Global Interactions in English as a Lingua Franca

This volume explores how ELF (English as a Lingua Franca) and BELF (Business English as a Lingua Franca) are adopted and adapted by users from different lingua-cultural backgrounds. Drawing on existing and novel cybergenres, it analyzes the customized solutions deployed to reconcile the opposition between the territorialization and cooperation principles.

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This volume investigates the changes undergone by written communication in our globalized world as English as a Lingua Franca (ELF). The latter usually functions as a language for communication purposes, but also becomes a language for identification purposes. The study takes into account different web-genres: from the replication of existing genres in other media to cybergenres, whose key evolutionary force is the progressive exploitation of the new functionalities afforded by the new medium. The variety of the contexts of use has made it possible to consider different ELF-using communities of practice, whose members adopt ELF and adapt it to express individual, national and professional identities in international interactions. The analysis focuses on lexicogrammatical innovations, which inevitably change in accordance with the different contexts of use, as well as on the communicative strategies underpinning these changes.