This paper reports on an analysis of the communicative strategies (CSs) used by speakers in spoken lingua franca English (ELF) in an academic setting. The purpose of the work has primarily been to outline the CSs used in polyadic ELF speech which are used to ensure communication effectiveness in consequential situations and to present a framework that shows the different communicative functions of a number of CSs. The data comprise fifteen group sessions of naturally occurring student group-work talk in content courses at a technical university. Detailed qualitative analyses have been carried out, resulting in a framework of the communication strategies used by the speakers. The methodology here provides us with a taxonomy of CSs in natural ELF interactions. The results show that other than explicitness strategies, comprehension checks, confirmation checks and clarification requests were frequently employed CSs in the data. There were very few instances of self and other-initiated word replacement, most likely owing to the nature of the high-stakes interactions where the focus is on the task and not the language. The results overall also show that the speakers in these ELF interactions employed other-initiated strategies as frequently as self-initiated communicative strategies.

As a result of globalization, higher education institutions throughout the world are adopting English for parts of their education. Higher education is becoming increasingly international and thus linguistically diverse, for educational, idealistic and financial reasons. This book presents a much-needed description of English as a lingua franca (ELF) from an international university setting and focuses on form and pragmatic issues, using authentic spoken data. It provides useful insights into how communicative effectiveness can be achieved in spoken lingua franca communication.

This article investigates questions in a higher education setting where English is used as a lingua franca. The study originates from a larger piece of work which investigated the communicative effectiveness of spoken English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) among the teachers and students at a technical university in authentic situations (Björkman, 2010a). The focus in the present article is placed on student-student interaction from group-work sessions, but references to lectures have been included for comparison where appropriate. The questions in the study were first categorized syntactically. Syntactic analyses were followed by phonological analyses of question intonation. The results of the pilot study point to three cues the listener can rely on to be able to register an utterance as a question: syntax with specific reference to word order, utterance-final rising question intonation and the interrogative adverb/pronoun (in Wh-questions only). The results of the analyses in the present study, drawing on qualitative and quantitative data, demonstrate that a question is more likely to be registered as such when all available cues are provided for the listener. It seems reasonable to suggest, then, that the speakers in lingua franca settings, with the added complexities at the syntactic level, make use of all available cues to ensure communicative effectiveness. Most importantly, the speakers in this setting appeared to achieve communicative effectiveness by using utterance-final rising question intonation in the absence of the other cues, and not by following unmarked native speaker intonation. The fact that utterance-final question intonation is the most reliable cue among the three shows, yet from another angle in ELF usage, that we cannot assume native speaker usage as the ideal in similar settings. 

The last decade has brought a number of changes for higher education in continental Europe and elsewhere, a major one being the increasing use of English as a lingua franca (ELF) as the medium of instruction. With this change, EAP is faced with a new group of learners who will need to use it predominantly in ELF settings to communicate with speakers from other first language backgrounds. This overview paper first discusses the changes that have taken place in the field of EAP in terms of student body, followed by an outline of the main findings of research carried out on ELF. These changes and the results of recent ELF research have important implications for EAP instruction and testing. It is argued here that EAP needs to be modified accordingly to cater for the needs of this group. These revolve around the two major issues: norms and standards for spoken English and target use. If the aim of EAP instruction and testing is to prepare speakers for academic settings where English is the lingua franca, the findings of ELF research need to be taken into consideration and then integrated into EAP curriculum design and testing, rethinking norms and target use. The norms and standards used by EAP instruction must be based on this realistic English, and educational resources should be deployed more realistically, including the usage of ELF, thereby validating the pluralism of English. This paper argues that any practice that excludes this perspective would be reducing EAP qualitatively and quantitatively.

This paper will report the findings of a study that has investigated spoken English as a lingua franca (ELF) usage in Swedish higher education. The material comprises digital recordings of lectures and student group-work sessions, all being naturally occurring, authentic high-stakes spoken exchange, i.e. from non-language-teaching contexts. The aim of the present paper, which constitutes a part of a larger study, has been to investigate the role pragmatic strategies play in the communicative effectiveness of English as a lingua franca. The paper will document types of pragmatic strategies as well as point to important differences between the two speech event types and the implications of these differences for English-medium education. The findings show that lecturers in ELF settings make less frequent use of pragmatic strategies than students who deploy these strategies frequently in group-work sessions. Earlier stages of the present study (Bjorkman, 2008a, 2008b, 2009) showed that despite frequent non-standardness in the morphosyntax level, there is little overt disturbance in student group-work, and it is highly likely that a variety of pragmatic strategies that students deploy prevents some disturbance. It is reasonable to assume that, in the absence of appropriate pragmatic strategies used often in lectures, there is an increased risk for covert disturbance.

This paper reports the findings of a study on spoken English as a lingua franca (ELF) in Swedish higher education. The aim has been to investigate the role pragmatic strategies play in content lectures where English is a lingua franca, i.e. a vehicular language. The findings show that lecturers in ELF settings make less frequent use of pragmatic strategies than students, who deploy these strategies frequently in group-work projects. Earlier stages of the present study showed that despite frequent non-standardness at the morphosyntax level, there is very little overt disturbance in student group-work (Björkman 2008 a and b/2009b), most likely owing to a variety of communicative strategies used during interaction and the questions raised (Björkman, 2009a). It seems reasonable to assume that, in the absence of appropriate strategies and questions that serve as real-time signals of disturbance, there is an increased risk for covert disturbance in lectures. This view complies with the findings of earlier studies on the importance of such strategies (Mauranen 2006, Airey 2009:79, Hellekjær 2010). The findings imply that the effectiveness of a speaker of English in academic ELF settings is determined primarily by the speaker’s pragmatic ability and less by his/her proficiency. There are important implications of these findings for lecturers who need to operate in ELF settings. First, increasing interactivity by using pragmatic strategies sufficiently frequently appears critical for those involved in English-medium education. It is also important that awareness is raised on target language usage in lecturing in English. Such awareness-raising can be achieved at the macro level by clearly-written language policies that include training for teachers and students who both need to be equipped with the skills needed to cope with the complexities of such settings, and at the micro level, by in-house training and courses that could be administered to both teachers and students.