Ecological niches, emergent genres and emergent communities of practice?

1
Ecological niches, emergent genres and emergent
communities of practice?

• English as an academic lingua franca at the
  French-German bilingual University of
  Fribourg-Freiburg

2
Plan of presentation

• English as a Lingua Franca (drawing on
  Seidlhofer, Jenkins, House, Mauranen cf.
  handout)
• Local setting and habitat factor
• Psychology Lunchtime Seminars
• Phases and framing/embedding
• Reasons for using ELF
• Conclusion

3
English as a Lingua Franca

• Majority use of English in the world
• Among speakers of different L1s
• Chosen language of communication, often in
  influential networks
• Plurilingual speakers of ELF are language users
  in their own right
• Great potential to innovate through greater
  linguistic resources
• Certain degree of norm (in)dependence

4
ELF Corpora

• Computer-readable collections of spoken ELF being
  compiled
• Empirical bases for linguistic description
• VOICE Vienna Oxford International Corpus of
  English (Seidlhofer)
• ELFA English as a Lingua Franca in Academic
  Settings (Mauranen)

5
ELF as a spoken academic lingua franca at Uni FR

• Working language in internationally composed
  research teams (e.g. Physics)
• Conferences, research colloquia (e.g. Psychology)
• Master thesis-related activities (e.g. Biology)
• Lunchtime events (e.g. Biochemistrys Beer
  Lunch Seminars Psychology)

6
Lunchtime events hypotheses

• Public niches for ELF in institutionally F/G
  bilingual academic setting
• ELF possibly embedded in plurilingual practices
• (Semi-)scripted and unscripted
• Spoken data by speakers who may or may not share
  other languages
• Monologic data possibly edited

7
Department of Psychology

• Two sections (one teaches through G, the other
  through F) in shared physical space
• Five chairs (three G, two F) with staff
• Three (research) centres/institutes (three more
  profs. with own staff)
• Depart. Psych. Counselling Centre

8
Five Chairs

• Lehrstuhl für Allgemeine Psychologie
• Lehrstuhl für Klinische Psychologie
• Chaire de psychologie clinique
• Chaire pour psychologie générale et pédagogique
• Lehrstuhl für Arbeits- und Organisationspsychologi
  e

9
Studying psychology

• Selecting a language parallel programmes of
  study for G and F
• Combining languages Bilingual Degree option
• Required reading in English
• Guest events (block courses, research colloquia,
  guest lectures) in English
• optional English for Psychology course

10
Psych. Lunchtime Seminars

• Two organizers (one F-, one G-sp.)
• Monthly during term since 2003/04
• Thursdays 12 13, open to all
• Presenters from inside and outside
• Announced on website
• Email invitations to staff in Psychology Dept.,
  Education Dept.

11
Lunchtime Language

• Language of presentation English (although some
  presentations may be given in German and some in
  French)
• Some local accommodation (habitat factor) to be
  expected, but also referee-design
  (international psychological setting)

12
Lunchtime Languages (plural!)

• Phases 1-3 French, German, English
• Phases 4-8 English only
• Phases 9-12 French, German, English

13
Overt reasons for using ELF(global and local!)

• Need, choice, strategy vis-à-vis English as the
  language of the field
• Internationalisation
• Doing the Lunchtime Seminars in English made it
  easier to get the German side on board
• wegen der Zweisprachigkeit

14
ELF motivation function

• Strategy of integration and appropriation
• Community of practice learning as participation,
  becoming what one is doing, practice constitutes
  community
• Relational work across the language divide,
  neutral ground

15
Communities of Practice

• Social theory of learning (Wenger 1998)
• Learning through participation in a community,
  practice is the source of coherence of a
  community
• Practice as the property of a community has three
  dimensions joint enterprise, mutual engagement,
  shared repertoire

16
Communities of Practice

• Eckert 2000 adopted it as a sociolinguistic
  concept to account for linguistic variation as a
  social practice
• House 2003 suggests it for describing ELF
  communication as the three dimensions seem to
  apply to ELF interactions

17
Shared repertoire of negotiable resources

• consists of English linguistic resources,
  involving the joint construction of a
  communicative repertoire instrumental in greatly
  varying contexts, both real and in the minds of
  the interactants (House 2003572f)

18
Conclusion

• Niches for ELF in bi- and plurilingual habitat
• Emergent genre of Lunchtime events for ELF use
• Emergent community of practicelearning and
  languagingways of doing and ways of beingling.
  repertoire Selbstverständnis

19
Selbstverständnis

• Plurilingual self-imageconfidence
• Dont anthropomorphise language
• It is not languages that dominate,it is people
• Awareness-raising for ELF and support for ELF
  users

20
Main references (but cf. handout)

• Eckert, P. 2000. Linguistic variation as social
  practise. The linguistic construction of identity
  in Belten High. Oxford Blackwell
• House, J. 2003. English as a lingua franca a
  threat to multilingualism? Journal of
  Sociolinguistics 7/4 556-578.
• Jenkins, J. 2005b EFL at the gate the position
  of English as a Lingua Franca Ideas Corpora 05
  http//www.hltmag.co.uk/mar05/idea.htm
• Mauranen, A. (2003). The Corpus of English as
  Lingua Franca in Academic Settings. TESOL
  Quarterly 37 513-527.
• Seidlhofer, B. 2001. "Closing a conceptual gap
  the case for a description of English as a lingua
  franca" International Journal of Applied
  Linguistics 11, 2133-158.
• Seidlhofer, B. 2004. "Research perspectives on
  teaching English as a lingua franca", Annual
  Review of Applied Linguistics 24 209-239.
• Wenger, E. 1998. Communities of practice.
  Learning, meaning and identity. New York CUP