The pragmatic view of ELF

36

such as „pronunciate‟, „commodification‟, „turkishhood‟, or „geostrategical‟ are formed by the creative use of standard English vocabulary, productive word formation rules, and L1 language knowledge to fill gaps in the ELF vocabulary or to enhance the clarity of the message. They are not related specifically to a professional (ESP) terminology but can be considered to augment general English vocabulary. Most of these lexical innovations are ad hoc improvisations adapting to the communicative situation, though some of them tend to be taken up by the interlocutors.

Besides, a number of similar innovative words emerge independently from different communicative contexts, which may lead to the gradual spread and the eventual standardisation of these words.

The above research into the language forms of ELF illustrates ideas which can be applicable to researching speech varieties of English. Firstly, variation in ELF morphology and syntax illustrate the idea that variation in English is often redundant from the point of view of communication and the importance of these forms lies in the fact that they have a symbolic value of conforming to standards. Besides, as could be seen from the example of vocabulary, ELF users‟ creative way of varying language forms when using English can serve as a powerful tool in using English for their own purposes in an adaptive way.

37

and its variants as the result of pragmatic processes which take place in intercultural communication (Widdowson, 2014). According to this approach, linguistic forms in ELF follow from the functions of English communication, that is, speakers use English in certain contexts with certain purposes, which yields variation in language forms. The relationship between form and function illustrated by the examples below resemble the way pragmatic functions can affect language forms in speech varieties of English as well.

Cogo and Dewey (2006) illustrate how pragmatic functions affect forms by the example of lexical innovations and the alternation between -s and zero in the 3rd person singular morpheme. Their findings show that metaphorical or creative word choices are used by speakers to convey specialised meanings which are then negotiated by the speakers. The use of these words is characterised by repetition and backchanelling by the speakers to signal support, cooperation and accommodation to each other. According to the corpus data, the frequency of the 3rd person singular suffixes‟ realisation as -s or zero depends on pragmatic aspects of language use such accommodation based on the interlocutor, the formality of the context and the topic. The frequency of the morpheme‟s realisation as -s in main verbs is found to be relatively high in a formal situation such as an ELT classroom context with a native-speaker teacher as the interlocutor when discussing the topic of grammatical correctness; by contrast, the morpheme is realised as zero more frequently when the interaction involves non-native speakers in less formal contexts.

The examples of accommodation in ELF interactions show that variable linguistic features in ELF are not features of varieties as such, but they are linguistic options strategically used by ELF speakers to achieve particular pragmatic purposes. Accommodation can have three main purposes: convergence, divergence and maintenance (Giles, Coupland, & Coupland, 1991).

38

Convergence involves approximating the listener‟s language to either facilitate communication or to signal identification with the speaker, divergence can signal distance from the interlocutor while maintenance means that the speaker does not change features of their language in order to accommodate to the listener. ELF users can thus vary the forms of English depending on the communicative context and their pragmatic purposes.

According to Kecskés (2007) pragmatic processes also shape ELF due to the differences in ELF speaker‟s schematic knowledge. Since ELF interactions involve people of different social and cultural backgrounds who come from different contexts, they have less shared knowledge or common references which can support communication. Therefore, ELF speakers use fewer idioms and rely more on the explicit linguistic code to convey messages compared to native speakers, who can use more idiomaticity in English because of their shared schemata and their common knowledge of their shared context. Therefore, for ELF speakers, it is the linguistic code of English that constitutes the basis of the common ground for communication instead of a shared socio-cultural knowledge, and thus speakers‟ efforts to cooperate and establish a linguistic common ground in ELF communication shapes the language forms used by the speakers.

In a similar vein, Widdowson (2014) regards ELF as online communicative processes which take place between speakers of different socio-cultural backgrounds and in which English functions as a complex adaptive system. The complex nature of English entails that its language forms are variable, which means that its sounds, grammatical forms and lexical items can be realised or expressed in a number of different ways, giving ELF speakers a range of possible linguistic options to choose from in the course of communication. These forms are, in turn, adapted to the communicative situation online, in the act of communication, in a way that they

39

suit the purposes of the speakers. This involves processes in which ELF speakers cooperate to understand each other in an ongoing interaction by means of negotiation of meaning and accommodation, using all the linguistic resources at their disposal to achieve their communicative goals.

The pragmatic view of ELF is relevant for investigating English speech varieties since it illustrates how functions of language use may affect language forms. Although in speech varieties, a number of language forms may have no pragmatic functions, for example, variants in pronunciation resulting from L1 transfer in the case of EFL speakers, the use of variables by speakers can be influenced consciously or unconsciously by the context of language use, namely the audience, the formality of the situation of the topic. Pronunciation can also be used for accommodation for the sake of intelligibility, compensating for differences in schematic knowledge by finding a linguistic common ground, or to signal personal relationships with other speakers.