Guidelines for extensive reading of ESP texts on the use of English for European education

Beyza Björkman’s paper investigates the use of spoken lingua franca English (ELF) by lecturers and students at a Swedish technical university where English is increasingly used as a medium of instruction and as a vehicular language for speakers from a wide range of first languages.

Beyza Björkman’s project has investigated the language skills of the teachers and students in this setting, namely non-native-like usage of spoken lingua franca English. The main aim has been to find out what aspects of language cause communication failure. The material comprises 76 hours of digital recordings, of naturally occurring, authentic high-stakes speech from content courses.

Beyza Björkman’s results show a clear tendency by engineers to reduce redundancy and to focus on function, thus disregarding standard forms. There is little communication failure considering the relatively high frequency of non-standard forms. Her account of the round-table discussion is based on the results of her investigation and is meant to be a starting point for a larger study.

Text 2-13. ENGLISH AS THE LINGUA FRANCA OF ENGINEERING EDUCATION

(After Beyza Björkman, Royal Institute of Technology, Unit for Language and Communication, Stockholm University, Department of English)