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. Biochemistry’s 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 Organisationspsychologie

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 2003:572f)

18. Conclusion • ‘Niches’ for ELF in bi- and plurilingual habitat • Emergent genre of Lunchtime events for ELF use • Emergent community of practice:learning and languagingways of doing and ways of beingling. repertoire & Selbstverständnis

19. Selbstverständnis • Plurilingual self-image&confidence • Don’t 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, 2:133-158. • 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