Who's afraid of ELF: “failed” natives or non-native speakers struggling to express themselves?

21 Pages·2009·0.16 MB·English

Michaela Albl-Mikasa (Universität Tübingen)
Who’s afraid of ELF: “failed” natives or non-native
speakers struggling to express themselves?
In the study of English as a lingua franca (ELF), a major body of research concentrates on the
stigmatising effects of native speaker norms and ELT1 traditions (for an overview see Jenkins
2007). My chapter looks at the impact, if any, this stigmatisation has on non-native speakers, with
special emphasis on non-teachers of English. I conducted a corpus-based study on 34 non-native
and 13 native speaker subjects using a combination of quantitative and qualitative analyses. I
found that the subjects under review are less worried about their (perceived) inability to conform
to NS norms or about being regarded as “failed natives” (Cook 1999: 196) than might have been
thought. If they feel any distress at all, it is the distinctly articulated need to give expression to
what precisely they want to say.
This is my first publication that, for obvious reasons, has not been supervised in any
way by Kurt Kohn.2 As a matter of fact, however, his broad-minded thinking and
teaching is behind this contribution, too.
1 Introduction
ELF is big. ELF, English as a lingua franca, is so widespread that its non-native users
far outnumber the native users. Some native speakers (NSs) and, in fact, non-native
speakers (NNSs) also say ELF is bad, claiming that it is deficient and falls short of
native speaker standards. Does this mean that non-native speakers are afraid of actu-
ally using English as a lingua franca? Or do they feel at a disadvantage when doing
so? What exactly are their concerns? In other words: just how are they afraid of big,
bad ELF?
While the bigness of ELF is undisputed (see Seidlhofer 2004: 209; Crystal 2003;
Graddol 1997), its alleged badness gives rise to much controversy. According to Jen-
kins, the practice of gatekeeping3 (2007: 239-246) leads to a situation where non-native

1 ELT stands for English Language Teaching.
2 My heartfelt thanks to Juliane House for stepping into the breach at a moment when I set out to
venture into this new field of research (after previous research in interpreting studies).
3 The term “gatekeeping” is used to “describe access to decision-making processes about legiti-
mate English” and is understood to be “informed by language ideology in that the gatekeepers
of English (government institutions, examination boards, universities, publishers, the British
Council, English Only and the like) in the main grant access to decision-making only to those
whose orientation to English they approve of” (Jenkins 2007: 239).
110 Michaela Albl-Mikasa (Universität Tübingen)
speakers are plagued by conflicting attitudes and ambivalent feelings, torn between
idealistic native speaker models and their own L1 identities.4
Jenkins’ research centres on non-native teachers of English (see Jenkins 2007: 65,
93, 103, 129). Her assumptions are based on the “proficient speaker” of ELF
(2007: 108), the “expert speaker of English” (2007: 129) or the “successful bilingual”
(2007: 116) (see also 2007: 92, 238, 252). Although ways to judge such levels of profi-
ciency are far from straightforward, it is safe to say that teachers of English must, by
definition, be proficient, expert, or successful in English.
My own research suggests the case is somewhat different with “ordinary” non-
native speakers of English, those NNSs who do not use their English for teaching
purposes, but to communicate in situations where no other language is shared by all
involved. Even if this is for doing business, people will not be expected to have the
same proficiency level as teachers of English. In fact, language skills among non-
teachers vary greatly, and more often than not they are far from what one would call
proficient. For these speakers of English in lingua-franca situations, there is no con-
flict between a teacher role (and external pressure to conform to a native speaker
model) and their own L1 identities. And yet, my study finds that ambivalences and
contradictions can be identified here, too, if of a somewhat different nature. In this
chapter I will use a combination of quantitative and qualitative analyses to sketch out
those contradictions and explain the reasons for the ambivalence my study found.
2 The “Midwestern” study
The research reported here is based on and part of TELF, the Tuebingen ELF corpus
and research group. TELF is currently one of the two major research areas of Kurt
Kohn’s Applied English Linguistics Chair, the other one being (computer-assisted,
corpus-based or intercultural) eLearning (see the contributions by Johannes Wid-
mann and Claudia Warth in this volume).
2.1 Data and Methodology
My study is based on data taken from the Tuebingen ELF corpus comprising (at the
time of my analysis) some 70,000 words and about 100 participants speaking 27 dif-
ferent languages. It was set up under the guidance of Kurt Kohn in the course of five
graduate seminars.
The methodology is based on Kohn’s performance model (“Modell lerner-
sprachlicher Performanz”, 1990a: 80). According to this model, learners are not
guided by (objective) target language norms, but by their own (subjective) inner

4 It has actually been a very interesting experience to try—under the influence of Jenkins’ aware-
ness-raising 2007 book on attitude and identity—to help my secondary school kids prepare their
English tests. I suddenly failed to see any sense in insisting on the ‘he, she, it—s muss mit’/(he,
she, it takes an ‘s’)-rule, the avoidance of ‘would’ in if-clauses, the adding or leaving out of arti-
cles or the inserting of ‘got’ when you simply ‘have’ something—especially since those kids
couldn’t care less. This has certainly moved me into a more endonormic position vis-à-vis ques-
tions relating to ELF.
Who’s afraid of ELF 111
knowledge and needs (which may include a certain target ideal). In order to under-
stand the processes and strategies determining their performances, one has to take
into account the various requirements that have a bearing on their productive (and
receptive) performances (1990a: 76-77). For ELF research this means that performance
in ELF situations depends on ELF speakers’
1. requirement-oriented linguistic knowledge of English,
2. willingness to adjust their requirements to the special conditions of the lingua-
franca situation,
3. ability to implement, or perform in accordance with, these lingua franca-
specific requirements (Kohn 2007: 215).
Examination of this broader picture requires a wide range of data. Kohn, therefore,
made a point of supplementing the interactions amongst ELF speakers (yielding basic
performance data) with (semi-structured) interviews, so as to obtain additional in-
formation about the learning histories and requirement profiles of those speakers. In
addition, he also introduced the use of retrospective interviews producing turn-
related introspective feedback data on specific points arising from the interactions.
This methodology makes it possible to move from the (exonormic) question of
whether ELF speakers get their English right to an (endonormic) examination of how
they use their English to achieve their communicative goals.
Against this background, seminar students were given the following task: they
had to find participants and have them discuss “the Midwestern problem”, which
was taken from a learning package on multicultural competence (Wurzel / Fisch-
man / Mayo 2002). The participants were given background information on the hy-
pothetical distribution of a faulty (and potentially lethal) product and had to simulate
a business meeting to discuss the situation, taking both the producer’s and the con-
sumers’ interests into consideration. Twenty group discussions (comprising between
4 and 6 participants with, on average, 1 (in some cases two or no) native speaker)
were videotaped and transcribed. Each discussion lasted for about 20 minutes. Im-
mediately after the discussion, each participant was asked about their linguistic back-
grounds, their learning histories, their personal requirements and their attitudes to-
wards English as a lingua franca. A subgroup of the participants was later indi-
vidually shown a video of the discussion and again interviewed and asked to com-
ment on their performances with respect to individual turns or points of interest.5
For my own ELF study, I decided to look at those 12 (out of the 20) discussions
that involved native speakers, as this would give me a completer picture of what was
going on. With one exception, all 12 discussions involved an average of 4 partici-
pants, one of whom was a native speaker. This means that my study involved a total
of 13 native speakers (8 US Americans, 3 British, 1 Canadian and 1 Australian— none
of them teachers) and 34 non-native speakers (16 Germans, 4 Spaniards, 2 Chinese, 2

5 The experiments were conducted under the organisational and technical supervision of Andreas
Glombitza. He subsequently set up a well thought-out and easy-to-use database, which has since
become a valuable analysis tool for students and researchers. Another TELF member and PhD
student is Elena Salakhian, who made a major contribution by transcribing a great number of the
videotapes.
112 Michaela Albl-Mikasa (Universität Tübingen)
Romanians, 2 Mexicans, 1 Columbian, 1 Israeli, 1 Iranian, 1 Russian, 1 Latvian, 1
Czech, 1 Belgian and 1 Greek). None of these 34 non-native speakers were teachers of
English. Twelve were studying to become language teachers (mostly of English but
also of Latin and French); 18 were students in such varied subjects as mathematics,
economics, geosciences, cognitive sciences, politics, journalism, etc.); two were pro-
fessionals (in the fields of engineering and pharmacy, respectively) and one was a
trainee. My focus was on analysing both the ad-hoc and the follow-up interviews
conducted with those 47 participants.
2.2 Observations and Discussion
I shall analyse the answers to the interview questions under the following headings:
1. Pros and cons of ELF communication
2. Contradictions and ambivalences
3. Lurking NS norms or a sense of belonging
4. Self-expression and expressiveness
2.2.1 Pros and cons of ELF communication
I started off by looking at subjects’ responses when they were asked to describe the
advantages and disadvantages of ELF. One hundred percent of NNSs agreed that
ELF is to their advantage. The most common arguments were that it is “handy” and
“useful” (one can communicate with people of all languages and cultures across the
world, travel, work and have fun together) and “easy to learn and understand”.6 Less
common arguments were that it is “widespread” (“a universal rather than a foreign
language”), the language of science, a means to share experience since most books are
in English and, finally, “good for me”, i.e. the only foreign language one knows or the
language structurally close to one’s own L1.
Although all NNS subjects agreed that ELF is a useful means of communication,
53% (18) also associated disadvantages or somewhat negative aspects with it. Of all
the negative aspects they could think of, 85% (disadvantages 1-10 in Table 1 below)
were seen to be to the detriment of NNSs, and only 15% (disadvantages 11-12) to the
detriment of NSs. Table 1 shows the results in absolute figures:7

6 Most people believed English to be easy in structural terms, especially when compared with
other languages such as German, Czech or Chinese. Only one person pointed out that it may be
easy to learn for basic communication, but “not easy to learn properly”. Another argument was
that English can be learned effortlessly, “by doing”, since one is confronted with it everywhere in
conversation, the papers, movies or on the Internet.
7 In the semi-structured interviews, the subjects were asked a number of open-ended questions (as
specified for each table) and provided responses in their own words. As as result, a range of res-
ponses was provided regarding possible disadvantages of ELF. Similar responses were grouped
together (under one header) as D1 to D12.
Who’s afraid of ELF 113
Disadvantages to the detriment of NNSs No. of
answers
D1 ELF undermines other languages (they are penetrated by Angli- 4
cisms, are not learned any more, or even run the risk of extinction)
D2 ELF leads to the cultural hegemony of English (the culture of small 4
countries will disappear)
D3 ELF places the focus on language aspects, casting aside cultural 1
aspects
D4 ELF forces people to learn English rather than any other preferred 1
language
D5 ELF results in the neglect of other major European languages (e.g. 1
French, Spanish or German)
D6 ELF leaves no room for regional linguae francae (German would be 1
a better lingua europeica)
D7 ELF is politically not neutral (e.g. for Israelis and Arabs or Mexicans 2
and Cubans)
D8 ELF renders translators superfluous 1
D9 ELF makes language matters generally too easy 1
D10 ELF makes one feel like a different person (different from one’s L1 1
identity)
Disadvantages to the detriment of NSs
D11 NSs are prevented from learning other languages 2
D12 NSs have no other language available and cannot escape being un- 1
derstood all the time and everywhere
Table 1: Disadvantages of ELF as seen by NNSs
Moving on to the native speakers, I found that the NSs in my study were less enthu-
siastic about ELF than their NNS counterparts. A total of 62% could think of an ad-
vantage, while 8% did not see any advantage at all (as opposed to 100% NNSs who
see ELF as an advantage). More NSs could think of disadvantages (77%) than of ad-
vantages (62%). Half of those disadvantages benefit NNSs, the other half, the NSs
themselves. In terms of possible ELF disadvantages, quantitative analysis produces
the following results (in absolute figures):
Disadvantages to the detriment of NNSs No. of
answers
D1 NSs are generally in a privileged position (although they try not to 2
appear arrogant)
D2 NSs show arrogant behaviour by taking English for granted wher- 2
ever they go
D3 Third countries are left with no room for their own cultures 1
Disadvantages to the detriment of NSs
D4 NSs are negatively stereotyped 1
D5 NSs are mostly addressed in English and never get a chance to 2
learn or practice other languages
114 Michaela Albl-Mikasa (Universität Tübingen)
Disadvantages to the detriment of NSs No. of
answers
D6 NSs cannot help getting lazy about learning other languages 1
D7 NSs suffer from a lack of privacy as their conversations can always 1
be overheard
Disadvantage for both parties
D8 It is an illusion that ELF communication works 1
Table 2: Disadvantages in ELF as seen by NSs
Generally speaking, the native speakers in my study tended to take a more critical
attitude towards ELF. While every single non-native speaker (100%) felt that ELF
offered clear advantages (with only 53% finding fault with it), only 62% of native
speakers pointed out possible advantages, against 77% who came up with disadvan-
tages or more negative aspects. But are there any signs of grave apprehensions given
the disadvantages associated with ELF? The first thing that needs to be said is that all
advantages and disadvantages were voiced as prompted replies to the concrete ques-
tion as to whether the subjects could see any advantages or disadvantages regarding
ELF. It is possible that no drawbacks would have been identified had the question
been of a more general nature (such as “What do you think of ELF?”). This alone
takes away some of the potential acuteness and speaks against serious apprehensions
being attached to the specification of possible disadvantages.
There are more indicative signs in the answers that point to an interpretation ac-
cording to which subjects may consider possible disadvantages of ELF, without per-
ceiving ELF as bad. The possible disadvantages identified by the NSs were evenly
distributed between NSs and NNSs. Although the NSs clearly felt they were in a
privileged position (62% yes, 23% no, 15% without response), possible disadvantages
were not solely associated with the “underprivileged” NNSs. Instead, they were seen
as weighing as much against themselves (50%) as against the NNSs (50%) (see Table 2
above). As far as the NNS subjects were concerned, there was indeed a feeling that
the odds are against them: 85% of disadvantages were seen as going against them-
selves, while only 15% of them were attributed to NSs. However, the 18 subjects who
did have ELF-related disadvantages in mind, cannot be said to focus on one big,
looming threat. Instead, they came up with a great variety of possible disadvantages.
There are, in fact, 12 different argued disadvantages, none of which, alone, seemed to
worry them a great deal. On the contrary, some of the disadvantages did not worry
them at all. One argument (concerning cultural hegemony) was immediately coun-
teracted by the statement that this was something the subject (a student of politics)
had heard about, but did not share himself.
2.2.2 Contradictions and ambivalences
In continuing my analysis I discovered a number of contradictory attitudes in the
answers of many interviewees. I therefore decided to juxtapose the quantitative
analysis of 7 of the interview questions. The first two questions relate to whether
Who’s afraid of ELF 115
NNSs feel their English is sufficient for their needs and purposes and whether they
want to improve it. The results are as follows:8
(34 NNSs = 100%) Yes No NR
Is your English sufficient? 85% (29) 12% (4) 3% (1)
Do you want to improve your 70% (24) 15% (5) 15% (5)
English?
Table 3: NNS perception of L2 sufficiency versus desire for improvement
It is quite striking to see that the vast majority of subjects (85%) felt that their English
was sufficient for their current needs and purposes while at the same time wanting to
improve it (70%). Interestingly, they had a clear idea of what they wanted to improve:
only 6 of those who wanted to improve their English gave a general answer, while
the other 18 mentioned precise areas for improvement, ranging from vocabulary,
fluency, accent, writing skills, technical terminology, and even slang to the ability to
crack jokes.
The next contradiction can be found in the answers to the questions concerning
the role model NNSs had in mind and the importance they attached to requirements
such as correctness and fluency.
(34 NNSs = 100%) Yes No NR
NS role/target model 56% (19) 32% (11) 12% (4)
Fluency is more impor- 47% (16) 30% (10) 23% (8)
tant than correctness
Correctness is more 9% (3) more important 47% (16) 23% (8)
important than fluency 21% (7) as important
or as important
Table 4: NS target model versus preference for fluency over correctness
Not unexpectedly, the majority of NNS subjects (56%) opted for a native speaker
model (see also Jenkins 2007: 212, 215). With this in mind, one could have hypothe-
sised that correctness loomed large in their minds. This, however, was not found to
be the case. Only 9% rated correctness as more important than fluency and 47%
ranked fluency higher than correctness.
Finally, there was a contradiction in the NNSs’ statements that they prefer talking
to NSs although they feel more comfortable speaking with NNSs (see in this respect
Jenkins 2007: 199). The following are the results with respect to the question as to
whether NNSs prefer to talk to NSs or NNSs:

8 In all of the following tables ‘NR’ stands for ‘No Response’.
116 Michaela Albl-Mikasa (Universität Tübingen)
(34 NNSs = 100%) Yes No NR
Prefer to talk to NSs 65% (22) 26% (9) 9% (3)
- NS understand better
9% (3)
- benefit from NS
56% (19)
Feel more comfortable 56% (19) 23% (8) 21% (7)
with NNSs
Table 5: NNS preference to talk to NSs or NNSs
The main reason why the NNSs preferred to talk to NSs is that this helps them im-
prove their English (“NSs are much better for my English”). This applies to 56%,
while 9% preferred NSs because they feel they are better understood by them.
To fill in the picture, I should like to add that the NS subjects were not free from
certain ambivalences either. This follows from the next two tables listing the quantita-
tive answers to questions as to whether they preferred to communicate with native or
non-native speakers of English, whether speaking to either NSs or NNSs made any
difference to them, whether they paid special attention when they spoke to NNSs and
what their worst fear was in communicating with NNSs.
(13 NSs = 100%) Yes No NR
Difference talking to NSs or 38% (5) 62% (8) 0% (0)
NNSs?
Change their English to adapt to 100% (13) 0% (0) 0% (0)
NNSs
Worst fear: not to be understood 62% (8) 23% (3) 15% (2)
by NNSs
Table 6: NSs consideration of NNSs
(13 NSs = 100%) Yes No NR
Feel comfortable talking to NNSs 54% (7) 23% (3) 23% (3)
Prefer to talk to NSs 77% (10) 0% (0) 23% (3)
Table 7: NS preference to talk to NSs or NNSs
The majority of NSs (62%) claimed it did not make any difference to them whether
they speak with NSs or NNS. At the same time, all of them (100%) admitted to ac-
commodating and adapting their speech to the specific situation of NNSs—by avoid-
ing slang and highly idiomatic terms, using simpler vocabulary, speaking more
slowly, providing explanations, simplifying complicated things, enunciating more
clearly, changing things around a little, being more precise and careful, etc. (as one
NS puts it: “I don’t want to say I dumbed down my language, but I was just mostly,
more than anything, just conscious about being understood and speaking clearly”).
This runs contrary to suggestions that ELF communication is a “one-way traffic [...] in
Who’s afraid of ELF 117
which NNSs [...] make all the efforts to accommodate and be understood by NSs” (cf.
Jenkins 2007: 136).9
In fact, the majority of the NS subjects in my study (62%) tried very hard to be un-
derstood by the NNSs (see their worst fear in Table 6 above). Moreover, 54% stated
explicitly that they did not want to appear arrogant, but tried to be fair, while they
clearly felt they were in a privileged position (62% yes as against 23% no). Finally,
over half of the NS subjects (54%) stressed that they felt comfortable talking to NNSs,
although they clearly (77%) preferred talking to other NSs (see Table 7). On the
whole, therefore, it seems that NSs demonstrate a considerable amount of empathy
and considerateness towards NNSs, which becomes particularly clear from some of
their qualitative statements:10
- “you really feel for people when they’re trying and it’s just not quite getting
there”
- “I feel like I have a responsibility, as the native speaker, to not just speak
clearly but also to make them understand what I’m saying; it’s only fair if peo-
ple spent years learning English”
- “you feel like you don’t want to correct people too much, because then they
lose their train of thought and then they can’t get out what they want to say”
- “I felt I intimidated them. I purposefully let everybody else speak before I
spoke”
- “even if the grammar is completely wrong—but it’s understandable—even if
it’s quite far off track, providing they get their point across, that’s probably the
most important thing”
- “I should give the non-native speakers the chance to speak more, should not
interrupt them, which I would with native speakers”.
2.2.3 Lurking NS norms or a sense of belonging
In reading through some 50 ad-hoc and follow-up NNS interviews, I never had the
impression that the subjects concerned suffered from any serious anxieties. As has
become clear from the analyses above, indications are that, generally speaking, they
feel rather at ease with ELF:
• ELF is generally seen in a positive light (100% see it as an advantage and only
53% came up with prompted negative aspects).
• There is a general feeling of satisfaction and the impression that they can cope
in ELF situations (85% feel that their English is sufficient for their needs, and
although 70% still want to improve their English they do not see this as a gen-
eral imperative but have clear ideas as to the specific areas where they want to
brush up on their English).

9 One reason why the NSs were willing to adapt to the NNSs’ needs to such a large degree (100%) may be
that the NSs were staying in a foreign country at the time of the interviews and were aware (from their own
experience of speaking a foreign language, i.e. German) of the problems that go along with speaking an L2.
10 Throughout my chapter I have rendered the qualitative statements in a quasi-written form, erasing all spo-
ken discourse elements (such as verbal pauses or dialectal pronunciations or spellings), as the focus is clearly
on the content matter.
118 Michaela Albl-Mikasa (Universität Tübingen)
• There seems to be no pressing need to conform to NS standards. If anything,
there is just a feeling that it would be nice to be native-like (only 56% have an
NS target model in mind and fluency is high on their agenda—only 9% insist
on correctness).
The desire to be native-like seems to be much less entrenched than one might have
thought. Although 56% insist on an NS target model (actually it is only 47%, since 9%
of those who declare having an NS target model stress the impossibility of such an
endeavour), the models they have in mind are a colourful kaleidoscope of characters.
The ideals range from “the queen”, “the BBC”, “the Americans we get to hear in Mex-
ico”, “North American writers”, “Harry Potter’s Professor McGonagall” or “my Brit-
ish school teacher” to “Mr Lethbridge, whom I meet in the bus every morning”. That
is, the images are of a rather heterogeneous and not well defined nature. This is fully
in line with Kurt Kohn’s illustration (presented at the April 2009 Southampton ELF
Conference in the framework of his “My-English”-approach (see Kohn 2007)) of the
psycholinguistic assumption that there is no such thing as a definable native speaker
model (Kohn 2009). From a cognitive point of view, we can only follow the rather
vague mental model we have in mind, which by definition means that we will never
develop the English of the person of whom we have built up our model. As Kohn
puts it: “There is no copying or cloning in language learning and construction” (see
also Kohn 1990a: 61-72, “Die Innenwelt der Außenwelt”).
What is more, 32% of NNS subjects did not have an NS target model in mind at
all. Their goals were “grade A in the exam”, “as fluent as possible”, “to be fluent in
scientific English and have a proper conversation with the man in the street”, “speak
correctly and without false breaks”, “make my point without having to ask: ‘say it
again please’”, “give a speech in English with academic vocabulary and everything
like my professor”, etc. One subject even felt that “taking on an accent is like acting,
it’s ridiculous”.
It seems to me that, much more than a feeling of anxiety or a pressure to be native-
like, there is a sense of belonging, or being part of an NNS community. NNSs seem to
identify with other NNSs. This becomes clear from phrases such as “they are more
similar to me”, “they have the same lousy accent and don’t notice my mistakes” or
“we know we’re both not perfect”. Although there is an awareness of the imper-
fection that goes along with being a non-native speaker, there does not seem to be an
inferiority complex. While possible disadvantages may be seen rather more on the
NNS side, by the NNS subjects, they are far from feeling underprivileged. As men-
tioned before, more than anything, the NNSs unanimously (100% of all subjects) ac-
knowledged the general advantage of being able to communicate across the world
and, in addition, they were very conscious that knowing at least one second language
is a great asset (in the words of one subject: “we’re richer in any case”). There seems,
therefore, to be not so much an apprehensive mood but a view of separate identities:
“us and them”, we NNSs (who have to bear the brunt of potential disadvantages) and
them NSs (who, however, have to be pitied for missing out on second and third lan-
guages) (on the issue of a common ELF identity see Pölzl / Seidlhofer 2006; see also