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1 CURRENT RESEARCH ON INTELLIGIBILITY IN ENGLISH AS A LINGUA FRANCA Lucy Pickering Recognition of incipient change in the status of English as an international language has yielded a small but growing area of research addressing NNS-NNS interaction. Issues concerning intelligibility are a key focus of this investigation, particularly as native speaker models have limited relevance to these new contexts of use. This review highlights current research from diverse areas of applied linguistics that have addressed aspects of intelligibility in both experimental and real-world settings. Current findings suggest that the processes by which understanding is achieved in ELF interaction are qualitatively different from those observed in NS-based interaction, and that this has implications for a number of research and practice areas. Following a definition of terms, the chapter surveys current research and considers its influence on current trends in English language teaching. Possible directions for further research are also considered. The precipitate growth of English as a global language with an estimated 1 billion L2 users (Crystal, 2000) presents new challenges to an old problem. Traditionally, debates concerning intelligibility have centered on how far varieties of English should be allowed to depart from a rigid native speaker standard. This is illustrated by the famous exchange between Randolph Quirk and Braj Kachru that opens Seidlhofer’s (2003) Controversies in Applied Linguistics. Quirk argued that a single standard, based on either British or American English, should be consistently applied in all nonnative contexts, and Kachru responded that it was time to legitimize nonnative speaker varieties and recognize the ‘paradigm shift’ that the increasing use of English as an international language required. Nelson reiterates that the native speaker is a rare sight in most international interactions in English and that many speakers “may never have had the dubious good fortune even to have met a native speaker” (1995, p. 276). Once we acknowledge this revolutionary change, it becomes clear that models and practices that privilege native varieties of English are no longer serviceable. Research undertaken in ELF interaction (NNS-NNS communication) and issues of intelligibility is a response to this new context and is still in its infancy. This chapter begins with a definition of the terms that are frequently used and2 LUCY PICKERING routinely defined differently. The following section reviews current research in ELF interaction and intelligibility with a focus on speaker and listener variables, and the final part of the chapter describes the ways in which the most recent findings in intelligibility research have been applied to English language teaching. For reasons of space, this chapter does not cover issues of intelligibility, and written language which would require a separate review. Definition of Terms English as a lingua franca (ELF) The most cursory review of the literature addressing English in its global context reveals a host of terms, such as ‘English as an international language,’ ‘World Standard English,’ ‘literate English,’ ‘English as a lingua franca,’ and limited agreement on definitions (Erling, 2005; McArthur, 2004). A mutually agreed starting point for most, however, continues to be Kachru’s (1985) division of worldwide Englishes into inner, outer, and expanding circles. If we define a lingua franca as a contact language, i.e., “a vehicular language spoken by people who do not share a native language” (Mauranen, 2003, p. 513), English used in the expanding circle between L2 users “captures ELF in its purest form” (Seidlhofer, 2004, p. 211). As both Maurenen and Seidlhofer point out, however, English is manifestly unlike other contact languages. The enormously diverse intra- and international contexts of use and the continual movement of users routinely result in interactions between speakers from all three groups. While stipulating that this is an inherent feature of global English usage, I will continue to follow Seidlhofer (2004) and define ELF as talk comprising expanding circle speaker-listeners, also described as nonnative speakers (NNSs), competent L2 speakers, or, in Jenkins’ (2000) terms, non-bilingual English speakers (NBESs) for whom proficiency may range from nearly bilingual English speakers (BESs) to beginner NBESs. Intelligibility and Comprehensibility Up to this point I have used the term intelligibility in its broadest sense to mean both “intelligible production and felicitous interpretation of English” (Nelson, 1995, p. 274). There is no universally agreed upon definition of what constitutes this construct, nor is there an agreed upon way of measuring it (Derwing & Munro, 2005; Jenkins, 2000). Within the field of World Englishes (WE), a common conceptualization is Smith and Nelson’s (1985) tripartite definition of intelligibility, the ability of the listener to recognize individual words or utterances; comprehensibility, the listener’s ability to understand the meaning of the word or utterance in its given context, and interpretability, the ability of the listener to understand the speaker’s intentions behind the word or utterance. This last level of divining a speaker’s intentions is understandably difficult to measure and Levis reports that the term has largely “fallen by the wayside” (2005, p. 254). There remains a clear distinction in the literature, however, between “matters of form,” comprising formal recognition or decoding of words and utterances, and “matters of meaning,” variously described as ‘comprehensibility,’ ‘understanding,’ orINTELLIGIBILITY IN ENGLISH AS A LINGUA FRANCA 3 ‘communicativity’ (Jenkins, 2000, p. 71). As Field (2003) suggests, a listener may use a higher level of contextual understanding to compensate for the fact that a message is unrecognizable, i.e., unable to be precisely decoded. Similarly, an utterance may be intelligible and incomprehensible,1 although as Gallego (1990, p. 228) points out, potential comprehensibility issues may be camouflaged by intelligibility problems. The Relative Nature of Comprehensibility Although our immediate response as listeners is often to assign responsibility for comprehensibility to our interlocutor, leading scholars in the fields of discourse and WE have


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