Describing and Analyzing English as a Lingua Franca in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts

Abstract
 
Describing  and  Analyzing  English  as  a  Lingua  Franca

 
Researchers  are  becoming  increasingly  interested  in  responding  to  the  effects  of  the  English  language’s  viability  as  a  Lingua  Franca.  English  as  a  Lingua Franca  (ELF)  is  being  used  predominantly  in  communication  from  one  non‐native speaker  to  another,  and  descriptive  studies  are  just  beginning  to  emerge  (Dewey 2007;  Jenkins,  2000;  Seidlhofer,  2004).  This  report  offers  a  theoretical  overview showing  ELF’s  increasing  relevance,  and  reviews  empirical  studies  that  have  investigated  how  ELF  is  manifesting  in  the  field  of  language  education.
 These empirical  studies  are  gaining  significant  traction,  specifically  in  relation  to  descriptive  linguistics,  sociolinguistics,  and  applied  linguistics  (House, 2003;Mauranen,  2003).  In  order  to  investigate  a  formal  description  of  ELF,  recent empirical  work  is  reviewed  after  two  seminal  articles  were  published  that  helped gain  viability  into  ELF  as  a  distinct  research  area  (i.e.  Seidlhofer, 2001;  Mauranen,  2003).  Such  reviews  of  empirical  studies  through  the  use  of  corpora  are  not  meant  to  distinguish  ELF  as  a  distinct  variety  of  English,  but  to  simply  allow  for  a  deep  description  of  how  ELF  is  being  used currently.  Also  discussed  are  the  developments  to  English  language  pedagogy  and  directions  for  future  research  as  ELF  scholars  begin  to  reconceptualize  what  is  meant  by  language  context  and  communication  in  ELF.