Nghiên cứu khảo sát thái độ của sinh viên và giáo viên đại học chuyên ngữ ở việt nam đối với các biến thể tiếng anh trên thế giới

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES
***********************

PHẠM THỊ HỒNG

A SURVEY STUDY ON VIETNAMESE UNIVERSITY ENGLISH
MAJORED STUDENTS‟ AND TEACHERS‟ ATTITUDES TOWARDS
WORLD ENGLISHES
(Nghiên cứu khảo sát thái độ của sinh viên và giáo viên đại học chuyên ngữ ở
Việt Nam đối với các biến thể Tiếng Anh trên thế giới)

M.A. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS
Field : English Teaching Methodology
Code : 60140111

HANOI - 2017


VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES
***********************

PHẠM THỊ HỒNG

A SURVEY STUDY ON VIETNAMESE UNIVERSITY ENGLISH
MAJORED STUDENTS‟ AND TEACHERS‟ ATTITUDES TOWARDS
WORLD ENGLISHES
(Nghiên cứu khảo sát thái độ của sinh viên và giáo viên đại học chuyên ngữ ở

Việt Nam đối với các biến thể Tiếng Anh trên thế giới)

M.A. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field : English Teaching Methodology
Code : 60140111
Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Lê Văn Canh

HANOI - 2017


DECLARATION
I hereby certify that the thesis entitled “A SURVEY STUDY ON
VIETNAMESE UNIVERSITY ENGLISH MAJORED STUDENTS‟ AND
TEACHERS‟ ATTITUDES TOWARDS WORLD ENGLISHES” is the result
of my research for the Degree of Master of Art, and the thesis has not been
submitted for any degree at any other university or tertiary institution.
In terms of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in
the library should be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in
accordance with normal conditions established by the librarian for the care, loan and
reproduction of the paper.
Hanoi, July 2017

Phạm Thị Hồng

i


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
It is an honor for me to express my gratitude to all who have helped me in

the completion of this thesis.
First of all, I would like to express my deepest thanks to my supervisor, Prof.
Dr. Le Van Canh, for his invaluable supervision, great support, persistent guidance,
and timely encouragement. I am truly grateful to his for the inspirable lectures,
suggestions and materials for my research.
At the same time, I would like to extend my sincere thanks to all the teachers
in Postgraduate Department of University of Language and International Studies for
their precious lectures and suggestions.
My heartfelt thanks and blessings also go to all teachers and students at
Department of Foreign Languages, Ha Noi Pedagogical University Number 2 and
USAcademy English Centre for their valuable information, assistance and
cooperation in the completion of this study.
Last but not least, I take this opportunity to thank my all family members,
friends, especially my mother whose strong support, assistance and encouragement
have helped me complete this research.
To them all I dedicate this thesis.

ii


ABSTRACT
This survey study was aimed to find out the teachers‟ and students‟ attitudes
towards World Englishes. The purpose of this exploration is to gain an
understanding of teachers‟ and students‟ attitudes towards WEs as well as how
teachers‟ attitudes towards varieties of English are reflected in their classroom
teaching. Also, the study attempts to identify the gap between teachers' attitudes and
their students' attitudes towards World Englishes. Three instruments of data
collection, audio recordings, questionnaires and interviews were used to achieve the
purpose of the study. The participants were teachers and students from English major University in Viet Nam. In this study, in order to address the limitations of
the questionnaire in exploring teachers‟ attitudes, focus group interviews will be

used to elicit in-depth information about students‟ and teachers‟ attitudes towards
different varieties of English and factors that shape their attitudes.

iii


LISTS OF ABBREVIATION
CEF

Common European Framework of Reference for Languages

EFL

English as a Foreign Language

EIL

English as an International Language

ELF

English as a Lingua Franca

ELT

English Language Teaching

ENL

English as a native language

ESL

English as a second language

GA

General American

HPU2:

Ha Noi Pedagogical University Number 2

IBID

Ibidem

L1

First language

N

Number

ND

No date

NNS

Nonnative speaker

NS

Native Speaker

SLA

Second language acquisition

TESOL

Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages

ULIS

University of Languages and International Studies

VOICE

Vienna-Oxford International Corpus of English

WEs

World Englishes

iv

LISTS OF TABLES
Table 1. Students‟ attitudes towards non-native-English speakers‟ accents (N=150) ..........39
Table 2. Students‟ opinions of the comprehensibility of various accents.................40
Table 3. Teachers‟ attitudes towards varieties of English (N=47) ............................43
Table 4. Below shows the teachers‟ attitudes towards native-like pronunciation ....44
Table 5. Goals of pronunciation teaching to help students become as native-like as
possible ......................................................................................................................45

v


LISTS OF FIGURES
Figure 1. Three components of attitude ......................................................................6
Figure 2: Kachru's (1985, 2004) circles of English (adapted from Graddol 2006: 110) ..14
Figure 3: The native speaker concept by Mukherjee (2005: 9) ................................15

vi


TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION ....................................................................................................... i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ..................................................................................... ii
ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................. iii
LISTS OF ABBREVIATION................................................................................. iv
LISTS OF TABLES ..................................................................................................v
LISTS OF FIGURES .............................................................................................. vi
PART A: THE INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................1
1. The rationale of the study....................................................................................1
2. Aim of study ........................................................................................................2

3. Objectives ............................................................................................................2
4. Research Questions .............................................................................................2
5. Scope ...................................................................................................................3
6. Research Methodology........................................................................................3
7. Significance of the study .....................................................................................3
8. Design of the study..............................................................................................4
PART B: DEVELOPMENT.....................................................................................5
CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW ................................................................5
1.1. Definitions of Terminologies. ..........................................................................5
1.2. Definition of World Englishes (WEs) ..............................................................7
1.3. English as an international language (EIL) ......................................................9
1.4. English as a Lingua Franca ............................................................................12
1.4.1. ELF and the English-speaking Community ............................................12
1.4.2 ELF versus ENL and EFL ........................................................................15
1.4.3. Research into ELF ...................................................................................17
1.5. English Language Teaching and ELF ............................................................20
1.5.1. Persistent Native Speaker Authority .......................................................20
1.5.2. Reforming ELT by ELF ..........................................................................22
vii


1.6. Accent and ELF..............................................................................................24
1.6.1. What Is Accent? ......................................................................................24
1.6.2. Studies of Accent and Attitude (ELF).....................................................26
1.7. Studies on students‟ and teachers‟ attitudes towards Wes .............................27
CHAPTER II: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ................................................32
2.1. The context of the study .................................................................................32
2.2. Research Questions ........................................................................................33
2.4. Research participants .....................................................................................34
2.5. Instruments for Data Collection .....................................................................35

2.5.1. Audio recordings .....................................................................................35
2.5.2. Questionnaires .........................................................................................35
2.5.3. Interviews ................................................................................................36
2.6. Data Collection Procedures ............................................................................37
2.7. Data Analysis Procedure ................................................................................38
CHAPTER III: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION ..................................................39
3.1. The student questionnaire data .......................................................................39
3.2. The student interview data .............................................................................41
3.3. Teachers‟ questionnaire data ..........................................................................43
3.4. Teachers‟ attitudes towards native-like pronunciation ..................................44
3.5. Discussion ......................................................................................................45
PART C: CONCLUSION.......................................................................................47
1. Summary of major findings ..............................................................................47
2. Implications .......................................................................................................48
3. Limitations of the Study ....................................................................................50
REFERENCES ........................................................ Error! Bookmark not defined.
APPENDICES ........................................................................................................... I
Appendix 1: ............................................................................................................. I
Appendix 2: .......................................................................................................... IV
Appendix 3: ............................................................................................................ V

viii


PART A: THE INTRODUCTION
1. The rationale of the study
The discussion of World Englishes (WEs) in the applied linguistics
profession for the most part accepts multiple varieties of English as legitimate and
worthy of study even if legitimacy remains the object of inquiry. Consistent with
the value applied linguists place on World Englishes, English is taught and learned

in many countries because it is an and arguably the international language.
A majority of English language users today have acquired English as an
additional language (Graddol, 1997), and they use it as a medium of intranational and
international communication, often in tandem with other languages. With the growing
understanding of the complexity of English, there has been an increasing interest in
considering the pedagogical implications of WEs, defined inclusively to encompass not
only the linguistic varieties but also the functional varieties of English.
The first decade of the 21st century has witnessed rapid growth in the volume
and quality of research on WEs. Following Kachru‟s (1985) insight and his three
circles model, scholars have described a growing number of varieties of English in
terms of their structural characteristics and ecology (for reviews, see Bolton, 2005;
Jenkins, 2006). Though the model has weaknesses, it has substantially raised
general awareness of the existence and validity of dynamic varieties of English,
each with growing populations of speakers and vibrant media, literatures, and
popular cultures (Bolton, 2008). English as the language of international
communication has for long been, and still is, spreading all over the world, and
since any transmission of language brings about transformation (Widdowson,
2003), this spread has resulted in the existence of different varieties of English, each
as a consequence of English contact with a certain language, culture and people.
The interesting point is that the speakers of these new Englishes who use English to
communicate with fellow non-native speakers far outnumber its native speakers
(Widdowson, 2003). The coinage and promotion of the term World Englishes is
mainly associated with Kachru (1982). The underlying philosophy of Kachruvian
1


approach argues for the "importance of inclusivity and pluricentricity in approaches
to linguistics of new varieties of English” (Bolton, 2004, p. 367). In addition, in an
attempt to empower new Englishes, this theory calls the labels native speaker and native
and standard English into serious question and denies any special status for them.

As a result, in order to narrow the gap between theory and practice, attempts
have been made to explore teachers‟ and students‟ attitudes to WEs. The survey
study reported in this paper is aimed to explore the attitudes of teachers and students
about WEs in the context of English – major University in Viet Nam. In order to
achieve this aim, I used questionnaire and interviewed a number of teachers and
students at a English – major University in Viet Nam where English is taught as a
compulsory subject about WEs. The purpose of this exploration is to gain an
understanding of teachers‟ and students‟ attitudes towards WEs as well as how
teachers‟ attitudes towards varieties of English are reflected in their classroom
teaching. I believe that such as an understanding would be useful to curriculum
designers, administrators and teacher educators to find more effective ways to make
WEs really in the classroom by helping teachers and students to change their
attitudes if this is necessary.
2. Aim of study
The study sets out to investigate students‟ and teachers‟ attitudes towards varieties
of English.
3. Objectives
The purposes of the study are:
(a) to find out Vietnamese students‟ preferences to different English varieties.
(b) to identify the gap, if any, between teachers‟ and students‟ attitudes towards
varieties of English.
4. Research Questions
The study is aimed at finding out the students‟ and teachers‟ attitudes
towards World Englishes. Therefore, it was designed and conducted to answer the
following overarching research questions:
What varieties of English do teachers and students prefer?
2


In seeking the answer to the above general research question, the following

sub-questions were formulated and answered with data gathered from the
questionnaire and the interview.
a. What are the students‟ attitudes towards varieties of English?
b. What shapes students‟ attitudes?
c. What are the students‟ preferences for non - native – English speaking teachers?
d. What are teachers‟ attitudes towards varieties of English?
5. Scope
The study limits itself to the investigation of teachers‟ and attitudes towards
World Englishes in the context of English – major University in Viet Nam.
Particularly, the study was aimed at exploring what English varieties do students and
teachers prefer as well as the students‟ attitudes towards native-English-speaking
teachers and non-native-English-speaking teachers, and what shapes their attitudes.
6. Research Methodology
In order to achieve the above aim and objectives, a mixed method will be
employed to collect the data for the study and two main data collection methods
employed were questionnaires, focus group interviews. Specifically, a questionnaire
will be administered to both teachers and students at English – major University
first. As Canh and Barnard (2009a) argue that “at best, eliciting teachers‟ attitudes
through a questionnaire is barely scratching the surface of much deeper cognitive
processes, but one which – it may be argued – is a necessary first step towards a
more fully exploring cognitive processing (p.250). In this study, in order to address
the limitations of the questionnaire in exploring teachers‟ attitudes, focus group
interviews will be used to elicit in-depth information about students‟ and teachers‟
attitudes towards different varieties of English and factors that shape their attitudes.
7. Significance of the study
It is hoped that this study will be of some use in understanding teachers‟ and
students‟ attitudes towards World Englishes through a English – major University in
Viet Nam. The findings of the study will also contribute to my understanding of how.

3

8. Design of the study
The thesis is composed of the following parts:
Part A, the Introduction, presents the rationale for the study, the aim, objectives,
research questions, scope of study, research methods, significance of the study and
design of the study.
Part B, the Development, consists of three chapters as follows:
Chapter I: the Literature Review, presents the theoretical background for the
study. It involves definitions of attitudes, language attitudes, World Englishes,
English as an International Language, English as a Lingua Franca, English
Language Teaching and ELF, Accent and ELF, studies on students‟ and
teachers‟ attitudes towards WEs.
Chapter II: the Study, presents the context of the study, research questions,
research participants, instruments for data collection, data collection
procedures and data analysis procedure.
Chapter III: the Results and Discussion, describes the results of the study
which were collected from questionnaires and interviews, and the discussion
based in the results to answer the research questions.
Part C: the Conclusion, gives the summary of major findings, implications,
limitations of the study.

4


PART B: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter reviews the literature on WEs and teachers‟ and students‟
attitudes towards WEs. First, it presents the main characteristics of the World
Englishes (WEs), which followed by a discussion of the role of teachers‟ attitudes

in language teaching pedagogy.
1.1. Definitions of Terminologies.
Attitudes
Eagly and Chaiken (1993) defined attitude as „„a psychological tendency that is
expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favor or disfavor‟‟
(p. 1). According to Baker (1992, p. 10), attitude is a hypothetical construct utilized
to expound the orientation and persistence of human behavior. Attitude can be used
to predict behavior but it is hidden and potential and cannot be measured directly.
Therefore, attitude is a relatively constant system of evaluative processes towards
an object based on what individuals have learned in previous settings. Even though
attitudes are relatively constant in individuals, attitudes have been learned. Since
they are learned, they must be changed by further learning. It is strongly likely that
attitudes towards an object are not openly manifested but still measurable (Lemon,
1973, p. 75, cited in Setiyadi,1999, p.41).
Attitudes are said to have cognitive, affective and conative components. The
cognitive component refers to the individual‟s belief structure, the affective to
emotional reactions, and the conative to the tendency to behave toward the attitude
object (Gardner, 1985). The affective response is an emotional response that
expresses an individual‟s degree of preference for an entity. The behavioral
intention is a verbal indication or typical behavioral tendency of an individual. The
cognitive response is a cognitive evaluation of the entity that constitutes an
individual‟s beliefs about the object”. More interestingly, this source reveals that
most attitudes result from either direct experience or observational learning from the
environment.The relationship can be expressed in a hierarchy as shown below.
5


Attitude

Cogniton

Affect

Behavior

Figure 1. Three components of attitude
In short, attitude is a mental state that expresses an individual‟s degree, like or
dislike, positive or negative opinions about an object, a person, to thing or an event.
Additionally, it has three components: affective, cognitive, conative or behavioral.
Language Attitudes
Learning a language is closely related to the attitudes towards the languages
(Starks & Paltridge 1996: 218). In the Longman Dictionary of Applied Linguistics
(1992:199) „language attitudes‟ are defined as follows:
The attitude which speakers of different languages or language varieties have
towards each others‟ languages or to their own language. Expressions of positive
Nor negative feelings towards a language may reflect impressions of linguistic
difficulty or simplicity, ease or difficulty of learning, degree of importance,
elegance, social status, etc. Attitudes towards a language may also show what
people feel about the speakers of that language.
Language attitudes play an important role in acceptance and understanding
of a particular accent. The allusion from related studies to language and attitudes
has shed some light on a significant effect on people‟s intelligibilities. For example,
Holmes (2008) indicates that people tend to understand better when they listen to
speakers they admire. Even though their attitude towards their admired speaker is
important, the attitude towards variations of people‟s accent should also be on the
spot. Assuming that language and attitudes are closely connected (Meyerhoff,
2011), people‟s preferences might be one of the factors affecting intelligibility and
comprehensibility of a particular English accent.

6

The attitude does not only show its bright side, but also it might be the
barrier of language learning. Al-Mansour‟s (2014) study showed that students with
positive attitudes towards Arabic language showed better performance in terms of
pronunciation and accent than those with negative attitudes.
Attitude

Cogniton

Affect

Behavior

1.2. Definition of World Englishes (WEs)
According to Bhatt (2001), World Englishes paradigm discusses the global
spread of English and the large number of functions it has taken on with increasing
range and depth in diverse sociolinguistic settings around the world. This paradigm
particularly emphasizes on multilingualism, multicultural identities, multiple norms
of use, and bilinguals' creativity. Moreover, having its theoretical and philosophical
foundations in liberation linguistics, it severely problematizes the sacred cows of
the traditional

theoretical

and applied

linguistics including interference,

interlanguage, native speaker, speech community, ideal speaker-hearer, Standard

English, and traditional English canon.
Davis (2004: 442), also, defined World Englishes as a term used to
“legitimate the Englishes spoken in the British non-white colonies” and explained
that the ideology behind it denies a special status for the native speakers of
metropolitan English varieties and complains about these native speakers'
discriminations against users of world Englishes .
World Englishes has its philosophical roots in the two dominant schools of
thought of the present time, i.e., Postcolonialism and Postmodernism.
Postcolonialism, according to Bressler (2007; 236), emerges from
colonialization period in the 19th century when Great Britain was "the largest

7


colonizer and imperial power" in the world . But the political, social, economic and
ideological domination of England gradually started to disappear by the turn of the
century through a process called decolonization, which reached its peak in 1950 by
the independence of India. It was the birth of postcolonialism as a liberation
movement. The aim of postcolonialism is to destablize the stablized institutions and
in SLA, in particular, decolonizing the colonized ELT is its major concern. Some of
its common themes include national identity, universality, resistance, appreciation of
differences, and protection of indigenous languages and cultures. Postcolonialism is
much similar to deconstructionism and postmodernism in its subjects and concerns.
Postmodernism in philosophy refers to a belief in the death of metanarratives
(universal truth or grand theories such as Nazism, Fascism, and Marxism) and
claims that no one can ever find the ultimate truth (Pishghadam & Mirzaee, 2008).
Contrary to modernism in which man is considered to bethe center of the universe
and the ideas of “the best” and absoluteness are possible, postmodernism believes in a
world with no center, i.e., everything is relative and “the best” and “the perfect” have
no place in it. It also moves toward divergence by the appreciation of differences.

There are different models of WEs but the one which best suggests the
existence of Englishes, rather than one standard native English, is that of Kachru
(1985). His model represents “the types of spread, the patterns of acquisition, and
the functional domains in which English is used across cultures and languages”
(Widdowson, 2003, p. 34). This model describes the global situation of English in
terms of three concentric circles (Bhatt, 2001; Mesthrie & Bhatt, 2008; Bolton,
2004; Kachru & Nelson, 1996; Timmis, 2007; Widdowson, 2003): The Inner Circle
countries are the traditional bases of English where English is the primary or
dominant language and is acquired as the mother tongue. The U.S., Britain,
Australia, Canada and New Zealand belong to this circle. The Outer Circle includes
countries with long history of colonization, where English has official and
institutional functions and is used both as an intra and international language. India,
Nigeria and South Africa belong to this circle. And finally, the Expanding Circle

8


comprises countries with increasing number of English speakers in which English is
regarded as a foreign language and has no established social role in the community; yet,
its functional domains are expanding rapidly. It includes China, Iran, Japan and Korea.
As mentioned earlier, the ideology of World Englishes calls the label native
speaker into serious question and strongly denies a special status for it. It specially
opposes the prevailing view that native speakers are necessarily better at speaking
English and hence they would make better English teachers (Jenkins, 2003).
Moreover, it argues that since English is used for international communication and
is, thus, used among speakers from different nationalities, it simply makes no sense
to talk of its non-native speakers. This argument gets even more powerful when one
considers the ever increasing situations in which English is used as a lingua franca
among its L2 speakers rather than between its L1 and L2 speakers.
Representing this view, Jenkins (2003) listed some arguments against the use

of the term native and non-native speaker of English, including: its assuming
monolingualism to be the world's norm while the majority of people are bi- or
multilingual, its disregarding the lingua franca function of English, its being
offensive for the proficient users of English to be labeled as non-native, and more
importantly, by proposing a simplistic view of what constitutes error in English
language use, its causing problems with the international English testing since it
implies an irrelevant native standard reference point against which the users of all
other varieties of English should be tested.
1.3. English as an international language (EIL)
English is an international language, spoken in many countries both as a
native and as a second or foreign language. It is taught in the schools in almost
every country on this earth. It is a living and vibrant language spoken by over 300
million people as their native language. Millions more speak it as an additional
language.
English is spoken habitually in the United States, the British Isles, Ireland,
Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Republic of South Africa, Liberia, and many

9


territories under the United Kingdom and the United States of America. It is
estimated that 300 million people speak English as a second language, and an
additional 100 million people use it fluently as a foreign language. As a rough
estimate, 1000 million or one billion people around the world have some knowledge
of English, either as a native language, as a second language, or as a foreign
language. English is the associate official language of India which has over 1000
million (over billion) people. Pakistan, Bangladesh, and many other nations which
were ruled by Britain continue to use English both as an optional medium of
instruction in their schools and as one of their official languages. The islands of the
Philippines continue to use English as an important tool for education,

administration, and for mass media purposes. English is the chief foreign language
taught in the schools of Europe, South America, Asia and Africa.
Smith (1976) was one of the first to define the term “international language”,
noting that an “international language is one which is used by people of different
nations to communicate with one another” (p.38). In another research of
Widdowson (1997, 139-140), he characterizes of EIL as follow:
English as an international language is not distributed as a set of
established encoded forms, unchanged into different domains of use, but it
is spread as a virtual language….It is not a matter of the actual language
being distributed but of the virtual language being spread and in the
process being variously actualized. The distribution of the actual language
implies adoption and conformity. The spread of virtual language implies
adaptation and nonconformity. …It spreads, and as it does, it gets adapted
as the virtual language gets actualized in diverse ways, becomes subject to
local constraints and controls.
Moreover, outside Europe, English is the predominant language of
international commerce. Although the United Nations and its various agencies have
more than one language for transaction, more often than not, English comes to be
chosen as the preferred language of communication between the participating

10


member-nations. All this has happened within the last one hundred years. The
ascendancy of English as the most preferred language began two hundred years ago
with the colonization of North America, Asia, and Africa by Britain. The Industrial
Revolution in Britain, its ever-expanding maritime power, development of material
wealth, progress in scientific research and consequent power, all helped the spread
of English, even as Britain marched as a great empire. In the Sixteenth Century,
English was spoken mostly in England, southern Scotland, and small areas of Wales

and Ireland. There were only about two to three million people speaking it as their
native language. At present one in seven in this world speak English either as a
native language or as a second language.
According to Crystal (1997), more people use English today than have used
any other language in the history of the world. English is the international language
par excellence. Estimates of the number of speakers are debatable. Perhaps 380
million have English as a first language but more than a billion people use it as a
second (or additional) language, largely to communicate with other second language
users with whom they do not share a cultural and linguistic background. Thus
people from the so-called “core” English speaking countries are now in the minority
among English users and “native speakers” of the language no longer determine
how the language is being used internationally. In a report commissioned by the
British Council, Graddol (2006, p. 11) observes that English now is “a new
phenomenon, and if it represents any kind of triumph it is probably not a cause for
celebration by native speakers”.
Today, English is very much tied to globalisation and is profoundly affected
by all of its associated processes. As Graddol (2006, p. 66) puts it:
The English language finds itself at the centre of the paradoxes which arise
from globalisation. It provides the lingua franca essential to the deepening
integration of global service-based economies. It facilitates transnational
encounters and allows nations, institutions, and individuals in any part of the
world, to communicate their world view and identities. Yet it is also the national

11


language of some of the most freemarket economies driving economic globalisation,
and is often seen as representing particular cultural, economic, and even religious
values.
EIL tends to be conceptualized differently by different scholars: “paradigms

or perspectives” (McKay, 2002; Sharifian, 2009); “the function or use of English in
international context” (Matsuda and Friedrich 2010); and “a variety of English”
(Tomlinson, 2003; Widdowson 1997). Jenkins (2002: 85) makes a distinction
between EFL and EIL. EFL is to use English as a „foreigner‟ to communicate with
native speakers and the purpose of learning EFL is to gain the near-native
competence. EIL, on the other hand, is to use English for international
communication and the speakers are not „foreign‟ speakers, but „international‟
speakers of the language. Their models of English and norms of its use are not
British English and culture nor American English and culture alone. The modern
concept of EIL does not exist in isolation, but it has been evolved gradually in the
history of English language. Hence, it is helpful and necessary to review all theoretical
paradigms related to EIL including World Englishes (WEs) paradigm, English as a
Lingua Franca (ELF) paradigm as well as the relevance among these paradigms.
1.4. English as a Lingua Franca
1.4.1. ELF and the English-speaking Community
English as a lingua franca has gradually been established as the main term of
what earlier was referred to, and occasionally still is, as English as an international
language, English as a global language, or English as a world language (Seidlhofer
2004: 210). This variety of terms suggests that scholars have been aware of the
global use of English for a long while now. The varied terminology also suggests
that the approaches to the phenomenon of global English have been diverse, even
conflicting: some linguists have treated ELF as a legitimate variety in its own right,
while others have doubted its relevance to the study of the English language in the
first place. The stance of the present study towards ELF is congruent with the

12


former view, and from the many options, English as a lingua franca has been
chosen as the main term.

Today, the majority of ELF users are nonnative speakers inside and outside
English-speaking countries (Llurda 2004: 320), so that as the term lingua franca
implies, ELF is “an additionally acquired language system that serves as a means of
communication between speakers of different first languages” (Seidlhofer
2001:146). As a consequence, in a sense, there are no native speakers of ELF. This
does not mean that ELF would be a restricted pidgin language: ELF is used in
countless, often influential domains, which leads to a great deal of linguistic
variation and presumes elaboration (ibid.). Diversity, in turn, does not mean that
ELF would be incomprehensible: diversity of linguistic backgrounds, uncertainty of
shared knowledge, and potential misunderstandings can be tackled by special kinds
of communication skills, such as various (proactive) clarification and repair
strategies, which often promote intelligibility among ELF speakers (Mauranen
2006: 147).
In the 1980s, Kachru (1985) launched a useful description of the spread of
English by dividing the English-speaking community into three concentric circles:
the inner circle, the outer circle, and the expanding circle (see the left-hand circle in
Figure 2, in which the numbers refer to English speakers in millions). The inner
circle includes those English-speaking countries where the language serves as a
native language (ENL), for example the UK and Australia. The outer circle refers to
countries which have experienced periods of colonisation by English-speaking
communities, and the language has thereby been institutionalised in these nonnative
communities. Examples are India, Nigeria and Singapore, where people use English
as a second language (ESL). The expanding circle, for its part, includes countries
where English is used as a foreign language (EFL), for instance in China, Israel and
Finland. As the outer and the expanding circles share many characteristics, their
clear-cut separation is not always simple (Kachru 1985: 13-14).

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Figure 2: Kachru's (1985, 2004) circles of English (adapted from Graddol 2006: 110)
Since the 1980s, this division into three circles has become increasingly
problematic: the neat concepts of ENL, ESL and EFL have become blurred in the
globalised world (Graddol 2006: 110). Kachru himself has suggested another kind
of circle (see the right-hand circle in Figure 1) in which the inner circle in the core
now represents highly proficient speakers of English - native or nonnative - and the
former outer and expanding circles have merged into a community of less proficient
users (Kachru 2004). This depicts the nature of ELF better: ELF concerns all the
users of English, the whole community of English speakers, including natives
(Seidlhofer 2004: 210). However, since Kachru's original circles are still feasible in
many ways as well as still frequently in use in discussions of the spread of English,
I refer to them in this study occasionally, bearing in mind that an alternative
abstraction of global English speakers exists. Anyhow, if we are to see ELF as a
legitimate language variety, it is important to consider how it differs from the native
language of the inner circle, and the foreign language of the expanding circle.

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1.4.2 ELF versus ENL and EFL
According to Mukherjee (2005), the concept of native speaker can be
understood in various ways (see Figure 3): there are linguistic (dividing into usagebased and usage-independent definitions) and non-linguistic (dividing into
attitudinal and ideological definitions) approaches as well as differences in whether
we are dealing with an abstract concept or with actual language users. If the native
speaker is seen non linguistically, that is the status of a native speaker is seen
stemming from the birthright, then Seidlhofer's view is reasonable: ELF is not ENL
simply because nonnative speakers cannot become members of the native speaker
community through education, “no matter how hard they try, no matter how long
they study” (2001: 136). However, if we see the native speaker purely in linguistic
terms, that is “nativeness is a matter of linguistic competence which is mirrored in

language use” (Mukherjee 2005: 11), then a nonnative speaker can become a native
speaker provided that he or she reaches a native-like proficiency in
lexicogrammaticality, acceptability and idiomaticity (ibid.).
abstract concept of a
prototypical linguistic model
(=> native-speaker norm)

reference to individual,
actual language users
(=> native speaker)

„native speaker‟

non - linguistic approaches

linguistic approaches

usage - based
definition

usage - independent
definition

attitudinal
definition

ideological
definition

Figure 3: The native speaker concept by Mukherjee (2005: 9)

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