“Nativeness” and intelligibility: impacts of intercultural experience through English as a lingua franca on Chinese speakers’ language attitudes
“Nativeness” and intelligibility: impacts of intercultural experience through English as a lingua franca on Chinese speakers’ language attitudes
This paper investigates the impacts of intercultural experience through English as a lingua franca (ELF) on language attitudes, with the focus on Chinese Speakers’ narratives of ELF experience in relation to their views of Englishes. The data retrieved through 769 questionnaires and 35 interviews with Chinese users of English revealed the impacts in four aspects. First, the lack of ELF experience helps to maintain the assumption that conformity to native English is necessary for interactants to understand each other. Second, ELF experience triggers the question about the exclusive connection between nativeness and intelligibility. Third, it raises challenges to the exclusive relevance of native English for successful intercultural communication. Fourth, it helps to develop an awareness of intercultural communication strategies as important for communicative effectiveness in the context of the diversity of English. Attitudes revealed in the four aspects all point to a concern with the issue what is intelligible English. This paper thus discusses intelligibility in relation to (non-) nativeness and the role of intercultural experience in making sense of the issue of intelligibility, which leads to the exploration of pedagogical implications of this study.
intelligibility, nativeness, English as a lingua franca, intercultural experience, language attitudes
38-58
Wang, Ying
dae44497-8e51-48ab-8173-7844f152f6e9
Jenkins, Jennifer
7daf0457-86d0-4c08-af4b-79641d1f7fd0
March 2016
Wang, Ying
dae44497-8e51-48ab-8173-7844f152f6e9
Jenkins, Jennifer
7daf0457-86d0-4c08-af4b-79641d1f7fd0
Wang, Ying and Jenkins, Jennifer
(2016)
“Nativeness” and intelligibility: impacts of intercultural experience through English as a lingua franca on Chinese speakers’ language attitudes.
Chinese Journal of Applied Linguistics, 39 (1), .
(doi:10.1515/cjal-2016-0003).
Abstract
This paper investigates the impacts of intercultural experience through English as a lingua franca (ELF) on language attitudes, with the focus on Chinese Speakers’ narratives of ELF experience in relation to their views of Englishes. The data retrieved through 769 questionnaires and 35 interviews with Chinese users of English revealed the impacts in four aspects. First, the lack of ELF experience helps to maintain the assumption that conformity to native English is necessary for interactants to understand each other. Second, ELF experience triggers the question about the exclusive connection between nativeness and intelligibility. Third, it raises challenges to the exclusive relevance of native English for successful intercultural communication. Fourth, it helps to develop an awareness of intercultural communication strategies as important for communicative effectiveness in the context of the diversity of English. Attitudes revealed in the four aspects all point to a concern with the issue what is intelligible English. This paper thus discusses intelligibility in relation to (non-) nativeness and the role of intercultural experience in making sense of the issue of intelligibility, which leads to the exploration of pedagogical implications of this study.
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CJAL final revision 11Jan2016.docx
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Published date: March 2016
Keywords:
intelligibility, nativeness, English as a lingua franca, intercultural experience, language attitudes
Organisations:
Modern Languages
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 386163
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/386163
ISSN: 2192-9505
PURE UUID: d3ae1f01-c5b0-43da-9317-4f19c6c1b60b
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Date deposited: 01 Feb 2016 11:33
Last modified: 14 Mar 2024 22:27
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