On December 16 and 17, 2022, Dr. Alessia Cogo (on-site participation) and Dr. Janus Mortensen (online participation) were invited to give special lectures on translanguaging in BELF (Business English as a Lingua Franca) contexts, as a part of the workshop held by JACET (Japan Association of College English Teachers) ELF Special Interest Group, chaired by Professor Masakazu Iino. The special talks were supported by SILS, and JSPS-KAKEN represented by Professor Emeritus Kumiko Murata’s research group.
Title of the special talk
Adopting a translanguaging perspective in BELF
Abstract
Business English as a Lingua Franca (BELF) is a well established research area which has produced very interesting work in both sociolinguistic and pedagogic direction. Its impact was particularly prominent at the beginning of ELF research: findings showed the
fluidity and flexibility of BELF practices, including multilingual and intercultural aspects
in the workplace, and the open-minded orientation to norms, including moving away from
native speaker normativity. The emphasis on multilingual resources in BELF is often referred to as ‘inherently potentially multilingual’, but its multilingual potential is not always recognized or even represented as an asset. In this talk, I will explore how a translanguaging perspective could contribute to BELF and BELF education. I will report on the findings of previous BELF studies I have been involved in and a current research project, which highlight the potential of translanguaging for developing BELF. Through the analysis of sociolinguistic conversations and attitudinal interview data, I will explore the tensions between multilingual ad-hoc practices and monolingual/ native-like representations and ideologies in the workplace. I will then attempt to address some of these from an educational perspective and provide some orientation as to how a translanguaging perspective could benefit BELF and BELF education.
Profile
Dr. Alessia Cogo is senior lecturer in applied linguistics at Goldsmiths, University of
London, where she is director of the MA in Multilingualism, Linguistics and Education. She supervises MA and PhD students in Global Englishes, ELF and implications for language teaching. Her current research concerns ELF multilingual practices in professional, academic and migration contexts. Her latest projects concern Critical Language Pedagogy and EMI policy and practices. She is also Editor-in-chief of ELT Journal https://academic.oup.com/eltj
Title of the special talk
The transience of ELF encounters – Implications for research on professional settings
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.
Profile
Dr. Janus Mortensen is Professor of Multilingualism and Language Policy at the Centre for Internationalisation and Parallel Language (CIP) at the University of Copenhagen. He specialises in the study of transient social configurations, English as a lingua franca and sociolinguistic change. From 2016 till 2019 he was PI on the TMC project, a collaborative research project on the formation of social and linguistic norms in transient multilingual communities funded by the Independent Research Fund Denmark | Humanities. He is the editor of several journal special issues and edited books, including Norms and the Study of Language in Social Life (2022), co-edited with Kamilla Kraft.
