Spoken lingua franca English in tertiary education at a Swedish technical university: an...

Spoken lingua franca English in tertiary education at a Swedish technical

university: an investigation of form and communicative-pedagogical

effectiveness

Beyza Björkman, Department of English

2Beyza Björkman, Department of English, beyza.bjorkman@english.su.se 23-04-22

Outline• Background information:

English in Sweden This setting

• This project: A study on spoken lingua franca English in tertiary education at a Swedish technical university AimSpeech events and subjectsPoints of investigation and methodsFindings

• Beyond the findings • What is next?

23-04-22Beyza Björkman, Department of English, beyza.bjorkman@english.su.se 3

English in Sweden • History

• 1900sExpected proficiency: French, German,

EnglishInstruction: Swedish

• 1980s-to presentExpected proficiency: EnglishInstruction: Swedish, increasingly English

• Standards are relatively high • Swedish English generally ranked high

”almost mother-tongue like, ..., clear, well-mastered” (Jenkins, 2008)

23-04-22Beyza Björkman, Department of English, beyza.bjorkman@english.su.se 4

The setting• A technical university in a large city in Sweden• Responsible for 1/3 of Sweden’s technical research

and engineering education• ca 20,000 students• ca 3,000 employees

predominantly Swedishalso Russian, Chinese, German etc.

• ca 1,500 exchange students in 2006• English used extensively

23-04-22Beyza Björkman, Department of English, beyza.bjorkman@english.su.se 5

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

1999

(10)

2000

(10)

2001

(12)

2002

(13)

2003

(16)

2004

(23)

2005

(27)

2006

(34) 13 in Swe.

Master's programs in English at the site

Number of programs

23-04-22Beyza Björkman, Department of English, beyza.bjorkman@english.su.se 6

Context: Technical communication

• Data• Real high-stakes technical dialogues

from content courses•Different from speech events in language

courses (comparative corpus)

• Interviews and questionnaires

23-04-22Beyza Björkman, Department of English, beyza.bjorkman@english.su.se 7

Speech eventsELF

Dialogic Monologic

Group work

28 hours

Students

Presentations

17 hours

Lectures

48 hours

Students

Teachers Lecturers

23-04-22Beyza Björkman, Department of English, beyza.bjorkman@english.su.se 823-04-22 8

L1s and speakersSpanishGermanSwedishLang.s from IndiaArabicRussianPersian/FarsiIcelandicFrenchTurkish

ItalianChineseSomaliGreekUzbekFinnishCatalanEnglish PolishSerbian

Number of speakers: 107

(in all types of speech events, excluding audiences in lectures)

Number of L1s: 20

Monologic (lectures):

54% Swedish, 46% Foreign speakers

Dialogic:

51% Exchange students

24.4% Ethnically non-Swedish

24.4% Swedish

23-04-22Beyza Björkman, Department of English, beyza.bjorkman@english.su.se 9

Points of investigation• Morpho-syntactic non-standard usage (Disturbing? Non-

disturbing?Irritating? )

• Criteria: What is a commonality?The feature:• occurs in different types of speech

events• by different speakers with different L1s • 10 times

23-04-22 10

Y

N

Y

N

N

Y

Y

N

Potentially problematic

?

Covertly disturbing?

Irritating?

Overtly disturbing? Unsuitable for LF situations

Suitable for LF situations

Suitable for LF situations

Suitable for LF

situations?

23-04-22Beyza Björkman, Department of English, beyza.bjorkman@english.su.se 11

Categorization of findings1. Morphological (41)Variations in word form:

e.g. boringdom, discriminization, forsify, levelize, more big, more easy, more clear,…

2. Syntactic (178)Correctly formed words used appropriately but in

syntacticallydeviant constructions

2.1 Phrase level NPVP

2.2 Clause level

23-04-22Beyza Björkman, Department of English, beyza.bjorkman@english.su.se 12

Phrase level: NP (1) Not marking the plural

..200 degree..

..two type of …We have four

parameter..…two more condition....two way..Over 10 meter....6000 hour per year…It is always ten digit...ten glass vessel..

We need all the detail……just to get result..There are some difference….There are some different type of

reference…..several conclusion…you have several unknown…..same advantage compared with

other technology.There are other reason.

23-04-22Beyza Björkman, Department of English, beyza.bjorkman@english.su.se 13

Phrase level: NP (2) Article usage

Superfluous/Incorrect articles

The poor people use…I have a exam.

No article when needed

…solve the problem as ? wholeThis is ? more tricky one.But they have ? very good subway system.It’s not ? effective solution.

SomeWe need to give some proposal. In high school, you do some examination report. ..some conclusion…,.. some commas.., ..some line here..,..some different type of reference…,

Zero article normally means indefinite.

23-04-22Beyza Björkman, Department of English, beyza.bjorkman@english.su.se 14

Phrase level:VP • SVA

• 3P e.g. …these functions describes.., people doesn’t.., Engineers works like this,…

• 3S e.g. It come from this equation, The volume increase…, The traffic have gone beyond….

• Tense and aspect e.g. ...A power system is called a power system, because it is using different generator systems. You can remember what a turbine is doing, it is taking care of...

• Passive and Active voicee.g. But we affect by the flow../Some of these graphics devices can attach to your pc... / It can be happened that…

23-04-22Beyza Björkman, Department of English, beyza.bjorkman@english.su.se 15

Clause level (1): Non-standard question formulation

• Two different types:• Wh questions

How many pages they have?

So where we are?

Why it is black?

What other equation I would use?

Why the function looks like that?

What we have in the outlet?

•SVOWe should go through every topic?We have to choose one of them?You’re sure it is solar? This is to fit in the equation?

<S1> er... in the outlet , what we have in the outlet? </S1>

<S2> . what?</S2><S1> in the outlet what we

have? <S1/><S2> (xx) reflection for vapor

</S2>

23-04-22Beyza Björkman, Department of English, beyza.bjorkman@english.su.se 16

Clause level (2): Left dislocations

This rate you have it.Diffusivity you need it.This report we’ll do it later. The composition of the liquid it’s the same,..The supercapacitors I don’t know much about

them. All these chemical reactions they are

reversible.

Increased explicitness (Mauranen, 2007)

23-04-22Beyza Björkman, Department of English, beyza.bjorkman@english.su.se 17

Clause level (3): Unraised negative

I think he won’t be here.I think my X is not OK here. It looks not good.I think it’s not a proper way to describe it.I think the teacher can’t read (the report) carefully. She has

no time.

Do you have any ’non’s on T4 that lead not to 0 here? Transfer or cognitive?

23-04-22Beyza Björkman, Department of English, beyza.bjorkman@english.su.se 18

Disturbance?

NDLeft dislocations NDNegation

D! Non-standard question formulation

NDPassive/Active voice problems NDTense and aspect issues NDSubject-verb disagreement NDIncorrect plural forms/countability

NDDouble comparatives/superlatives

NDNot marking the plural NDNon-standard word formations Overt disturbance Morphosyntactic features

23-04-22Beyza Björkman, Department of English, beyza.bjorkman@english.su.se 19

Questionnaires and interviews

• Intolerance: Students Teachers

Challenging?

23-04-22Beyza Björkman, Department of English, beyza.bjorkman@english.su.se 20

Success of communication in ELFsettings seems to depend on two

factors:

1.SituationOrientation: content (not form)

2. Nature of lingua franca features

23-04-22Beyza Björkman, Department of English, beyza.bjorkman@english.su.se 21

Nature of lingua franca features

1. Non-standard usage that leads to disturbance in communicatione.g. Non-standard question formulation

2. Successful reductions of redundancye.g. Not marking the plural

3. Devices that increase comprehensibility & economy e.g. Left dislocation and unraised negative

23-04-22Beyza Björkman, Department of English, beyza.bjorkman@english.su.se 22

Conclusions • Settings in which English is a lingua franca are too

dynamic for ELF to be a stable variety.• There are commonalities and common procedures.• ELF features reported so far might be reassertions

(Crystal, 2008) • Purist grammarians introducing artificial rules

e.g. informations (1800s) information informations

• More research needed.• Emphasis in teaching?

Department of English

www.english.su.se