Exploring the interface between World Englishes and Second Language Acquisition – and implications for English as a Lingua Franca

Abstract

Abstract This paper explores and attempts to explain cognitively-based similarities between ELF uses and newly-emerged World Englishes, notably ESLs (stable second-language varieties) but also EFL forms, from a theoretical perspective, with an eye on earlier scholarship, and in an exemplary case study. Starting out from definitions of some core concepts, it is argued that the common ground underlying ESL, EFL and ELF is to be found in principles of Second Language Acquisition, such as preferences for simplicity, analogy, or isomorphism. A range of earlier studies which point out parallels between these categories is critically surveyed and supplemented by some new, pertinent data drawn from the VOICE corpus. In an extended case study of select structural features of finite vs. non-finite complement clause formation in ESL varieties, the hypothesis is tested that ESLs show traces of SLA effects by preferring relatively more isomorphic structures over less transparent ones, and implications of the findings for ELF are considered. It is suggested that ESLs and ELF are related via SLA effects and cognition and that sociolinguistically stable ELF settings may be hypothesized to represent initial stages in a trajectory towards ESL formation.