Multi-competence and English as a lingua franca

What is it about?

English as a lingua franca (or ELF) is used around the world as an additional language by bi- or plurilingual speakers who do not share a first language. Spoken ELF shows a huge amount of linguistic variation and non-standard forms, as users accommodate to their interlocutors and adopt ways of speaking that aid intelligibility and communication. This essay shows how many ELF speakers use approximations of established English words and phrases, and simplify (or reconceptualize) elements of English grammar that appear afunctional or idiosyncratic to speakers of most other languages. Rather than being considered as ‘errors’ (according to native English usages), such variant forms are better described as resulting from ‘multi-competence,’ a dynamic multilingual system in which mental representations from different languages interact. Many of the linguistic strategies attributed to ELF users, such as creative approximations, borrowing and code-switching, are in fact common to most bilinguals and multilinguals, and can be particularly effective where there are typological similarities and/or cognate lexis among neighbouring languages, as in often the case in Europe.

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