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Friday, 8th

March 2013 Special Lectures

(2nd

Waseda ELF International Workshop* :Part 1)

14:30~16:00 Professor Dr Juliane House, University of Hamburg

‘Own language use in English as an academic

lingua franca discourse’

16:00~17:30 Professor Dr Anna Mauranen, University of Helsinki

‘English as a global lingua franca

– changing language in changing global academia’

Venue: Room 2, Building 15, Waseda Campus, Waseda University

Abstracts

Own language use in English as an academic lingua franca discourse

Professor Dr Juliane House, University of Hamburg

This paper presents and discusses data from English as a lingua franca (ELF)

interactions between academic advisors and their international students in the context of

office hours in a German university.

Results of the analysis of these interactions indicate that transfer and

code-switching into ELF users’ mother tongue can lead to systematic variation in the

use of certain English forms. For example, the three variants of the gambit Uptaker: yes,

yeah and (German) ja seem to be consistently used with different functions in this data.

ELF speakers thus resort to their L1 for creatively varying and re-interpreting selected

English forms and functions. Similarly, the analysis of the use of so shows that L1

transfer can pave the way for re-interpreting this connector’s function in an ELF

context.

Further, code-switching and code-mixing into German as L1 of at least one of the

interactants and as the language of the environment in which the ELF interactions take

place is shown to occur not randomly but rather tends to cluster around turn-taking and

certain phases of the interaction.

Biodata:

Juliane House is Professor Emeritus of Applied Linguistics at Hamburg University,

founding member of the German Science Foundation’s Research Centre on

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Multilingualism and Director of Programs in Arts and Sciences at the Hellenic

American University in its Athens campus. Her research interests include contrastive

pragmatics, discourse analysis, politeness, translation, English as a global lingua

franca, and intercultural communication. Her book publications include A Model for

Translation Quality Assessment, Translation Quality Assessment: A Model Revisited,

Interlingual and Intercultural Communication, Misunderstanding in Social Life,

Translation, Multilingual Communication, Multilingual Discourse Production, and

Subjectivity in Language and Discourse.

English as a global lingua franca – changing language in changing global academia

Professor Dr Anna Mauranen, University of Helsinki

As non-native speakers outnumber native speakers of English, they bend the language

to their own purposes. If we start from the assumption that use shapes language, then we

can expect many of the features discernible in English as a lingua franca (ELF) today

will be likely to appear in general English tomorrow. ELF has been much debated over

the last decade or so, but serious linguistic research interest was slower to take off.

The change, once started, has nevertheless been fast: currently a surge of interest in

lingua franca communication is sweeping through the research community. During its

short history, ELF research has been particularly strong in business and academia, two

deeply international domains with activities spanning the globe. Both rely heavily on

good language skills, particularly at discourse level. Argumentation and negotiation in

demanding situations are prerequisites of success – while faithfulness to English as a

native language (ENL) standards often takes the back seat. Academia and other

educational contexts are particularly interesting in terms of ELF use since they represent

present and future educated users of English, whose impact on the language tends to be

significant.

This presentation focuses on spoken academic English. It presents findings from

the million-word corpus (ELFA; www.helsinki.fi/englanti/elfa), focusing on features

where discourse features affect grammatical preferences.

Biodata:

Anna Mauranen is Professor of English at the University of Helsinki. Her recent

research and publications focus on English as a lingua franca, corpus linguistics,

modelling spoken language, and academic discourses. She is an editor of JELF, the

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Journal of English as a Lingua Franca. She is currently running corpus-based research

projects on spoken and written academic English as a lingua franca (the ELFA project),

and on Global English. Her major publications include: Exploring ELF: Academic

English shaped by non-native speakers (2012), English as a Lingua Franca - Studies

and Findings (ed. with Ranta 2009); Linear Unit Grammar (with Sinclair 2006),

Translation Universals - Do They Exist (2004), Cultural Differences in Academic

Rhetoric (1993).

Saturday, 9th

March 2013

13:30~18:30 2nd

Waseda ELF International Workshop*: Part 2

- Researching ELF in Academic Contexts and Its Implications for Pedagogy -

Programme

1) 13:30 Opening & Introduction Kumiko Murata

2) 13:40~15:35 - ELF Research in Progress -

13:40 Anna Yatsuyanagi, Waseda University

‘ELF in a Japanese University Classroom: What the Students Say’

14:00 Akiko Matsumoto-Otsu, Daito Bunka University & Waseda University

‘The Use of Negations in ELF Talk: An analysis of professional

talk-data in the construction industry’

14:20 Mayu Konakahara, Waseda University

‘Overlapping as an active involvement in ELF interactions: Explicitness

and Efficiency’

14:40 Dr Keiko Tsuchiya, Tokai University

‘Behaviours in ELF: Analysing interruption sequences in discussions in

an EAP course’

15:00 Comments

Commentators: Profs Juliane House & Anna Mauranen

15:15 Questions & Answers

15:35-15:50 Coffee/ Tea Break

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3) 15:50-18:30 Panel

- ELF Research and Its Implications for Pedagogy -

15:50 Introduction Kumiko Murata

15:55 Special Panel Contribution**

Dr Jagdish Kaur, University of Malaya

‘Teaching the Effective Use of ELF: Insights from Research into

the Use of Pragmatic Strategies in ELF Communication’

**The abstract and biodata are listed below.

16:25 Dr Yasuyo Sawaki, Waseda University

‘A review of large-scale academic English tests

from an ELF perspective’

16:45 Dr Ayako Suzuki, Tamagawa University

‘English for Global Citizenship? ELF for unsettling students’

beliefs about English’

17:05 Prof Tetsuo Harada, Waseda University

‘Effects of early language learning on speech perception: From an ELF

perspective’

17:25 Discussants Profs Juliane House & Anna Mauranen

17:45-18:25 Questions & Answers, and Discussion

4) 18:25 Round-up Kumiko Murata

Venue: Room 2, Building 15, Waseda Campus, Waseda University

* This workshop has been supported by Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research

(JSPS, Kiban (Foundation) B, No. 23320122)

19:00-21:00 Reception

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Abstract

Teaching the Effective Use of ELF: Insights from Research into the Use of

Pragmatic Strategies in ELF Communication

Dr Jagdish Kaur, University of Malaya

The past decade has witnessed an exponential rise in research into the use of English as

a global lingua franca by non-native speakers of English. As findings of such research

shed light on the nature of ELF communication and the many practices and procedures

associated with it, there is now growing interest in how these findings can inform

second or foreign language pedagogy. Given the variability and lack of stability noted in

the Englishes used in such interactions, efforts to give form to an ELF standard remain

elusive. ELF is after all functionally defined and any suggestion of an ELF model has

received criticism. What stands out in ELF communication, however, is the supportive,

cooperative, consensual nature of the interactions and the speakers’ use of various

pragmatic strategies in this regard. The paper highlights some such strategies, including

those designed to clarify and raise the explicitness of talk and to pre-empt as well as

repair problems in understanding. It is suggested that teachers incorporate learning

activities that enhance learners’ use of such strategies to maximise the effectiveness of

their communication in ELF. As ELF is in essence about language use, it is only fitting

that an “ELF-oriented pedagogy” focuses on enhancing and facilitating the effective use

of English in lingua franca communication.

Biodata:

Jagdish Kaur is Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Languages and Linguistics, University

of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur. Her research interest lies mainly in the microanalysis of ELF

interactions, using conversation analytic procedures, to establish how speakers of ELF

communicate and to identify the kinds of competences that they rely on to achieve

success in communication. She has published her findings on ELF in journals like World

Englishes, Journal of Pragmatics, Intercultural Pragmatics and Text&Talk. She is also

author of the book English as a Lingua Franca: Co-Constructing Understanding (VDM

Verlag).