Lingua franca communication research

Lingua franca communication differs from other forms of intercultural communication such as native/non-native communication and communication via a professional or non-professional interpreter. Participants in lingua franca conversations are representatives of their individual mother cultures. Hence, they have their individual cultural backgrounds regarding communicative norms and standards. We will, therefore, expect interferences from the different mother tongues. At the same time, speakers have to a certain degree acquired the norms of either British (BrE) or American English (AmE) when learning the language. Thus, at least three but sometimes even more cultures are involved in lingua franca communication. Unless the speakers are familiar with the others' mother tongues, the amount of different cultures interacting in these situations demands that speakers cope with the unexpected, by having to apply imperfect knowledge of and competence in the language they use (cf. Knapp 1991). The resulting level of insecurity experienced by the participants has the effect of making them establish a unique set of rules for interaction that may be referred to as an inter-culture, a "culture constructed in cultural contact" (cf. Koole and tenThije 1994) or as a lingua franca culture, which is reflected in specific linguistic characteristics. These characteristics are apparently not influences of the speakers' mother tongues and will be discussed at a later point in this paper. At the same time, the speakers must, in most cases, be regarded as learners of the language they use as a lingua franca. Their communicative behaviour is not only a reflection of cultural norms, but it also represents the individual stages of their interlanguage ⁵ with its specific characteristics as well as the results of adaptation to the interlocutors.

Lingua franca or non-native/non-native communication has basically been studied from two different perspectives. Firth (1990 and 1996) and Gramkow Andersen (1993) analysed business telephone conversations between speakers of different European mother tongues, taking an interactional approach and focussing on the way participants cooperate to achieve the goal of their conversation. Others have approached lingua franca conversations as interactions between learners. Schwartz (1980) and Varonis/Gass (1995) investigated the negotiation of meaning between non-native speakers of English with different linguistic backgrounds. Yule (1990) studied the management of verbal conflict among Indian, Chinese and Korean students interacting in lingua franca English. Meeuwis (1994) and Meierkord (1996 and 1998) provide analyses of the discourse features of lingua franca small talk.

The above-mentioned studies yield interesting results and offer important insights. As a basic finding, they all stress the cooperative nature of lingua franca communication. Being in clear contrast to the findings of e.g. Thomas (1983) who emphasized the pragmatic problems encountered by non-native speakers when interacting with native speakers of English, cooperation among non-native speakers manifests itself e.g. in collaborative overlap and joint construction of what is usually called a turn. If our aim is to arrive at valid generalizations regarding the different varieties of lingua franca usage, quantitative analyses of larger copora are needed. A frame of reference, which is capable of dealing with the data's heterogeneity will need to be applied to the data. Categories useful for the analysis of lingua franca talk-in-interaction have been proposed by both Conversation Analysis and Discourse Analysis. However, as neither of these models have been designed to fit lingua franca data, modifications seem to be necessary and will be suggested below. Apart from modified tools for analysis, lingua franca data also requires a differenciated interpretation of the results produced by data analyses, taking into account both the inter cultural as well as inter language aspects of this variety of English.