English nowadays serves as a global lingua franca (ELF) for diverse ethno-lingua users. This research aims to explore how Southern Thai university student's view ELF, and its integration into English language teaching (ELT) in Thailand where English is used as a foreign language (EFL). 250 students from five southern-Thai universities purposely…

Driven by interactionist theory and operationalized by task-based interaction, this study aims to investigate EFL learners' task-based negotiation in Second Life (SL), a 3D multi-user virtual environment (MUVE). A group of adult EFL learners with diverse cultural/linguistic backgrounds in L1 participated in this task-based virtual class. Learners…

This volume offers a wealth of new information about the forms of several speech acts and their social distribution in Vietnamese as L1 and L2, complemented by a chapter on address forms and listener responses. As the first of its kind, the book makes a valuable contribution to the research literature on pragmatics, sociolinguistics, and language…

The author of an article on the spread and teaching of English as an international language (EIL) replies to others' response to his ideas on the role of English in various international circles, the contexts and patterns of use of English, and English second-language instruction. (MSE)

This paper reports on research conducted in the Language and Society Centre of the National Languages Institute of Australia, Monash University, into interaction in English between non-native speakers from different ethnolinguistic backgrounds. The project emphasizes two aspects of verbal interaction where language-specific rules are closely…

An approach to English-as-a-Foreign-Language (EFL) teaching that helps students prepare for intercultural communication is described, drawing on the literature of second language learning and intercultural communication. First, potential barriers to intercultural understanding are examined, including the culture-bound nature of communication,…

It is argued that teaching and learning a second language for communicative competence should not lead to neglect of students' understanding of the way the language works, but rather should include constant development of language awareness. While use of the language in a variety of communicative activities is the central goal of instruction,…

English as an international language (EIL) has spread through development of autonomous registers that guarantee specialist communication within global expert communities. Most people learn English for this, not for social conversation with native speakers. Therefore, EIL is English for special purposes. Rather than emphasize "authentic" usage,…

This study analyzed complimenting behavior in French between French native speakers and American advanced French learners in seven dinner party conversations. Data are found to provide a rich source of lessons in politeness for both sociolinguistic and pedagogic descriptions of French speech acts. (Author/MSE)

Two approaches to teaching English as an International Language (EIL) are outlined, noting their roles in a newly-formed undergraduate major in EIL at International Pacific College (New Zealand). EIL is defined as a form of English used by non-native speakers to communicate with other non-native speakers. "Implicit" EIL refers to a…

A response to a Henry Widdowson article on the English language and its teaching focuses on three issues: the importance of the political context of language use; the notion of language as a weapon; and the recommendation in favor of teaching English for special purposes rather than general English in many cases. (MSE)

In a politically changing world, "languages in contact" must be redefined as "speakers of different languages in contact," and the implications for language learning and teaching must be recognized. Phenomena occurring beyond the languages themselves should be addressed in both language instruction and the construction of…

A discussion of some occurrences of metaphor in Modern Greek is intended to offer insight to foreign language teachers on the handling of the phenomenon in classroom instruction. Some implications for machine translation are also suggested. First, a brief theoretical account of metaphor points out that metaphor occurs in nearly all discourse and…

Drawing on native/non-native speaker discourse data from goal-oriented interaction in Australian workplaces, it is argued that modality is inherently a centrally important function in such discussions, and that appropriately nuanced expression of modality is often crucial to "getting the job done," and that emphasis should be given to…

It is proposed that because (1) adult learners of English as a Second Language face great challenges in communicating with native English speakers; and (2) native English-speakers can learn strategies to compensate for some of these difficulties, there is a need for instruction in these strategies and skills for Americans in international…