1. ENGLISH AS A LINGUA FRANCA:
PRACTICES OF ACADEMICS IN A
TURKISH UNIVERSITY
ELF 5 – Istanbul 2012
Ali KARAKAS

2. 1. Introduction
1.1 Background to the study
1.2 Purpose of the study
1.3 Research Questions
Outline 2. Review of the Literature
2.1 Lingua Franca & ELF
2.2 Standard English vs changing English
2.3 Previous Research
3. Method
3.1 Overall design of the study
3.2 Participants
3.3 Data Collection Instrument & Procedure
4. Results and Discussion
5. Conclusion
2

3. Background to the study
 English has become a global lingua franca as a
vital and common means of communication
for a large number of people (Coury, 2001).
 “[T]he English Language now seems to have
set a monopoly as the worldwide medium of
communication” (Breton, 2000) and acts like
“a bridge of communication” (Gallego, 2012).
3

4.  There has been an increased ease of
communication between people from all walks of
life due to the technological inventions and
developments.
 “speakers conduct various communicative tasks,
from business meetings, academic presentations …
to casual chat … (Cogo, 2009, p.54)
 “85 per cent of all scientific publications, 75 per
cent of all international communication in writing,
80 per cent of all information in the world’s
computers, and 90 per cent of Internet content are
English” (Schutz, 2005).
4

5. Turkey is no exception to this statistics:
 use English to correspond with other nationalities
 neither the first or second language within the
country
 learnt/taught as a ‘foreign language’
 considered in Kachru’s (1992) Expanding Circle
 the most preferred/learned language by academics
5

6. Motivation & Aims of the study
Motivation: There is a dearth of research on the use
of English by academics and the challenges they may
face in a Turkish context and the impact of testing on
academics is underexplored.
Aims:
To explore the circumstances where Turkish
academics use English in their work.
To explore the problems and misunderstandings
they had/may have using English as a lingua franca
6

7. Research questions
In order to achieve the aims of the study the
following research questions are posed:
2)In which circumstances do Turkish academics
use English in their work as a lingua franca?
– where, when, with who and for what purposes?
3)What kind of problems and misunderstandings
they had/might have when using English?
4)What are the implications of the study for Turkish
academics in the use of English as a lingua franca?
7

8. Review of the literature
Lingua Franca
‘a language that people use to communicate when they
have different first languages (MacMillan,
2007,p.878)
English as Lingua Franca
refers to ‘any use of English among speakers of different
first languages for whom English is the communicative
medium of choice’ (Seidlhofer, 2011, p.7)
8

9. Standard English vs Changing English
Traditional prescriptive grammarians:
 there should be a standard in terms of grammar,
lexis, orthography and pronunciation
Descriptive grammarians:
 what matters is intelligibility.
 ‘the dominant impression is that lingua franca talk is not
only meaningful, it is also normal and indeed ordinary’
(Firth, 1996:242)
9

10. Previous Research
 Compilation of an academic ELF corpus – ELFA
in Finland (e.g. Mauranen, 2003).
The use of progressive aspect (Ranta, 2006)
• ascribing an extra function.
The use of expression: more or less (Metsä-
Ketelä,2006)
• more frequent in academic ELF interaction
Lexical and grammatical features in the
academic domain (Björkman, 2008, 2009)
10

11. The practices of academics: e.g. Coury (2001)
• Brazil, 20 academics from different uni.
• questionnaires & interviews
The findings:
English is used for communication, writing papers, doing
research, disseminating the findings etc.
Trouble in writing e-mails, papers, problems with register,
deviation from standards e.g. False cognates, misuse
of loan words.
Pronunciation problems, unawareness of cross-cultural
pragmatic skills, false cognates in their speech
11

12. Methodology
 Design of the study: descriptive case study with an aim to
explore the circumstances where academics in a Turkish
university use English as a lingua franca and identify the
problems they face
 Participants: 27 academics from Mehmet Akif Ersoy Uni., Burdur, Turkey
Gender f % Faculties f % Titles f %
Male 16 59 Education 16 59 Assoc. Prof. Dr. 1 4
Asst. Prof. Dr. 12 44
Female 10 37 Veterinary 8 30 Lecturer 2 8
Res. Asst. 9 32
Missing 1 4 Arts and Sciences 3 11 Specialist 2 8
Missing 1 4
Total 27 100 Total 27 100 Total 27 100
12

13. The setting:
Mehmet Akif Ersoy University,
Burdur, Turkey.
Turkish medium of language
3 faculties + 2 new
Data collection tool
A questionnaire adapted from Coury (2001)
13 Questions: open-ended & closed items
Demographic information the reasons they need English for
Being abroad the exams taken
The language used for communication the problems & misunderstandings
13

14. Results & Discussion
 Q4:Have you ever been abroad? (where?)
 Q5:Which language do you use when abroad?
Have you ever been The language used
f % f %
abroad? abroad
Yes 20 74 English 18 90
No 7 26 German 1 5
English-German 1 5
The countries: France, Poland, Hungary, Albania, Montenegro,
Romania, Jordan, Spain, Germany, Czech Republic, Italy and England,
America
14

15. Q6: For what purposes do you English at work?
15

16.  Q7:Have you ever taken any English exams? (which ones?)
National
English
Language
Proficiency
Examinations
a) resenment for taking these exams
b) İmpact of of the tests on their perception of English
c) whether they areinconveinced or not 16

17. Q8:If you have done an English test, why did you take it?
“utilitarian motives”
17

18.  Q9 & Q10: If you were obliged to take an English test, did
you resent the fact that you needed a certain grade in order
to do what you wanted to achieve? If so, why?
Yes=12 (44%) No= 13 (48)
academics of higher rank academics of lower rank
those who have not been abroad those who have been abroad
Why?
• fear of failure
• lack of intrinsic motivation
• Mismatch between the language in
Promotion of standard
the exam and the language in the daily life English 18

19.  Q12 & Q13: Have you ever had any misunderstandings with
other English speakers because of the English language? If
yes, state them, please?
 Yes= 13 (48%)
 No = 12 (44%)
 Sources of misunderstandings (oral communication)
 Mispronunciation of words
 Pronunciation errors
 Mis-intonations yardstick of NSs of
achievement English
 Faulty stress
 Difficulty in understanding
 Writing: no mention of problems & difficulties
19

20. To conclude
 The research highlights that the academics have used/use
English mainly in non-inner circles, frequently with non-native
academics for work-related goals.
 This does not mean that NSs of English are not present in the
practices of Turkish academics.
 The yardstick for measuring their oral ELF performance is
based on native-speaker competence.
 The testing of the language proficiency as a policy promotes
standard language and native speakers as the benchmark.
 The exams are thought to project “bookish English”, which
differ from their experiences in daily use of the language.
 Translation is a means of conforming to the norms of native-
speaker writing.
20

21. 21
E-mail: alikarakas85@hotmail.com

22. References
 Bjorkman, B. (2008). So where are we? Spoken lingua franca English at a technical university in Sweden. English Today
24.2, 35–41.
 Bjorkman, B. (2009). From code to discourse in spoken ELF. In Mauranen & Ranta (eds.), 225– 251.
 Cogo, A. (2009) Accommodating difference in ELF conversations: a study of pragmatic strategies. In Mauranen, Anna;
Ranta, Elina (eds.). English as a Lingua Franca: Studies and findings. Cambridge Scholars Press, 254-273.
 Coury,J.G (2001). English as Lingua Franca in the Brazilian Academic World. Retrieved February 10, 2012 from
http://www3.telus.net/linguisticsissues/linguafranca.htm.
 Firth, A. (1996). The discursive accomplishment of normality: On “lingua franca” English and conversation analysis. J
Journal of Pragmatics, 26(2), 237-259.
 Gallego, F. M. D. (2012). Experiences of a teacher of English. Retrieved February 5, 2012,
 from http://fernandoexperiences.blogspot.com/2012/02/792-english-as-bridge-of-communication.html
 Kachru, B. B. (1992). The other tongue: English across cultures (2nd. edition). Urbana IL.: Uni- versity of Illinois Press.
 MacMillan Dictionary for Advanced Learners (2007). MacMillan Publishers Ltd.
 Mauranen, A. (2003). The corpus of English as a lingua franca in academic settings. TESOL Quarterly, 37(3), 513–527.
 Metsä-Ketelä, M. (2006). Words are more or less superfluous. Nordic Journal of English Studies, 5(2), 117-143.
 Ranta, E. (2006). The ‘attractive’ progressive – why use the –ing form in English as a Lingua Franca? Nordic Journal of
English Studies 5.2, 95–116.
 Seidlhofer, B. (2011). Understanding English as a Lingua Franca. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
 Schütz, R. (2005). English—The international language. Retrieved February 20, 2012, from
 http://www.sk.com.br/sk-ingl.html
22