Uses of English as a Lingua Franca in Domain-specific Contexts of Intercultural Communication

Abstract

This special issue of Lingue e Linguaggi collects the contributions presented at the International Conference Uses of English as a Lingua Franca in Domain-Specific Contexts of Intercultural Communication, which took place at the University of Salento, Italy, in December 2019. The Conference represented the conclusion of a PRIN Project co-funded by the Italian Ministry of University and Research, which started from the assumption that ELF is an area needing a more principled systematic investigation since, so far, it has not been recognized as a use of English that is independent from English as a Native Language. The chapters of this special issue concern ELF variations employed in: (a) institutional, professional, as well as ‘undeclared’ migration settings (UniSalento Unit); (b) digital media employed for global communication (UniVerona Unit); (c) multicultural and multilingual classrooms characterizing contemporary western societies (UniRoma Tre Unit). The contributions enquire into the ELF uses in domain-specific discourses that demonstrate the extent to which the English language comes to be appropriated by non-native speakers who, indeed, do not experience it as an alien ‘foreign’ language, but rather as a ‘lingua franca’ through which they feel free to convey their own native linguacultural and experiential uses and narratives, rhetorical and specialized repertoires and, ultimately, their own socio-cultural identities. The contributors’ research has provided evidence in support of an acknowledgement that people from different linguacultural backgrounds appropriate English by making reference to their own different native semantic, syntactic and pragmatic codes through which they convey their own communicative needs.