title: A Corpus-based Study of English as a Lingua Franca in the Context of China-ASEAN Communication and Implications for English Language Teaching
Creators: name: Ji, Ke
Publisher: name: Griffith University
Year: 2017
Subjects: subject: Lingua franca
subject: ASEAN communication
subject: Corpus-based methods

description: This research investigated the use of English as a lingua franca (ELF) in the context of China-ASEAN communication, where the ELF speakers are mainly bilinguals or multilinguals, using English as non-native speakers. The focus of the study was on the lexicogrammatical features of ELF, especially L1 Chinese ELF users, the pragmatic competence of Asian ELF users in this defined context and the implications of ELF for local language teaching. This research reviewed the key findings of previous research in other ELF contexts and Chinese English as references and adapted an ELF communicative competence model to analyse the linguistic features and pragmatic competence of Asian ELF users. Corpus-based methods were applied in this research, utilising the Asian Corpus of English (ACE), which comprises one million words of naturally occurring ELF interactions. The Chinese subset of ACE formed the primary data of this research, including 18 recordings of naturally occurring ELF interactions. The total length of the recordings was seven and a half hours, involving 45 speakers of 13 different first languages. The data used in this study mainly comprised English talk shows on Chinese TV stations and websites, with topics covering politics, economics, diplomacy, sports, fashion, and popstars. The background information of most speakers and communication contexts were acquired for discourse analysis. In terms of non-standard forms of lexicogrammar of ELF by Chinese users, there are nine lexicogrammatical features identified and their frequencies were noted. They were lexical and phrasal innovation, non-standard use of prepositions, grammatical disagreement, non-standard omission, subject pronoun copying (SPC), tag questions, self-repetitions, response to general questions and the use of adjacent default tense (ADT). The findings indicate that Chinese ELF users are creative and flexible in using the language to meet their communicative needs. Furthermore, there was no evidence to show these nonstandard forms necessarily caused misunderstanding or communication breakdowns in these China-ASEAN contexts. Mutual intelligibility appears more important than conforming to native speaker’s norms when communicating with other Asian multilingual ELF speakers. The pragmatic competence of Asian ELF users in China-ASEAN contexts were examined in terms of strategic competence, sociocultural competence and discourse competence. Asian ELF users in this data were found to be active and flexible in using various communicative strategies to overcome problems or to facilitate their communication. The common strategies used by the ELF speakers included the use of lexical suggestion, paraphrasing, code-switching, asking for clarification and avoiding the use of local idioms. In addition, Asian ELF speakers were able to demonstrate a certain degree of sensitivity and flexibility in dealing with cultural differences and changes. It is worth noting that in emergent and dynamic ELF intercultural communication, Asian ELF speakers can move beyond cultural stereotypes. Moreover, the study of discourse competence indicates that Asian ELF speakers collaborate with and support each other by frequently using backchannels and echoing. These findings are of significance in local English language teaching. It is suggested that the ELF approach is feasible and practical for language teaching for English majors in Guangxi, where there is increasing communication with people from ASEAN countries. The ELF communicative competence that has been described in this research, including linguistic competence, strategic competence, discourse competence and sociocultural competence, can be integrated into the pedagogical practice for English majors in Guangxi, with guidance of the five principles of ELF approach.