Globalization has contributed to the worldwide diffusion of English as a mediational tool to carry out an econocultural function (Brutt-Griffler, 1998) in the fields of science, technology, business, culture, the media and education. This has turned English into a second order contact language (Mauranen, 2012) within the growing communities of non-native speakers (NNSs) ̶ and has led to the emergence of new Englishes that perform a lingua franca role (ELF) in a glocal (Robertson, 1995) dimension.
Consequently, the divergence of ELF from the standard English (SE) exonormative model is a process that is ingrained in sociolinguistics, and one which entails the L2-users' concurrent adoption of English and its adaptation to their sociocultural identities, to cope with a wide range of communicative needs. This phenomenon defies the rather simplistic classification of non-standard uses of English as deviant or erroneous, and questions the very notion of standardness (Coupland, 2000), for it shows that, in a diachronic perspective, today's polycentric nature of English follows from a natural evolution, on a par with all other languages. For this reason, variations in ELF use had better be considered as instances of language continua (Thrudgill, 1999), rather than the indication of the NNS's deficient communicative competence.
The aim of this talk is to focus on these topics and stimulate a discussion to provide possible answers.
8 maggio