Open Lecture Information

Title:

“The Transience of ELF Encounters –Implications for Research on Professional Settings”

Lecturer:

Dr. Janus Mortensen

University of Copenhagen

Day and Time:

Saturday, December 17th, 2022,    4:30pm – 6:00pm

Venue:

Bldg. 3 Room #601 (Waseda Campus)

Admission:

Free and open to everyone

Language:

English (no translation)

Abstract:

Transient communities where individuals from different linguacultural backgrounds come
together to collaborate on shared projects for a limited period of time constitute ripe sites for
the study of social and linguistic norms in the making (Mortensen and Kraft 2022). For that
reason, the study of transient communities speaks to a wide range of research interests within
sociolinguistics and related fields. In this talk, I focus specifically on how the notion of
transience can contribute to research on the use of English as a lingua franca in professional
settings. Drawing on select examples from the TMC project (www.tmc.ku.dk) and the
extensive literature on professional settings where English is used as a lingua franca, I will
argue that exploring the transient nature of ELF encounters allows us to observe and theorise
the processual, situated, and embedded nature of language policies (broadly conceived, cf.
Spolsky 2004) in ELF encounters. The insights offered by such an approach will be of use to
ELF researchers and practitioners alike.

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