Closing A Conceptual Gap: The Case For A Description Of English As A Lingua Franca

Abstract

Despite momentous developments in the sociopolitics of the teaching of English worldwide, targets have generally remained tied to native‐speaker norms. This paper argues that although this orientation is often recognized as inappropriate and counter‐productive, it persists because discussions about ‘global English’ on the meta‐level have not been accompanied by a necessary reorientation in linguistic research: very little empirical work has so far been done on the most extensive contemporary use of English worldwide, namely English as a lingua franca, largely among ‘non‐native’ speakers. The paper seeks to demonstrate that this lack of a descriptive reality precludes us from conceiving of speakers of lingua franca English as language users in their own right and thus makes it dif?cult to counteract the reproduction of native English dominance. To remedy this situation, a research agenda is proposed which accords lingua franca English a central place in description alongside English as a native language, and a new corpus project is described which constitutes a ?rst step in this process. The paper concludes with a consideration of the potentially very signi?cant impact that the availability of an alternative model for the teaching of English as a lingua franca would have for pedagogy and teacher education.