The papers offer insights into the workings of English as a lingua franca in different contexts—conversational, academic, professional, and business situations. They tackle essential theoretical issues, analyse linguistic and interactional features of ELF, and discuss attitudes towards ELF. The studies are firmly anchored in analyses of authentic language in social interaction, some also using survey and interview data. Many papers also touch upon debates on language policy and linguistic ideologies.
This collection of papers from the key areas of current ELF research will be of interest to English linguists and applied linguists, graduate and undergraduate students of English, educational and language planners, and teachers of English.
Elina Ranta is a researcher in the ELFA (English as a Lingua Franca in Academic Settings) project at the University of Tampere. Her main research interests include English as a lingua franca, language variation and change, and English language teaching. Her current research focuses on syntactic features in spoken ELF, on which she has published the article “The ‘Attractive Progressive’—Why Use the –ing Form in English as a Lingua Franca” (2006). She has also published on teachers’ and students’ perceptions of English in secondary education in “English in the Real World vs. English at School—Finnish English Teachers’ and Students’ Views” (2009).