Faculty of foreign languages department of english language and literature course paper

3. Criticism of ELF
Criticism of ELF generally falls into three camps: Those who argue that the language studied consists of learner errors rather than authentic variation; those who argue that ELF scholars are perpetuating the idea that ELF is a reified variety of English; and those who feel it is upholding notions of neutrality in the face of global domination through languages and discourse.
Regarding the first stance, some linguists claim that variation in ELF is completely haphazard and devoid of any patterns, and therefore not worth studying. Most importantly, proponents of this view reject the idea that emerging insights into how English is used as a lingua franca can provide useful input with regard to the aims and methods of English language teaching.
Regarding the criticism of ELF and variety building, some claim that ELF research has inherited the legacies of traditional linguistics, which contain some obstacles when considering language use in context. For example, there are claims that variationist discourses have entered into some ELF accounts, creating too much emphasis on accounting for language forms and authenticating them numerically, rather than considering all the contextual factors and variations that constitute communicative practices across ELF settings. This leads to linear connections between intention, behaviour, culture, etc., and English usages, which can be false lines of correlation. It also creates a focus on what is different rather than what is there, which moves from a descriptive agenda to a pragmatic (and, arguably, problematic) one. Such criticisms tend to be cooperative and complementary to the ELF field of enquiry, and not as overtly confrontational as those who either take the previous or following stance.[10:485]
The other line of criticism argues that concepts such as ELF provide a useful (terminological) veneer for continued (linguistic) domination by English-speaking countries through their political, educational, and cultural institutions. This concept of linguistic imperialism has been developed and heavily used by Robert Phillipson. Although Phillipson suggests this idea, there are some controversial facts which put Phillipson in a contrast situation.
Another example is the case of Juliane House, a German scholar who explains in her article "English as a lingua franca: A threat to multilingualism?" her relation to English after World War II. Contrastingly, Davies criticises the concept and argues that it is “inhabited” by two cultures: one is a culture of guilt ("colonies should never have happened") the other is that of romantic despair ("we shouldn’t be doing what we are doing").
Other terms with slightly different meanings have been used in the debate and research on the global spread of English, including "English as an International Language" (EIL), "Global English", "Global Englishes", "International English", "World English" and "World Englishes", and "Globish" (Global English). "Global Englishes" (GEs) is generally seen to align closely with ELF, seeing that language use is variable and is very much intermingled with cultural flows, situated contextualisation, and complex interactional alignment between people; whereas the other terms mentioned above tend to be seen as more linguistic in nature (e.g., "'Globish", proposing forms of simplified English needed for communication, vs. ELF and GEs, describing what people actually do when communicating [simple or not]; and "World Englishes", generally accounting for language features and commonalities by region/group, vs. ELF, looking at situated communicative use of English).
One of the key aspects of terminology used in the ELF field of enquiry is that a standardized version of any English variety is not implied, with the dynamic, situated and complex nature of language brought to the fore.[11:367]
The Intellectual and Social Context The worldwide spread of English, its predominant use in diverse international economic and cultural arenas, and the dramatic expansion of electronic communication have allowed the language to achieve the status of an international language or a global lingua franca. This international status of English generates four major implications for ELT professionals to consider. First, as a global lingua franca, the legitimate speakers of English are no longer exclusively the so-called “native-English” speakers (NESs) from what Braj Kachru, a key scholar in World Englishes, has classified as inner-circle countries where English is an official and a national language. These legitimate speakers of English also come from countries where English is an institutionalized language or outer-circle countries, as well as a foreign language or expanding-circle countries (see world englishes). They acquire English within their bilingual and multilingual repertoires, use English and other languages in multilingual contexts, and use English to communicate predominantly with other bilingual and multilingual speakers of English. In fact, it is widely agreed that the predominant speakers of English today are these bilingual and multilingual speakers of English who should be viewed as users rather than learners. Second, the changing demographic background of English and the natural process of languages in contact have also brought changes to the form of language, contesting the notion of English as a monolithic and unitary concept. Thus, English is now a plurilithic language with diverse and complex pronunciations, grammars, vocabulary, discourse and pragmatic conventions, and cultural conceptualizations. Third, thanks to the explosion of advanced information technologies in today’s postmodern globalization era, the cultural and linguistic backgrounds of the interlocutors with whom people communicate in English are often unknown. What is known is that today’s communicative exchanges take place between speakers whose cultural and linguistic backgrounds are diverse and complex. The variety(ies) of English being used, and the languages being used are also unpredictable and therefore diverse. Within communicative exchanges between users of English from diverse linguacultural backgrounds, it is not uncommon to observe how they employ various strategies from their multilingual and perhaps multidialectal repertoire to negotiate linguistic and other differences to ensure mutual intelligibility and effective communication. Fourth, as English is now widely recognized as an international lingua franca and used for intercultural communication, native-speaker norms and accuracy/correctness are seen as less relevant and important than having the ability to employ various communicative skills and strategies to negotiate meanings and reach mutual understanding among English as a lingua franca (ELF) speakers. In response to this changing sociolinguistic nature of English, scholars in applied linguistics have called for the need for a reconceptualization of the English language. Different schools of thought have emerged to challenge the purist and elitist view of conceptualizing and teaching English. In addition to world englishes, ELF, a vibrant area of inquiry in applied linguistics as well as a “movement,” has provided applied linguists and ELT professionals with a “picture” of the changing nature of the English language and its implications for communication in English as well as the teaching and learning of English.[12:112]
In fact, ELF was initially identified and advocated in the early 1980s by two scholars from Germany, Werner Hüllen and Karlfried Knapp, who claimed (a) the importance and relevance of ELF in teaching English and (b) the need to conduct further research studies on the formal and functional aspects of ELF that teachers could incorporate into their teaching. In the late 1990s, several scholars outside Germany Alan Firth, Juliane House, and Jennifer Jenkins attempted to “revitalize” ELF. Due to some terminological and methodological inconsistencies, their work received only minor attention and interest from applied linguists and ELT professionals until the birth of the groundbreaking empirical publication by Jennifer Jenkins in 2000 on ELF pronunciation, and the conceptual work of Barbara Seidlhofer in 2001 that strongly called for the need to describe linguistic features and practices of users of English, particularly from expanding-circle countries where English does not have a historically established presence. This call has resulted in a considerable number of English corpora in different sociocultural settings: Vienna Oxford International Corpus of English (VOICE) in Vienna; the Corpus of English as a Lingua Franca in Academic Settings (ELFA) in Helsinki, Finland; Alpine-Adriatic Corpus in Austria; and the Asian Corpus of English (ACE) in Hong Kong. Not only do these corpora aim to show the pluralizing nature of English, but also to critically challenge a deficit perspective of linguistic features and practices that may be different from those of NESs. These corpora have also generated pedagogical implications that question the validity and relevance of the nativespeakerism-based approach to teaching and learning English. Today, ELF is highly relevant to a number of disciplines including contact linguistics, sociolinguistics, cognitive linguistics, genre theories, bilingualism and multilingualism, intercultural communication, World Englishes, English as an international language, language education, language change and variation, historical linguistics, and language planning and policy. [13:147]
Major Dimensions “English as a lingua franca” has been predominantly used by prominent scholars and researchers in the field to refer to the following. First, it refers to an intercultural communicative setting in which speakers from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds use English as the medium of communication. Second, it refers to the various communicative strategies or practices that those speakers employ in intercultural communicative contexts. Third, it is a paradigm or an area of inquiry in applied linguistics that advocates the following:
● As English has internationalized and diversified, so have the users who are predominantly bilinguals, multilinguals or translinguals whose English and their plurilingual repertoire are creatively and strategically used in engaging collaboratively in meaning-making in an international communication context.
● The term “English as a lingua franca” does not suggest that certain users of English are included or excluded from communication. Nor does it promote a single monolithic variety of English being used as the exclusive or “core” model for communication. Thanks to the forces of globalization, neither the linguacultural backgrounds of the users of English nor the varieties of English encountered in today’s social communicative contexts are known and “predictable.” What is clear, however, is that these contexts are characterized by variations in linguistic practices and cultural behaviors. ● All varieties of English should be accepted in their own right. No varieties of English, be they native or non-native, should be viewed and approached from deficit perspectives. As English has become an international lingua franca, the ownership of English is shared among all users of English. There is also a shift from ownership to access in the sense that it is not about who owns English, but who has access to the linguistic and cultural resources associated with the English language.
● Underpinned by the theories of language contact and evolution, codeswitching, code-mixing, code-meshing are a natural phenomenon of languages in contact, and bilingual and multilingual pragmatic resource.
● In language pedagogy, teaching a single monolithic variety shall not be the goal. Awareness of language variation and change, and learners having the agency to choose the variety(ies) of English suitable for their own needs, interests, and aspirations should be emphasized in ELF-driven English language lessons, curricula, and programs. [14:88]