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SUMMARY:Why ELF won’t SIT: English as a Lingua Franca and Social Identit
 y Theory - Bettina Beinhoff (University of Cambridge)
DTSTART:20091023T130000Z
DTEND:20091023T143000Z
UID:TALK20662@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Dr Laura Wright
DESCRIPTION:English is the global lingua franca (ELF) and as such it is in
 creasingly used for communication among non-native speakers (NNS) of Engli
 sh which outnumber native speakers (NS) of English by far (cf. Crystal 200
 3). In this ELF context NNS of English need to establish their identity th
 rough the medium of their L2. Additionally\, most NNS speak English with a
  ‘foreign’ accent which causes certain attitudes in speakers as well a
 s listeners and can have profound social consequences (cf. Jenkins 2007). 
 \n\nThe emergence of attitudes towards specific accents is mainly an issue
  of social identity\, which originates from group membership and is establ
 ished by self-categorisation (Tajfel 1978\; Turner 1987). Accents and lang
 uage are considered to be major determinants of social identity.\n\nPrevio
 us studies focused on the expression of social identity through people’s
  NS accents and their attitudes towards other NS accents (e.g. Coupland & 
 Bishop 2007\; Hiraga 2005). Research on attitudes of NNS of English toward
 s their own (ingroup) NNS accent and other (outgroup) accents of English h
 as been largely neglected. \n\nThere are\, in fact\, only a handful of stu
 dies on how NNS perceive their own accent of English. These studies reveal
  conflicting results as they suggest that NNS of English:\n* a)	identify w
 ith an accent of English that clearly reveals their first language (McKenz
 ie 2008)\,\n* b)	consider their own first language to be their source of i
 dentification and not their accent of English (Derwing 2003)\,\n* c)	show 
 ambivalent attitudes towards their own NNS accents\, i.e. neither of the a
 bove (Jenkins 2007).\n\nAdditionally\, I will present results of my own st
 udies which do not fully resolve the above-mentioned conflicting results a
 nd uncertainties but which may help to understand why they exist.\n\n*Refe
 rences*\n\n* Coupland\, N. & Bishop\, H. (2007) Ideologised values for Bri
 tish accents. Journal of Sociolinguistics 11/1\, 74-93.\n* Crystal\, D. (2
 003) The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. Cambridge: Cambri
 dge University Press. 2nd edition.\n* Derwing\, T.M. (2003) What do ESL st
 udents say about their accents? Canadian Modern Language Review 59/4\, 547
 -566. \n* Hiraga\, Y. (2005) British attitudes towards six varieties of En
 glish in the USA and Britain. World Englishes 24/3\, 289-308.\n* Jenkins\,
  J. (2007) English as a Lingua Franca: Attitude and Identity. Oxford: Oxfo
 rd University Press.\n* Tajfel\, H. (1978) Social categorization\, social 
 identity and social comparison. In: Tajfel\, H. (ed.) Differentiation betw
 een Groups. London et al.: Academic Press\, 61-76.\n* Turner\, J.C. (1987)
  Rediscovering the Social Group – A Self-Categorization Theory. Oxford: 
 Blackwell.\n
LOCATION:GR06\, English Faculty
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