Communities of Practice and English as a Lingua Franca (eBook)

lt;!doctype html public "-//w3c//dtd html 4.0 transitional//en">

Karolina Kalocsai, Eötvös Lorand University, Budapest, Hungary.

1 Introduction 9
1.1 Background 15
1.2 Research questions 16
2 Theoretical framework 20
2.1 The community of practice model 21
2.1.1 Previous approaches to the community of practice model 22
2.2 The sociolinguistic realities of the spread of English 26
2.3 The methodological and ontological positioning of English as a lingua franca 29
2.4 English as a lingua franca delineated and described 32
2.4.1 ELF speakers 32
2.4.2 Linguacultures in ELF settings 36
2.4.3 Communicative purpose 39
2.5 Details of findings: CA and ELF perspectives 42
2.5.1 Negotiation of non-understandings 44
2.5.2 Preempting moves 47
2.5.3 Repetition 48
2.5.4 Interactional strategies 51
2.5.5 Code-switching 55
2.5.6 The use of humor 58
2.6 Summary 60
3 Methodology 61
3.1 Epistemological assumptions 62
3.2 Research site and context 64
3.2.1 Data sampling 65
3.2.2 The researcher and the researched: Joint participants 67
3.2.3 Ethical questions 69
3.3 Data collection: An ethnographic approach 70
3.3.1 Interviews and casual conversations with the students 71
3.3.2 Interviews with the student coordinator 75
3.3.3 Observations 75
3.3.4 Online journals (Prompted e-mails) 77
3.3.5 Mailing lists and online posts 79
3.4 Data analysis procedure 79
3.5 Summary 83
4 An ethnographic account of the Szeged Erasmus community 85
4.1 The joint enterprise 85
4.1.1 “I want to get a friendship in another language” – Goals at the start 85
4.1.2 “Without kidding, I have to concentrate on work by now!!” – Change in goals and priorities 88
4.1.3 Participants’ views on building a community with a shared goal 92
4.2 Mutual engagement 93
4.2.1 The shared activities of the “Erasmus sharks” 93
4.2.2 The nature of relationships 97
4.3 The shared repertoire of resources 102
4.3.1 The “schema” or “frame” for partying and travelling 103
4.4 Discussion 106
5 Building an Erasmus Family through ELF 109
5.1 English as a shared practice 110
5.1.1 English as the “first language in Hungary” – Arrangements for the group 111
5.1.2 “Stop! English!” – Socializing practices 114
5.1.3 “[D]on’t you mind when we talk in French?” – Individual arrangements 116
5.2 The shared negotiable resources 118
5.2.1 Greeting 118
5.2.2 Teasing 122
5.2.3 Addressing 124
5.2.4 Swearing 126
5.2.5 Other small rituals 129
5.2.6 “Party conversations” 133
5.2.7 “Real conversations” 137
5.3 Discussion 141
6 Creating humour in and through ELF 147
6.1 Participants’ views on the strategic use of humour 148
6.2 Humour in content 149
6.2.1 Narratives 149
6.2.2 Teasing 155
6.2.3 “Naughty conversations” 158
6.2.4 Irony 164
6.3 Humour aimed at style 166
6.3.1 Code-switching 166
6.3.2 Paralinguistics 171
6.3.3 Word play 173
6.4 Discussion 175
7 Improving on communicational understanding and gaining self-confidence in ELF 179
7.1 Participants’ views on developing self-confidence in English 180
7.2 Collaborative utterance building at moments of word search 185
7.2.1 Explicit word search 185
7.2.2 Implicit word search 188
7.2.3 The co-construction of local meanings 192
7.3 Non-understandings 196
7.3.1 Repetition and paraphrase 197
7.3.2 Repetitions with clarification 198
7.3.3 The use of multilingual resources 201
7.4 Discussion 204
8 Conclusions and implications 208
8.1 Summary of major findings 209
8.1.1 What tools and resources do the Szeged Erasmus students bring to bear to engage in their jointly negotiated practices reflecting a shared goal? 209
8.1.2 What does a closer examination of linguistic practices in the community tell us about ELF? 211
8.1.3 What effects do the different linguistic resources that the students bring to the community have on the overall practices of the group? 214
8.2 Methodological implications 216
8.3 Implications for ELF research 218
8.4 Implications for language policy and planning 221
8.5 Pedagogical implications 225
8.6 Closing remarks 227
References 229
Appendices 242
Appendix 1: Letter of invitation 242
Appendix 2: Guiding questions for interviews with students 243
Appendix 3: Guiding questions for interviews with student coordinators 244
Appendix 4: Sample prompt e-mail 244
Appendix 5: Transcription conventions for naturally occurring conversations 245
Appendix 6: Transcription conventions for interview data 246
Appendix 7: Coding schemes 246
Coding scheme 1: Social practices 246
Coding scheme 2: Views on social practices 248
Coding scheme 3: Interactional patterns 250
Coding scheme 4: Language use 254
Coding scheme 5: Views on linguistic practices 255
Index 258

lt;P>"This volume certainly represents a welcome addition to research into ELF practices, first of all for its methodological approach that combines the CofP perspective with CA in analyzing ELF, shedding light on both linguistic and non-linguistic practices of a specific ELF group. The study effectively shows how a community is created through social and linguistic shared resources, relying on English as a common communication code, but including other languages, too, as shared resources in transactional as well as affective, social and witty humorous dialogic interactions."
Paola Vettorel, Iperstoria – Testi Letterature Linguaggi 6. 363-368