In the ‘internationalised’ university, English is a lingua franca (ELF), a bridge language between users who speak different varieties of English (Kachru, 1990). Students representing all these varieties regularly need... [ view full abstract ]
In the ‘internationalised’ university, English is a lingua franca (ELF), a bridge language between users who speak different varieties of English (Kachru, 1990). Students representing all these varieties regularly need to work together in high-stakes active learning environments such as group work. This paper will provide a holistic view of the language challenges and needs of students face in these contexts, drawing on interviews with students from the Humanities, Pharmacy, Business and Media Studies which were conducted at two different points during their first year of university,
The paper shows that the oracy (listening and speaking) demands of the undergraduate curriculum are intrinsically linked to issues of interpersonal rapport. Crucially, challenges are not only perceived by non-native speaker of English. Indeed, native speakers frequently feel disempowered as they seek a balance between accommodating to non-native speakers and the possibility of patronising them.
Adopting the view that English as a lingua franca needs to be acquired as an additional language by all speakers (Seidlhofer, 2001), this paper thus argues that universities need to expand their efforts to equip students with the ‘linguistic capital’ (Bourdieu, 1986) necessary to manage study-related talk and relationships. Replacing support targeting distinct student groups such as ‘native speakers’ and ‘non-native speakers’ with focused support on oracy skills in discipline specific communities of practice would provide fertile ground for the development of a strong disciplinary identity and interpersonal rapport based on it.
References
Bourdieu, P. (1986). The forms of capital. In: Richardson, J. (ed.) Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education (pp. 241-258).
Kachru, B. (1990). ‘World Englishes and Applied Linguistics’. World Englishes, 9(1), 3-20.
Seidlhofer, B. (2001) Closing a Conceptual Gap: the Case for a Description of English as a Lingua Franca. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 11(2), 133-158.
