cometadata/datacite-titles-descriptions-related-identifiers huggingface dataset:
DOI: 10.1285/i22390359v38p13
title: The elusive concept of culture

description: It is widely assumed that communication in English as a lingua franca is of its very nature inter-cultural. But the concept of culture is itself indeterminate. It is generally defined as the socially shared conventions of belief and behavior of particular communities, but the concept of community is similarly indeterminate. Communities exist and co-exist in different sizes from micro to macro across a spectrum of specificity, and each can be said to be associated with its own particular culture. Although it may be sociolinguistically convenient to focus on the macro end of the spectrum, communication is enacted at all levels by the same process of bringing about schematic convergence by means of varied linguistic resources. From this pragmatic perspective, the use of ELF is no more and no less intercultural or multilingual than any other communicative activity.
DOI: 10.1285/i22390359v38p25
title: Communication and community. An ELF perspective on critical contexts

description: This paper examines current ways in which the concept of 'community' has been operationalized in sociolinguistics and how they relate to thinking about communication. It argues that in the age of globalization, well-established ideas about community need to be radically re-thought in order to ensure compatibility with contemporary life, characterized by de-territorialization, fluidity and virtuality. This is particularly crucial when it comes to high-stakes encounters in critical contexts, such as international conflict mediation, interpreting, asylum procedures and international publishing. These are very often carried out via (English as) a lingua franca, (E)LF for short. Describing and analyzing these encounters is not just a matter of carrying out sociolinguistic, ethnographic and anthropological research but is essentially an applied linguistic undertaking, in that the conditions of ELF communication are inextricably interwoven with significant socio-political, socio-economic and humanitarian issues of misunderstanding, inequity and disenfranchisement. It is therefore imperative to think clearly about the concepts that provide the basis for wide-reaching decisions in these critical contexts. The contribution of ELF research is thus that it not only helps us to understand how "communication communities" work; but also has an important part to play in the critical appraisal of well-entrenched but potentially unsuitable and anachronistic notions in sociolinguistics and in bringing our conceptual and methodological tools in line with the realities of globalization.
DOI: 10.1285/i22390359v38p43
title: Patterns of metaphysical discourse in West-African migrants' ELF-mediated trauma narratives

description: This chapter focuses on an ongoing ethnographic research enquiring into West-African migrants' and refugees' trauma narratives mediated by a use of English as a 'lingua franca' (ELF) in Italian contexts of intercultural communication. The six case studies under investigation apply a construct built on models of Cognitive-Experiential Linguistics, Possible-Worlds Semantics and Modal Logic to the discourse analysis of Nigerian migrants' ELF-mediated trauma narratives. Ethnographic data show that such trauma narratives are prevalently characterized by features from the migrants' typologically-different native languages which come to be transferred into their ELF variations at the levels of: ergative clause structures, modality, idiomatic lexicon, and metaphorical patterns of a metaphysical kind. More specifically, it has been observed that, in such narratives, migrants often employ modal operators in the description of much- desired 'possible worlds' projected into a transcendental dimension triggered by their strong feelings and emotions which transfigure traumatic events and their effects into personifications of supernatural entities taking the animate agentive shapes, in ergative- subject position, of cruel Yoruba deities, or imaginary monsters often generated by a process of hybridization between parallel mythological creatures in both native and host cultures. In the case studies in point – making reference to a wider corpus of ELF- mediated West-African migrants' and refugees' trauma narratives (Guido 2018) – it has been noticed that the Nigerian migrants' degree of psychological resilience to traumatic experiences is determined by their more or less optimistic prospects on the achievement of the much-desired 'possible worlds' which they represent in their minds as a sort of 'utopia', in contrast with the 'dystopian real world' that they have sadly experienced. In particular, the corpus of trauma narratives reveals the frequent occurrence of specific patterns in association with a four-level gradient ranging from possible, unreal, and impossible utopian worlds up to – as a more recent development triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic – a much-too-real dystopian world. Each of these degrees have been defined as trauma narratives of, respectively: 'hope', 'frustration', 'despair', and 'urge of stampede'.
DOI: 10.1285/i22390359v38p65
title: Patterns of metaphysical discourse in West-African migrants' ELF-mediated trauma narratives

description: In this paper we will analyze question and answer moves in a corpus of approximately eight interviews taken from transcripts published on the site Storie migranti (www.storiemigranti.org). Our focus will be the different ways questions are employed and formulated to elicit ideational information (Halliday 2004) and also the way in which answers to these same questions are formulated. A major point of interest within cross- cultural migrant domains (Guido 2008) and in particular in the context of asylum seekers using ELF is how the delicate balance of the demands of questioner and answerer are negotiated and satisfied, or not, as the case may be. In addition to purely lingua-structural concerns, we also consider pragmatic considerations within the specific theoretical contexts of relevance (Sperber, Wilson 1986) and conversation implicatures (Grice 1975). With an in-depth analysis of individual cases, we will seek to identify the instances where answers satisfactorily provide the information elicited by the question in view of being able to describe successful strategies both from the perspective of questioner and answerer within the specific context of spoken interaction between ELF users in cross-cultural migration domains.
DOI: 10.1285/i22390359v38p87
title: Patterns of metaphysical discourse in West-African migrants' ELF-mediated trauma narratives

description: This article investigates the use of interpersonal discourse markers and comprehension checkers in elicited migrant narratives in English and Italian Lingua Franca with a view to identifying and describing their pragmatic function in the situated exchanges in which they occur. The study was conducted on a small corpus of interviews to asylum seekers living in Southern Italy. The interviews were clearly framed (and fully understood by the participants) as non-institutional encounters (Sarangi, Roberts 2008) and, as such, not subject to the constraints normally applicable to migration narratives produced within the framework of asylum seeking procedures. This resulted in a reduction in the goal-orientedness of the narrative, with a parallel increase, in some cases at least, in interpersonal focus. The analysis of the linguistic resources deployed by the interviewees indicates that they are fully cognizant of the expressive potential of interpersonal discourse markers, which they use to establish rapport with their interlocutor and to create a shared common ground where both parties are construed as being on an equal footing with respect to linguistic, discursive and relational resources.
DOI: 10.1285/i22390359v38p113
title: The experiential nature of ELF reformulations in the multimodal representations of modern and ancient sea-odysseys

description: This chapter explores the latest stage of a research project carried out at the University of Salento, which aims to investigate the effects of emotions on the positive reconsideration of mass migrations and intercultural socialization. In particular, this study illustrates the linguistic and multimodal strategies of production of four videos that are informed by an unbiased discursive frame for the multimedia representations of sea-journeys. In these clips, the linguistic and audiovisual associations between samples of Western and Non-Western migration narratives are meant to assist viewers in acknowledging that travelers from past and present times experience shared emotions and feelings when leaving their native countries in search for better life conditions. The activation of this perlocutionary effect is pursued by means of hybridizations between written and oral accounts of sea-voyages and between 'epic movie', 'mockumentary' and 'journalistic interview' genres. Narrations are retextualized into 'experiential reformulations' that resort to modern variations of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) in order to underline, through their structural and phonetic characteristics, the dramatic and life-threatening nature of migrations. The audiovisual composition mixes factual and cinematic properties so as to attract envisaged viewers' attention and then induce, in them, the positive reconsideration of the objects of representation. After detailing the main phases of experiential reformulation and illustrating the multimodal composition of the four videos, this chapter comments on the results of a reception study of the multimedia research products, in order to enquire into the empirical reception of genre and text hybridization, as well as into the accessibility level of the ELF variations that represent the verbal dimension of the videos.
DOI: 10.1285/i22390359v38p135
title: Teaching as narrative. The use of ELF in the IFL class in the migration setting of Southern Italy

description: This article illustrates the results of a three-year research project conducted in the migration setting of Southern Italy from 2015 to 2018 focused on: 1) theorising English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) as a "translingual practice" in migratory settings across the Mediterranean; 2) scrutinizing the possibility of a pedagogy of contact in the Italian as a Foreign Language (IFL) classroom; 3) highlighting issues of self-translation and reflexivity in teaching and learning practices in the migration setting. Considering teaching as a narrative phenomenon, the article explores the third phase of the project, which was based on a series of interviews with the IFL teachers, conducted in 2017–2018, aimed at highlighting such issues as the use of ELF as a co-learning language, of autobiographical elements and self-translation practice and of self-reflexivity and improvisation. Results show the extent to which approaching students, who are also beneficiaries in a national humanitarian project, required an effort to eliminate the ideal of linguistic purity, as well as all cultural and linguistic prejudices.
DOI: 10.1285/i22390359v38p155
title: A critical discourse analysis of cases of ELF reformulation of European and Italian legal texts on migration

description: The present chapter focuses on a parallel corpus of legal texts from the EU and the recently issued Italian legal text dealing with Migration, the so called "Decreto Sicurezza bis" ("Safety Decree"), of June 2019, and it aims to point out the textual difficulties arising from the interpretation of such legal documents. This is all the more true if we think of the technical limitations and practical difficulties that reading a legal text may pose to a layperson using English as a lingua franca (ELF). Unlike previous studies dealing with the same topic of Immigration (Provenzano 2008), here the focus is on a small corpus from the EU and an Italian text, with the aim of defining cultural similarities at the level of text production. Furthermore, the texts are also relevant to the receivers and, yet, they are often likely to cause unintelligibility. Hence, both the EU texts and the Italian one are here submitted to a process of reformulation, as preliminary to the translation stage, in order to make them more accessible to international receivers (Widdowson 1984).
DOI: 10.1285/i22390359v38p167
title: The impact of English as a Lingua Franca on emotions. The role of individuals' native language vs. second language

description: This chapter aims to contribute to the current understanding of how languages impact the emotions elicited by textual messages. Grounding on the episodic trace theory – a theoretical framework originally developed in the field of cognitive psychology – we examine the role of ELF (English as a Lingua Franca) in affecting the emotional reactions of individuals having different linguistic backgrounds. Across two studies, we investigate the role of ELF in international communication by focusing on the dichotomy of native (L1) vs. second language (L2). Study 1, conducted online through the use of self-reported measures, shows that the use of ELF arouses more positive emotions among individuals having English as a native language (L1), rather than as a second language (L2). Study 2 employs an Automated Facial Coding(AFC) software, namely FaceReaderTM, able to track human basic emotions, and confirms how textual messages in L1 produces a greater emotional reaction than L2. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the theoretical and practical implications of the findings, followed by some directions for future research.
DOI: 10.1285/i22390359v38p181
title: Overviewing research on BELF communication strategies: From professional practice to ELT materials

description: The present paper focuses on the use of English in BELF contexts, bearing in mind both teaching and practice in the professional field. After an overview of the state of the art in ELF and BELF research over the last twenty years, the topic is tackled from three different perspectives, which mirror the studies carried out by the unit of the University of Verona in a three-year-long nationally funded research. Firstly, we will address BELF in professional settings, to shed light on what facilitates success in online interactions, with a special focus on e-mail exchanges. Secondly, still addressing e-mail exchanges, we will suggest a broadening of the notion of BELF communication strategies that goes beyond sheer successful, mutual understanding in the professional field. Finally, bearing the first two steps of our research in mind, we will turn to the teaching environment, overviewing if and to what extent international business ELT coursebooks deal with BELF communication strategies at different levels of competence, so as to provide hints and suggestions for more effective materials in this field.
DOI: 10.1285/i22390359v38p199
title: "Waiting for your info". An explanatory look at the communicative strategies deployed to mitigate potentially face-threatening acts in emails

description: Emails are perhaps the most common form of communication in business contexts. In spite of their prominence they are, however, still a common source of misunderstanding and stress. Drawing upon the integration of linguistic and genre aspects, a previous study (Poppi 2015) showed that in order to be able to decide how to draft an email, it is not possible to refer to structural characteristics and style of language alone, as in business communication the boundaries and expectations of the genre are often overruled by inventiveness and creativity. In particular, inventiveness and creativity may especially prove useful when composing emails containing potentially face-threatening acts like directives or requests. The present contribution focuses on 41 email chains written and received by the employees of companies dealing with car-trading, manufacturing of tights and socks, ICT (Information and Computer Technologies) assistance, transport and logistics, who were in charge of customer services. At first, reference was made to Goldstein and Sabin's (2006) categorization of email exchanges on the basis of the speech act they entail. Out of the twelve main categories identified by them, it was decided to concentrate on those messages which proved to be the textualization of requests and directives (requesting someone to do something), with a view to disclosing the strategies employed to downgrade or mitigate the directness of these potentially face-threatening speech acts. In order to perform this latter stage of the analysis, it was decided to refer to the adaptation of the studies by Blum-Kulka et al. (1989) and Sifianou (1992) provided by Darics and Koller (2018), as well as to Blum-Kulka and Olshtain's classification of levels of directness. The preliminary results of the analysis confirm that email writers are generally aware of the importance of mitigating the directness of face-threatening speech acts like information requests, and especially directives, as shown by the variety of strategies employed in the samples under scrutiny here.
DOI: 10.1285/i22390359v38p219
title: Communication strategies in BELF: From users' perception, corpus and textbook analysis to pedagogical implications

description: English as Business Lingua Franca (BELF) has become an important domain of study within ELF research, where strategic competence, in addition to business know-how and multicultural awareness (Louhiala-Salminen, Kankaanranta 2011), is extremely important due to the high-stakes nature of many business interactions. Meaning negotiation through Communication Strategies (CSs) has been shown to contribute to clarity and accuracy as well as to preventing and solving comprehension problems in both oral (Franceschi 2019) and digital (Brunner, Diemer 2019; Caleffi 2019; Ren 2018) interactions. BELF users' own perceptions confirm the importance of an effective use of strategies in addition to knowledge of relevant business practices and of specialized register Franceschi forthcoming). However, their importance is not reflected in Business English coursebooks, where attention to CSs and their functions is scarce both in terms of raising awareness of the relevance of these strategies and of practicing their use in BELF communication (Franceschi 2018; Vettorel 2019). This paper combines reflection on the state-of-the-art of communication strategies in BELF, their presence – or lack thereof – in current teaching materials and the actions that may be undertaken in order to integrate CSs in Business English training. Exemplifications on how to foster reflection and implement guided and freer activities involving the use of common communication strategies, including clarification, multilingualism and paraphrasing/interpretative summary, are also provided.
DOI: 10.1285/i22390359v38p241
title: Communication strategies in BELF e-mailing: 'Only' a matter of shared understanding?

description: Research in BELF (English as a Business Lingua Franca) has increasingly focused on pragmatic and sociolinguistic aspects of business communication (Kecskes 2019). In particular, a number of studies has explored the employment of Communication Strategies (CSs) in interactions in the workplace, both in oral communication (Franceschi 2019; Haegeman 2002; Poncini 2004) and in digital written exchanges (Incelli 2013; Ren 2018; Zummo 2018). CSs have mainly been analysed from a perspective of 'problematicity' (Bialystok 1990), in that they are usually presented as moves undertaken to repair (Watterson 2008), signal (Cogo, Pitzl 2016), or pre-empt (Mauranen 2006) problems of understanding, with the aim of achieving successful communication (Pitzl 2010). This paper suggests a broadening of the notion of communication strategy in the domain of BELF that includes the achievement of goals other than, or at least complementary to, shared understanding. It does so by analysing some examples from a collection of business e-mails which seem to suggest that there may be other reasons, besides mutual intelligibility, for business partners to employ certain communication strategies. The pedagogical implications of this broadening are also considered, with reference to the findings of current research concerning Business English (BE) teaching material (Vettorel, Franceschi 2020).
DOI: 10.1285/i22390359v38p259
title: ELF awareness in ELT: Emerging challenges and new paradigms in teacher education

description: This contribution aims at presenting the underlying construct and the research design of a study carried out by the Roma Tre University unit of a 3-year national research project (PRIN), as well as the findings about English language (EL) teachers' attitudes towards English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) as they emerge from the study and from the in-service teacher education course designed and implemented during the project. The study investigated native and non-native teachers' understandings, beliefs and attitudes towards ELF and the challenges brought about by the notion of ELF awareness in English Language Teaching (ELT). This investigation was carried out through the online administration of two questionnaires, one for Italian non-native teachers of English teaching in the Italian school system, and one for native English language assistants working at university level. The survey findings informed the design of a post-graduate blended EL teacher education course, with a special focus on developing English language teachers' awareness of the emerging realities of English, while providing an ELF-aware reflective approach to revisit the EL teachers' syllabus design, lesson planning and implementation. Course participants' feedback is presented and pedagogical implications for EL teacher education are illustrated and discussed.
DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.13259687
title: Axshya SAMVAD Study - Costs due to TB diagnosis

description: This contains the dataset (in MS Excel format) and codebook for the Axshya SAMVAD study asessing the effects of active case finding for TB on costs due to TB diagnosis and catastrophic costs due to TB diagnosis (prevelance, intensity and inequity) when compared to passive case finding. The study was published in Global Health Action in 2018
DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.13259687.v1
title: Axshya SAMVAD Study - Costs due to TB diagnosis

description: This contains the dataset (in MS Excel format) and codebook for the Axshya SAMVAD study asessing the effects of active case finding for TB on costs due to TB diagnosis and catastrophic costs due to TB diagnosis (prevelance, intensity and inequity) when compared to passive case finding. The study was published in Global Health Action in 2018
DOI: 10.1285/i22390359v38p277
title: Challenging the interlanguage hypothesis: The convergence of EFL and ELF in the English classroom

description: This paper follows from the PRIN Conference (PRIN 2015 Prot. 2015REZ4EZ) on ELF that was held in Lecce, Italy, at the University of Salento, on December 4-6, 2019. Here, the PRIN Unit of the Roma Tre University presented the findings of their three-year study in a panel session entitled: English as a Lingua Franca: challenges and new paradigms for native and non-native teachers, insights from the language classrooms and implications for teacher education. One of the main aims of this article is to show how possible it is to find a convergence between English as a foreign language (EFL) and English as a lingua franca (ELF) in second language education, by means of the learner's performance. This assumption is based on the author's critical analysis of the interlanguage hypothesis in English language teaching (ELT), seen through the lens of ELF theory. One of the fundamental tenets of this study is that today's plurilithic dimension of English as a global language entails a reconceptualization of the second-language learner's 'errors', which challenges the prescriptive role of standard English. Given the dynamics of English as a contact language, it is assumed that a more effective pedagogical approach should take into consideration the sociocognitive processes connected to language variability and the learner's linguacultural identity.