Lingua franca

sabrinita85 · 10-15-2006, 06:08 PM

Hi all!
Can someone correct me the text below?

I know... it's long... but please!
Thanks!

These little chapters describe Graddol’s idea about ELF.
Firstly he talks of an irreversible trend that concerns the use of interactions in the global English’s native-speakers.
The author says that some people (we can imagine linguists) propose teaching English as a Lingua Franca, to meet requirements and expectations of non-native speakers.
That seems a good position: a position which goes towards non-native speakers, but if we read between the lines, we can see that Graddol doesn’t include another language as for use it as Lingua Franca, but he takes for granted that English will be the future Lingua Franca.
In all likelihood we have to dissent because perhaps, the language of the future will be another one, for example Chinese, or Arabic or Spanish.
So, now, in the author opinion, the priority is to understand how non-native speakers use English language among themselves. In fact, it’s born the VOICE (Vienna Oxford International Corpus of English) that is making a corpus of Lingua Franca interactions, and this could help linguists detecting ELF in the teaching way of English and also understanding it better.
What we have to ask is whether this corpus is really valid and useful for everyone. Maybe the answer will be negative and it’s because of the wrong approach to the language.
What is more, Elf proponents have already given indications on how the teacher should focalising his lessons, and Graddol takes as example Jenkins, who thinks that English pronunciation has different priorities from the actual ones.
Jenkins argues that the varied sounds (as “th”) are less important than other things, for example simplifying consonant clusters. But there are people, like me, who think that is not necessary focalising on phonetic or even grammar features: maybe “communicating” in the real sense of the word is the most important thing.
Beside, Graddol argues that intelligibility is a priority rather than native accuracy, and this is clearly a right aspect of the communication: in practice the author says that “comprehension” has a privileges place … but this sound paradoxical with what Graddol sated before; or he has a different vision of the intelligibility.
In addition to this, the author leans towards researches to recognize LFC (Lingua Franca Core) as an “organ” which establishes syllabus and evaluation materials. Unfortunately, or fortunately, LFC doesn’t provide solutions to the problem.
A part from this, Graddol says, evenly that unlike traditional EFL, ELF deals with pragmatics that is important in the intercultural communication.
The ELF aim is creating fluent bilingual people and not to try and replicate naïve speakers: in this way non-native accent wouldn’t be a ‘problem’ because the priority will be understanding other non-native speakers.
Then, Graddol has a great deal of worry in Britain that people are losing the ability to communicate interculturally with one another if not everyone speaks English; but the future is multilingual and the global dominance of English was a significant economic an d cultural help to Britain (and US) for the past 100 years, but it has made people lazy.
Actually UK fails miserably intercultural communication because it doesn’t want to communicate interculturally. Maybe the “individualism” in terms of national supremacy takes them to disinterest and to fail every relationship with a foreign person.
All things considered, I argue the text want to lead people think English should be kept under control, with tools, such as LFC, but it doesn’t focalise on the real needs of the communication.

10-15-2006, 06:08 PM	#1 (permalink)
sabrinita85 Brand New Member Join Date: Aug 2006 Posts: 1 sabrinita85 is an unknown character at this point	Lingua franca Hi all! Can someone correct me the text below? I know... it's long... but please! Thanks! These little chapters describe Graddol’s idea about ELF. Firstly he talks of an irreversible trend that concerns the use of interactions in the global English’s native-speakers. The author says that some people (we can imagine linguists) propose teaching English as a Lingua Franca, to meet requirements and expectations of non-native speakers. That seems a good position: a position which goes towards non-native speakers, but if we read between the lines, we can see that Graddol doesn’t include another language as for use it as Lingua Franca, but he takes for granted that English will be the future Lingua Franca. In all likelihood we have to dissent because perhaps, the language of the future will be another one, for example Chinese, or Arabic or Spanish. So, now, in the author opinion, the priority is to understand how non-native speakers use English language among themselves. In fact, it’s born the VOICE (Vienna Oxford International Corpus of English) that is making a corpus of Lingua Franca interactions, and this could help linguists detecting ELF in the teaching way of English and also understanding it better. What we have to ask is whether this corpus is really valid and useful for everyone. Maybe the answer will be negative and it’s because of the wrong approach to the language. What is more, Elf proponents have already given indications on how the teacher should focalising his lessons, and Graddol takes as example Jenkins, who thinks that English pronunciation has different priorities from the actual ones. Jenkins argues that the varied sounds (as “th”) are less important than other things, for example simplifying consonant clusters. But there are people, like me, who think that is not necessary focalising on phonetic or even grammar features: maybe “communicating” in the real sense of the word is the most important thing. Beside, Graddol argues that intelligibility is a priority rather than native accuracy, and this is clearly a right aspect of the communication: in practice the author says that “comprehension” has a privileges place … but this sound paradoxical with what Graddol sated before; or he has a different vision of the intelligibility. In addition to this, the author leans towards researches to recognize LFC (Lingua Franca Core) as an “organ” which establishes syllabus and evaluation materials. Unfortunately, or fortunately, LFC doesn’t provide solutions to the problem. A part from this, Graddol says, evenly that unlike traditional EFL, ELF deals with pragmatics that is important in the intercultural communication. The ELF aim is creating fluent bilingual people and not to try and replicate naïve speakers: in this way non-native accent wouldn’t be a ‘problem’ because the priority will be understanding other non-native speakers. Then, Graddol has a great deal of worry in Britain that people are losing the ability to communicate interculturally with one another if not everyone speaks English; but the future is multilingual and the global dominance of English was a significant economic an d cultural help to Britain (and US) for the past 100 years, but it has made people lazy. Actually UK fails miserably intercultural communication because it doesn’t want to communicate interculturally. Maybe the “individualism” in terms of national supremacy takes them to disinterest and to fail every relationship with a foreign person. All things considered, I argue the text want to lead people think English should be kept under control, with tools, such as LFC, but it doesn’t focalise on the real needs of the communication.
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