Article published in:
Discourse linguistics: Theory and practice
Edited by Karin Aijmer and Anita Fetzer
[Functions of Language 21:1] 2014
► pp. 50–66

Managing academic institutional discourse in English as a lingua franca

The study presented in this paper examines the discourse behaviour of participants in academic office hours conducted in English as a lingua franca. Participants in the study are professors, their assistants and international students at a German university. Findings of the analyses of a small corpus of such institutional interactions show that these users of English as a lingua franca manage the discourse surprisingly well by strategically employing code-switching, re-presenting (parts of) their interlocutors’ message and re-interpreting several high-frequency discourse markers. In this way they seem to better achieve their own and their interactants’ communicative purpose in discourse.
Published online: 07 April 2014
https://doi.org/10.1075/fol.21.1.04hou
References
Agar, Michael.
1985 Institutional discourse. Text 51. 147–168. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Aijmer, Karin & Anne-Marie Simon-Vandenbergen (
eds) 2006  Pragmatic markers in contrast . Amsterdam: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Bardovi-Harlig, Kathleen & Beverly Hartford.
1990 Congruence in native and non-native conversations: status balance in the academic advising session. Language Learning 401. 467–501. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
1996 Input in an institutional setting. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 181. 171–188. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Bardovi-Harlig, Kathleen & Beverly Hartford. Beverly Hartford
(eds) 2005 Institutional discourse and interlanguage pragmatics research. In Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig & Hartford Beverly (eds.), Interlanguage pragmatics. Exploring institutional talk , 7–36. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Barske, Tobias & Andrea Golato
2010 German so: managing sequence and action. Text & Talk 301. 245–266. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Baumgarten, Nicole & Juliane House.
2007 Speaker stances in native and non-native English conversation. In Jan D. ten Thije & Ludger Zeevaert (eds.), Receptive multilingualism , 195–216. Amsterdam: Benjamins.Google Scholar
2010  I think and I don’t know in English as lingua franca and native English discourse. Journal of Pragmatics 421. 1184–1200. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Blakemore, Diane.
1988 ‘So’ as a constraint on relevance. In Ruth M. Kempson (ed.), Mental representations: The interface between language and reality , 183–195. New York, NY: CUP.Google Scholar
Bolden, Galina.
2006 Little words that matter: Discourse markers ‘so’ and ‘oh’ and the doing of other-attentiveness in social interaction. Journal of Communication 561. 661–688. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2009 Implementing incipient actions: The discourse marker ‘so’ in English conversation. Journal of Pragmatics 411. 974–998. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Buysse, Lieven.
2012  So as a multifunctional discourse marker in native and learner speech. Journal of Pragmatics 441. 1764–1782. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Cogo, Alessia.
2009 Accommodating differences in ELF conversations: A study of pragmatic strategies. In Anna Mauranen & Elina Ranta (eds.), English as a lingua franca: Studies and findings , 254–273. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press.Google Scholar
Cogo, Alessia & Martin Dewey.
2006 Efficiency in ELF communication: From pragmatic motives to lexico-grammatical innovation. Nordic Journal English Studies 51. 59–94. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2012  Analysing English as a lingua franca. A corpus-driven investigation . London: Continuum.Google Scholar
Dewey, Martin.
2009 English as a lingua franca: Heightened variability and theoretical implications. In Anna Mauranen & Elina Ranta (eds.), English as a lingua franca: Studies and findings , 60–83. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press.Google Scholar
Edmondson, Willis.
1981  Spoken discourse. A model for analysis . London: Longman.Google Scholar
1999  Twelve lectures in Second Language Acquisition . Tübingen: Narr.Google Scholar
Edmondson, Willis & Juliane House.
1981  Let’s talk and talk about it: A pedagogic interactional grammar of English . München: Urban and Schwarzenberg.Google Scholar
2011  Einführung in die Sprachlehrforschung , 4th edn. Tübingen: Francke UTB.Google Scholar
Ehlich, Konrad.
2007  Sprache und Sprachliches Handeln . Bd. 2. Berlin: Mouton. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Erickson, Frederick & Jeffrey Shultz.
1982  The counselor as gatekeeper: Social interaction in interviews . New York, NY: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Ferrara, Kathleen.
1994 Repetition as rejoinder in therapeutic discourse: Echoing and mirroring. In Barbara Johnstone (ed.), Repetition in discourse , vol. II1, 66–83. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar
Firth, Alan.
1996 The discursive accomplishment of normality: On ‘lingua franca’ English and conversation analysis. Journal of Pragmatics 261. 237–260. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2009 The lingua franca factor. Intercultural Pragmatics 61. 147–170. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Fischer, Kerstin.
2006 Frames, constructions and invariant meaning. The functional polysemy of discourse particles. In Kerstin Fischer (ed.), Approaches to discourse particles , 427–447. Amsterdam: Elsevier.Google Scholar
He, Agnes.
1993 Exploring modality in institutional interactions: Cases from academic counseling encounters. Text 13(2). 503–528.Google Scholar
House, Juliane.
1996 Developing pragmatic fluency in English as a foreign language. Routines and metapragmatic awareness. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 181. 225–252. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2002 Communicating in English as a lingua franca. In Susan Foster-Cohen (ed.), EUROSLA Yearbook 21, 243–261. Amsterdam: Benjamins.Google Scholar
2003 English as a lingua franca: A threat to multilingualism? Journal of Sociolinguistics 71. 556–578. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2008 (Im)politeness in English as a lingua franca discourse. In Miriam Locher & Joerg Straessler (eds.), Standards and norms in the English Language , 351–366. Berlin: Mouton.Google Scholar
2009 Subjectivity in English as lingua franca discourse: The case of you know . Intercultural Pragmatics 61. 171–194. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2013 Developing pragmatic competence in English as a lingua franca: Using discourse makers to express (inter)subjectivity and connectivity. Journal of Pragmatics 59(A)1. 57–67. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
House, Juliane & Magdalène Lévy-Tödter.
2009 Language, authority and face in academic English lingua franca advising sessions. In Magdalène Lévy-Tödter & Dorothee Meer (eds.), Hochschulkommunikation in der Diskussion , 157–178. Frankfurt/Main: Lang.Google Scholar
2010 Linguistic competence and professional identity in English medium instruction. In Birgit Apfelbaum & Bernd Meyer (eds.), Multilingualism at work , 13–46. Amsterdam: Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Jenkins, Jennifer.
2007  English as a lingua franca: Attitude and identity . Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Johnstone, Barbara.
1994  Repetition in discourse: Interdisciplinary perspectives, volumes I and II1. Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar
Kerekes, Julie.
2003 Distrust: A determining factor in the outcomes of gatekeeping encounters. In Juliane House, Gabriele Kasper & Steve Ross (eds.), Misunderstanding in social life. Discourse approaches to problematic talk , 227–257. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Liao, Silvie.
2009 Variation in the use of discourse markers by Chinese teaching assistants in the US. Journal of Pragmatics 411. 1313–1328. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Mauranen, Anna.
2012  Exploring ELF. Academic English shaped by non-native speakers . Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
Mori, Junko.
1999  Negotiating agreement and disagreement in Japanese: Connective expressions and turn construction . Amsterdam: Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Mortensen, Janus.
2010  Epistemic stance marking in the use of English as a lingua franca . Roskilde: Roskilde University PhD thesis.Google Scholar
Müller, Simone.
2005  Discourse markers in native and non-native English discourse . Amsterdam: Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Murphey, Tim.
2001 Exploring conversational shadowing. Language Teaching Research 51. 128–155. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Onodera, Noriko.
2004  Japanese discourse markers: Synchronic and diachronic discourse analysis . Amsterdam: Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Park, Yoosun.
1998 A discourse analysis of contrastive connectives in English, Korean and Japanese conversation, with special reference to the context of dispreferred responses. In Andreas Jucker & Yael Ziv (eds.), Discourse markers: Descriptions and theory , 277–300. Amsterdam: Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Pölzl, Ulrike & Barbara Seidlhofer.
2006 In and on their own terms: The ‘habitat factor’ in English as a lingua franca interaction. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 1771. 151–176.Google Scholar
Preisler, Bent, Ida Klitgard & Anne Fabricius (
eds) 2011  Language and learning in the international university. From English uniformity to diversity and hybridity . Bristol: Multilingual Matters. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Raymond, Geoffrey.
2004 Prompting action: The stand-alone ‘so’ in ordinary conversation. Research on Language and Social Interaction 31. 185–281. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Redeker, Gisela.
2006 Discourse markers as attentional cues at discourse transitions. In Kerstin Fischer (ed.), Approaches to discourse particles , 339–358. Amsterdam: Elsevier.Google Scholar
Seidlhofer, Barbara.
2011  Understanding English as a lingua franca . Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Seidlhofer, Barbara & Henry Widdowson.
2007 Idiomatic variation and change in English. The idiom principle and its realizations. In Ute Smit, Stefan Dollinger, Julia Hüttner, Gunther Kaltenböck & Ursula Lutzky (eds.), Tracing English through time. Explorations in language variation , 359–374. Wien: Braumüller.Google Scholar
Shaw, Philip, Tim Caudery & Margrethe Petersen.
2009 Students on exchange in Scandinavia: Motivation, interaction, ELF development. In Anna Mauranen & Elina Ranta (eds.), English as a lingua franca: Studies and findings , 178–199. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press.Google Scholar
Spielmann, Daniel.
2007  English as lingua franca: A simplified code? Hamburg: unpublished MA thesis Universität Hamburg.Google Scholar
Thonus, Therese.
1999 How to communicate politely and be a tutor, too. NS and NNS interaction and writing center practice. Text 191. 253–279. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Vygotsky, L.
1986  Language and thought . Boston, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Wenger, Etienne.
1989  Communities of practice . Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
Wong, Jean.
2008 The token “Yeah” in non-native speaker English conversation. Research on Language and Social Interaction 33(1). 39–67. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 2 other publications

HOUSE, Juliane
2018.  In Intercultural Communication in Asia: Education, Language and Values [Multilingual Education, 24], ► pp. 97 ff. Crossref logo
House, Juliane
2021.  In The Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics, ► pp. 1 ff. Crossref logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 09 april 2022. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.