about ELF characterizeseveral other contributions to the volume’(ibid.). In actual fact, ‘scholars who recognizethe legitimacy of ELF are at present in a fairlysmall minority among linguists (even, surpris-ingly, sociolinguistics [sic] and applied lin-guists)’ (2007:7). Thus the scholars who do notrecognise the legitimacy of ELF include, in Jenk-ins’s view, such names as, Ronald Carter, David

ENGLISH AS A L INGUA FRANCA: BETWEEN FORM AND FUNCTION 23

Crystal, Braj Kachru, Tom McArthur and PeterTrudgill. In an outburst of positivism, Jenkinsgoes as far as to argue that ‘scholarly oppositionto ELF seems to be based not so much on ratio-nal argument as on irrational prejudice’(2007:12).

Indeed, Jenkins dedicates a considerableamount of space of her book to lining up andreproaching a long series of scholars, culpable,in her view, of either misrepresenting or ignor-ing ELF. This leads to the second reason why Ithink an epistemological exercise is necessary.That is, I suspect that the confusion that somany of us seem to have about ELF may origi-nate not only out of irrational inability orrefusal to understand, but perhaps from a cer-tain degree of inconsistency in the way ELF hasbeen defined thus far. In particular, thereseems to be a lack of clarity as to whether theterm ELF refers to a language variety (or set ofvarieties) or, more simply, to the role that Eng-lish plays in various situations worldwide. It isnot clear, that is, whether ELF is about form orfunction.

The obvious action to take, in attempting tounderstand a complex notion, is to refer topublications which specifically deal with thenotion in question. I would like to begin myexercise by consulting Jenkins’s latest mono-graph, where ELF is defined as ‘an emergingEnglish that exists in its own right and which isbeing described in its own terms rather than bycomparison with ENL’ (2007:2). This initialdefinition suggests that ELF is a variety of Eng-lish, and the use of the noun phrase ‘an Eng-lish’ is syntactically and semantically in linewith the idea that there are many Englishes inthe world – hence, ELF would be one of them.This interpretation seems to be confirmed bythe assertion that ELF ‘is not primarily a localor contact language within national groups butbetween them’ (2007:4). Later on, however,the singular becomes plural: ‘ELF varieties areused internationally rather than intranation-ally and are born of international contactamong their NNSs’ (2007:17). That ELF refersto varieties of English is reinforced by theobservation that ‘it is entirely for learners todecide what kind of English they want to learn,be it EFL … an ESL (outer circle) variety, or anELF variety for international communication(for example, China English, Spanish English,Japanese English, etc.)’ (2007:21–22).

The premodifiers ‘China’, ‘Spanish’ and‘Japanese’ suggest that these varieties are char-

acterised by their own peculiar linguistic fea-tures, in much the same way as Outer-Circlevarieties or, indeed, inner circle ones, are gen-erally thought of. This approach, therefore,does not seem to be significantly different fromthe way nativised Outer-Circle varieties havebeen described and discussed in the worldEnglishes paradigm. However, the idea ofemerging distinct varieties, an established con-cept in WE, seems to contrast openly with theidea of ‘an emerging English’. It seems to methat establishing clearly whether ELF refers toone international variety or to many local vari-eties is of fundamental importance if one isexpected to understand and appreciate theconcept and the nature of ELF. In any case, beit one variety or many, the emphasis of ELFseems to be firmly placed on language as code.Hence the necessity to describe it – or them? –in the same way as, for example, Singaporeanor Indian Englishes have been described.

Alongside this idea of ELF as variety(-ies) ofEnglish, there is another idea, of wider cur-rency, which ‘emphasizes the role of English incommunication between speakers from differ-ent L1s, (Jenkins, 2000:11, my emphasis).Indeed, this role ‘does not exclude NSs of Eng-lish’ (2007:3), as ‘ELF does not stop being ELFif inner or outer circle members happen to bepresent’ (2007:2). In my opinion, the most cru-cial node to disentangle in the discourse aboutELF is the seemingly interchangeable way inwhich the two meanings are attributed to ELF,one about a function of English, the otherabout a variety (or varieties) of English, withits (or their) own distinct features. The ques-tion then is: how does the fact that English isused as a lingua franca entail the presence ofdescribable patterns of linguistic similarities inthe way it is actually used?

ELF is referred to both as a role and as a codeby Barbara Seidlhofer in a similar way. Shestates that it is ‘a way of referring to communi-cation in English between speakers with differ-ent first languages’ (Seidlhofer, 2005:339)and, just a few lines later, she argues that ‘inorder for the concept of ELF to gain acceptancealongside English as native language, therehave been calls for the systematic study of thenature of ELF – what it looks and sounds likeand how people actually use it and make itwork’ (Seidlhofer, 2005:339–40). The first call came from Seidlhofer herself, in her often-cited article in which she identified a‘conceptual gap’ and proposed ‘to explore the

24 ENGLISH TODAY 94 June 2008

possibility of a codification of ELF with a con-ceivable ultimate objective of making it a feasi-ble, acceptable and respected alternative toENL in appropriate contexts of use’ (Seidl-hofer, 2001:150). Incidentally, quite unequiv-ocally, this brings us back to a view of ELF as asingular linguistic entity.

Three readings of ELF are therefore possible:

● ELF refers to the function of English as usedamong non-native speakers as a shared com-mon language; ELF communication does nothave to exclude native speakers.

● ELF refers to local varieties of Englishemerging in Expanding-Circle settings, suchas China, Japan, Europe, Latin America, etc.

● ELF refers to a variety of English, with itsown phonological and lexico-grammaticalfeatures, stemming out of the typesinteractions involving primarily non-nativespeakers.

The first two readings are relatively easy tounderstand and accept, although they wouldappear to be substantially different from oneanother (or nearly incompatible). The thirdone seems much more problematic.

Andy Kirkpatrick, another contributor toEnglish in the World, defines ELF as ‘a mediumof communication [used] by people who donot speak the same first language’ (Kirkpatrick,2007:155) and laments the scarcity of the‘analysis and descriptions of lingua franca Eng-lishes’ (ibid., emphasis in the original) ‘despitethis extremely widespread and common func-tion of English’ (ibid., my emphasis). He thengoes on to provide an overview of ASEAN(Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Eng-lish as a form of ELF. Again, here we have theterm being used to refer to both a function anda form of English. The question, once again, is,what is ELF? (a) The fact that people in ASEANcountries use English as a common language tocommunicate among them, or (b) an actualvariety with its own phonological and lexico-grammatical features? The novelty, in Kirk-patrick’s account, is that the concept of ELF isapplied to an international but geographically,politically and economically self-defined areaof the world (see also Kirkpatrick, this issue ofEnglish Today). We can therefore add a fourthinterpretation of ELF:

● ELF refers to a distinct variety of Englishused internationally as a lingua franca in aparticular region of the world.

My epistemological exercise has not reached asatisfactory conclusion. In English in the WorldBarbara Seidlhofer explained what ELF is not(Seidlhofer, 2006:40–50). It is still not entirelyclear, however, what exactly it is.

Final remarks

My own best understanding of the whole ELFproject and of the rationale behind it is encap-sulated in the following quote:

anyone participating in internationalcommunication needs to be familiar with, andhave in their linguistic repertoire for use, as andwhen appropriate, certain forms (phonological,lexicogrammatical, etc.) that are widely usedand widely intelligible across groups of Englishspeakers from different first languagebackgrounds. (Jenkins, 2006:161)

Apart from the serious epistemological difficul-ties discussed above, another, possibly evenmore profound, problem intrinsic to the ELFparadigm is its strong deontological stance.One cannot help but feel a didactic tone in ELFdiscourse, which, although not openly pre-scriptive, seems to want to impart directives asto what users of English should or need to bedoing in order to communicate with oneanother. Seeking to devise an appropriatemodel of English involves a will to makechoices that are the exclusive right of eachindividual user of English, whether they usethis language as a lingua franca, a national lan-guage or a language for singing pop songs. Thecounterargument is that ELF simply offers,without imposing it, an alternative and thuswidens, and does not restrict, choice. Jenkins’sinvectives against those who dare question thevalidity of ELF, however, do not leave muchspace for manoeuvre. Ultimately, this argu-ment misses one fundamental point. That is,nobody needs a model of English construedand constructed in academia for them, no mat-ter how much it is based on empirical research.Seidlhofer claims that:

Changes in the perception of the role of Englishin the world have significantly influencedcurrent thinking about approaches to teaching(if not the teaching itself) and led to anincreased socio-political and interculturalawareness. The how is changing, but linked to awhat that is not. (Seidlhofer, 2001:140)

My view on this is that nobody needs thewhat changed for them. The what changes any-way, in spite of all corpus-based studies, no

ENGLISH AS A L INGUA FRANCA: BETWEEN FORM AND FUNCTION 25

matter how extensive they are. In fact, thewhat changes faster and in more complex waysthan any corpus-based study will ever be ableto document in real time. What the ELF para-digm is crucially missing is the realisation that

Because of the diversity at the heart of thiscommunicative medium, LFE [(Lingua FrancaEnglish)] is intersubjectively constructed ineach specific context of interaction. The form ofthis English is negotiated by each set ofspeakers for their purposes. The speakers areable to monitor each other’s languageproficiency to determine mutually theappropriate grammar, phonology, lexical range,and pragmatic conventions that would ensureintelligibility. Therefore, it is difficult todescribe this language a priori. (Canagarajah,2007:925)

What is describable by means of corpus-basedresearch is the ways in which in expanding cir-cle settings some distinct linguistic featuresoccur with sufficient regularity in the use ofEnglish. In Thailand, for example, certainusages have become part and parcel of whatcould begin to be referred to as Thai English.Expressions such as ‘make merit’ and others(cf. Tan, 2005) are instances of how Englishbecomes naturalised and acculturised in differ-ent sociocultural settings. It is in this sense thatwe are really witnessing the ‘end of English asa foreign language’ (Graddol, 2006).

I am not sure, and in fact I doubt, that ‘thevast majority of verbal exchanges in English donot involve any native speakers of the lan-guage at all’ (Seidlhofer, 2005:339), but Ifirmly believe that as it acquires more impor-tance and establishes itself as a lingua franca inthe Expanding-Circle, English will continue tobe borne upon and shaped by both centrifugaland centripetal forces originating from thesimultaneous necessities for people to commu-nicate with one another and to express andreaffirm their identities. Jenkins claims that‘ELF is an entirely natural phenomenon, whileattempts to hold it back and arrest its develop-ment are entirely unnatural’ (2007:17). In fact,nobody wishes to, nor can, arrest anything inthis context. The evolution of languages andthe ways people negotiate their use on a day-

to-day basis are completely outside the controlof academia.

To conclude, I feel that there has been toomuch emphasis on the form of English as a lin-gua franca and not enough on its function. Ithink that questions that need to be askedshould address how people in the Expanding-Circle relate to English, what it represents tothem, as it relocates itself from a foreign lan-guage to a lingua franca (Saraceni, 2009,forthcoming). Instead of ‘which English shouldwe use?’ we could begin to ask ‘what is English?’ �

References

Bolton, K. 2005. ‘Where WE stands: Approaches,issues, and debate in world Englishes’. In WorldEnglishes, 24(1), pp. 69–83.

Canagarajah, S. 2007. ‘Lingua franca English,multilingual communities, and languageacquisition’. In The Modern Language Journal, 91,pp. 923–39.

Graddol, D. 2006. English Next. Plymouth: BritishCouncil.

Jenkins, J. 2000. The Phonology of English as anInternational Language. Oxford: University Press.

—. 2006. ‘Current perspectives on teaching worldEnglishes and English as a lingua franca’. In TESOLQuarterly, 40(1), pp. 157–81.

—. 2007. English as a Lingua Franca: Attitude andIdentity. Oxford: University Press.

Kachru, B., ed. 1982. The Other Tongue: EnglishesAcross Cultures. Oxford: Pergamon.

Kirkpatrick, A. 2007. World Englishes: Implications forInternational Communication and English LanguageTeaching. Cambridge: University Press.

Rubdy, R. & M. Saraceni, eds. 2006. English in theWorld: Global Rules, Global Roles. London:Continuum.

Saraceni, M. 2009, forthcoming. The Relocation ofEnglish. Basingstoke: Palgrave.

Seidlhofer, B. 2001. ‘Closing a conceptual gap: Thecase for a description of English as a lingua franca’.In International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 11(2),pp. 133–58.

—. 2005. ‘English as a lingua franca’. In ELT Journal,59(4), pp. 339–41.

—. 2006. ‘English as a lingua franca in the expandingcircle: What it isn’t’. In R. Rubdy & M. Saraceni, eds.English in the World: Global Rules, Global Roles.London: Continuum, pp. 40–50.

Tan, M. 2005. ‘Authentic language or language errors?Lessons from a learner corpus’. In ELT Journal,59(2), pp. 126–34.

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