Summary- English as a global lingua franca: Changing language in changing global academia

Prévia do material em texto

Edimila Cunha Morais 
Summary
Mauranen, Anna. “English as a global Lingua Franca: changing language in changing global
academia”
In the article entitled “English as a global lingua franca: Changing language in changing global”, author Anna Mauranen talks about the impacts of the English language as a lingua franca. The author begins the article by highlighting some important factors that contributed to the expansion of the English language around the world, such as, in past times, the political and economic influences exerted by the British Empire and later by the United States and, more recently, the advent of Internet. However, along with this spread of the language around the world, there are some concerns about the consequences of this phenomenon. Some of these concerns highlighted by the author in the section “Common concerns about English as a lingua franca” are:
• The extinction of local languages ​​and a monopoly of the English language and American culture around the world,
• Predominance of publications in English in the academic world and as a consequence a decrease in other languages publications,
• An impoverishment of the language as a result of its increasing use by non-native speakers.
 Despite the various debates on such concerns and writes who defend that English as a lingua franca has been a threat, the author points out that there are studies indicating that there is no relationship between the decrease in local languages ​​due to English in higher education, nor the decrease in publications from local languages ​​as a result of the increase in publications in English. Furthermore, as the author puts it, the creation and extinction of local languages ​​is more related to population density and the existence of neighboring languages ​​with great influence and not as a result of lingua franca.
As for the idea that English as a lingua franca causes an impoverishment of the language, Anna Mauranen highlights that there is a difference between English as a communication tool and English spoken by native speakers, considered by some as a “good language”. The priority of those non-native English speakers is to learn the language as a tool of an effectively communication and not sound like a native. The author argues that “Whatever good ultimately consists in a complex, often debatable, and always tightly context-bound phenomenon” (Mauranen 4). Therefore, following the idea that the definition of a good language is something complex, the author presents some texts in English written at different times and shows how the English language has undergone changes over time as a result of contact with other languages and this process of changing does not make the English spoken today any less good.
In the section "What is ELF like?" the author, based on the corpus English as a Lingua Franca in Academic Settings (ELFA) of the University of Helsinki, brings some characteristics observed in the ELF. What the studies suggest is that although it is early to affirm structural changes in the English language, considering that grammatical change processes occur slowly, some lexical simplifications and systematic changes can be observed in ELF. Considering that what is sought by ELF speakers is effective communication, even when there are grammatical errors or poorly formulated sentences, the language is understandable among the speakers. In addition, there are some things that help the mutual intelligibility of ELF speakers' communication, such as the processes of approximation between words and the use of frequent expressions in the English language.
Based on the comparisons made between EFL and ELN, what was observed was that there are vocabulary preferences shared between the two forms of English. In addition, there are some contributions brought by ELF, such as new preferences among speakers of the language and some changes in the pattern of language use. The author reinforces in the last section of the text, entitled "Where is English going?" that the lingua franca performs as a communication function and not as a substitute for other languages ​​and the tendency is for the spoken language to keep up with the changes in the contemporary world. As for written English, what the article shows is that there is a tendency for an increase in publications in the academic world in countries that are in economic ascendancy and this will probably affect the standards of what is considered to be good text. Furthermore, although it is difficult to define the speed of change in the English language, from the author's point of view “The one thing we can predict with certainty is that English will keep changing.” (Mauranen 15)
Reference
Mauranen, A. 2015. English as a global Lingua Franca: changing language in changing global
academia. In Murata, K. (ed.) Exploring ELF in Japanese Academic and
Business Contexts. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 29-46