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Purpose – The purpose of this study is to find out the perspectives of students and English teachers on English Lingua Franca (ELF) at a tertiary level in one of the public universities in Lhokseumawe Municipality in Aceh and to find out the possibility of adopting the concept of teaching English as ELF to raise the students’ awareness of their identity as part of the ASEAN Economic community and as a means of communication among the Community.

Design/Methodology/Approach – The research employs basic interpretive study by delivering questionnaires to 40 students from different disciplines and conducting interview to 6 English teachers from targeted research university in Lhokseumawe, Aceh, Indonesia.

Findings – The study addresses that the majority of the students are aware that English is no longer possessed by an inner circle of English users and realize the use of English as means of communication in globally context. However, the students do not understand the English as ILF. Besides, they do not enable to envisage themselves as part of the global community of English users as their identity. The research also indicates that majority the interviewed English teachers do not realize the concept of teaching ELF in the university.

Research Limitations/Implications – The findings of this research may shed light for other English teachers in Aceh to improve their teaching method in order to improve students’ speaking skill and their awareness of their identity as a part of global imagined community of English users within the ASEAN Community Economic context.

Practical Implications – The solutions offered in the paper could improve the teaching method of English teachers particularly in Aceh, Indonesia.

Originality/Value – The research of students’ and teachers’ perspective of ELF in Lhokseumawe, Aceh, has not yet been published.

The purpose of this paper is to reframe the role and function of perceived “bad English” in an international business (IB) context to illustrate that “bad English” could in fact facilitate cross-cultural communication in individuals who do not have English as first language.

This study uses the Bakhtinian concept of heteroglossia as a theoretical framework. For the method of analysis, applied linguistics is used in particular through the lens of systemic functional linguistics (SFL) as discourse analysis method to analyze transcribed interview texts. Data collection is via long interviews with 33 top level managers in Swedish managed organizations in Singapore offices.

The study illustrates, through respondent interviews and discourse analysis, that perceived “bad English” could help facilitate communication across cultures in a cross-cultural working context. The study also shows how different individuals, depending on personal experience and cultural background, employ different means to navigate and manage language differences at work.

The findings confirm a Baktinian perspective of language as a heteroglot, where individual identities and understanding of context at work including work behavior are an amalgamation of collected experiences. While many individuals who do not have English as mother tongue might feel embarrassed by their poor English, this study shows that there are many Englishes existing in different working contexts. This study has a limited sample of respondents, pertaining to Swedish and Singaporean top managers in Swedish managed organizations in Singapore.

This study could be useful for multinational corporations that are interested in strategically managing their corporate language policies, taking into account cognitive differences or cultural identities in different offices worldwide.

At a social level, Bakhtin’s language as a heteroglot brings to awareness that at any one time, while individuals are drawn to identify with their dominant (national) culture and language, in effect, with increased contact with other cultures in working environments, both language and cultural identities shift and evolve with the workplace.

This study contributes to the growing language in IB research. The novelty in this study is the employment of a Bakhtinian perspective and specifically the employment of SFL as a method of data analysis.

With an extensive range of information available at the swipe of a finger, the smartphone has become a ubiquitous tool for augmenting conversation. Users of English as a lingua franca (ELF) often rely on such technology to help establish friendships by using them to sustain intersubjectivity. But how do they manage the multiple involvements this entails, such as participating in current talk while searching for linguistic items?

This study employs multimodal Conversation Analysis to undertake a detailed account of the way two young people, a Japanese male (22) and an Indonesian male (16) incorporate smartphones into their lingua franca English interaction. The analysis is based on naturally occurring conversations video-recorded by the Japanese participant, while both boys were living with an American homestay family.

The analysis explores the role of the smartphone in forward-oriented repair, including how the interactants, look up unfamiliar words, delay turn progressivity to fit those words into the turn-in-progress, and use images to accompany an unclear term. Speakers also occasionally abandon a look-up in order to reformulate the turn without the smartphone, relying instead on their own interactional competence.

The study offers insight into the way young people use smartphones as an affordance to manage and repair aspects of their L2 talk, enabling them to enhance their current interactional competence by drawing on the vast range of semiotic resources the phone possesses. Ensuring understanding is essential for developing and maintaining friendships, and for this particular peer culture of lingua franca English speakers, smartphones are a key tool for accomplishing that. As such, the study will be of interest to researchers and educators in the fields of both technology and interaction.

The purpose of this paper is to test the merits of the view that the English language has emerged as the dominant language in international business. If there is merit to this view, then the ability to speak English and its role as a lingua franca in the global economy would imply that countries which have English as an official language should have a benefit over non‐English‐speaking countries vis‐à‐vis their abilities to undertake international business.

Within an augmented gravity model framework, the importance of the English language in explaining bilateral foreign direct investment (FDI) data within the OECD is tested. In addition to English, all other common official languages within the OECD are also tested. Furthermore, the linguistic distance to English is used to test whether closeness of languages to English enhance international business activity.

The results indicate that English‐speaking countries within the OECD do have a benefit that comes with the English language. Furthermore, countries whose official languages are linguistically close to English benefit from the special role played by the English language. These results therefore highlight the importance of the English language in deploying multinational strategies, even in countries whose official language is not English.

These results therefore indicate the importance of the English language in international business. As such, having a proficiency with English within any corporation should enhance that corporation's ability to engage in international business.

Sharing a common language with FDI partners enhances the ability to communicate, and hence enhances FDI between the countries. This paper extends this evidence to show that when the common language is English, the common language effect is strongest.

This chapter introduces the issue of language into the already complex nature of e-HRM system implementation in multinational corporations (MNCs). In the light of scant empirical research on language in international business in general and e-HRM in particular, this chapter reviews the research on language issues in the MNC context. The chapter then illustrates the challenges presented by language by reporting findings from a qualitative study into the effects of language standardization on e-HRM system acceptance and use in the foreign subsidiaries of a Finnish MNC.

CISV (formerly Children’s International Summer Villages) is an international charity established in Cincinnati, USA, in 1950. It offers non-formal educational programmes for children and young people from 11 years. In its intercultural programmes English is used as Lingua Franca while space and opportunities are created for participants to use their first languages. A primary aim of the organisation is to promote intercultural friendship and understanding. This chapter has dual aims. Firstly, it provides a review of the impact of intercultural learning in CISV and its unique multilingual practice on development of friendship and Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC) among children and youth. Secondly, it investigates the methodological issues in evaluating the development and changes in ICC, specifically, the under-reported problem of ‘inflated’ perceptions with regard to self-assessment questionnaires.

Existing research evidence corroborates the positive and long-term impact of CISV experience on participants’ social development (including friendship), cultural awareness, challenges are also identified. For example, how can programme and activity organisers encourage equitable and active participation when participants’ language proficiency in the shared language is varied? How do we explain the regression in self-assessment of ICC? In this chapter, we compare three different ways of measuring changes and propose a purposely designed predictive and reflective questionnaire (PaRQ). Open questions (‘narrative spaces’) in these questionnaires provide the opportunity for participants to comment on their own perceptions of learning and friendship development.

CISV differs from many other intercultural education organisations in that it offers opportunity for relatively young children, promotes learning and development in a multicultural environment and adopts a language practice that combines English as Lingua Franca (ELF) and a multilingual outlook. Understanding its successes and areas for improvement provides some insight into friendship development in multilingual and intercultural settings.

The aim of the research, in the East and Southeast Asia context, is to explore the advantages and problems of Buslish (business facilitation English) for managers and to generate suggestions for maximising the use of Buslish as a critical resource in organisational effectiveness, including potential educational support and its required technology.

Data aimed to explore the issue were collected from a multi-country sample of 31 non-native English speakers, using a semi-structured questionnaire, plus in-depth interviews (10) with some respondents. Data were analysed using a mixture of descriptive statistics and logical argumentation.

The authors found a strong agreement that Buslish is important in the chosen setting, but there are problems in practice. Views on the importance of style and precision of the language actually used varied considerably. A key practical implication is that there is a role for English continuing professional development (CPD) courses.

Firms should support the development of English language skills of employees, certainly at management level and perhaps also at shop floor level. Suitable courses could be offered in firms' CPD programmes. Employees who are native speakers should be encouraged to enunciate clearly for non-native speaker colleagues, not to use slang and not to speak too quickly. While the authors encourage the use of contemporary communication technologies (e.g. virtual classrooms), they maintain that these should be supplementary in nature, supporting, rather than replacing, face-to-face learning formats.

A key aspect of the originality of the work is derived from the specific location, primary data collected and the creative nexus of the initial issue and its educational requirements, including technologies.

While conceived to examine key factors affecting post-retirement career advancement of retired elite athletes in South Korea, the purpose of this paper is to report how English, as a de facto global lingua franca, functions as a powerful gatekeeper in the sports administration field.

Interpreted through the lens of Bourdieu’s linguistic capital and Gramsci’s hegemony of language, the present study draws on content analysis of semi-structured individual interviews, as well as focus group interviews, conducted with thirty former South Korean elite athletes.

Based on the data analysis, systematic bias toward athletes was uncovered, privileging English as the single determining factor for employment. Furthermore, the educational implications for adult learners of English as a Foreign or English an Additional Language reveal unrealistic expectations of top–down language policies.

Perspectives of athlete participants, an underrepresented group in educational research, within the South Korean globalization context shed critical light on the pervasive aspects of English hegemony and its unexamined dimensions.

English, the lingua franca of the world, permeates a global teaching-learning space not only for communication per se but also as a medium of instruction and social interaction. The authors studied the lived experiences of five English-speaking university lecturers as regards English as a foreign language (EFL) teaching in a non-English-speaking Asian country.

Using a phenomenological inquiry and through Zoom interviews, the authors studied the lived experiences of five English-speaking university lecturers as regards EFL teaching in a non-English-speaking Asian country.

Thematic analyses guided the authors' understanding of the participants’ lived experiences in the classroom, such as the following: (1) Local students have a negative perception of EFL; (2) lecturers’ professional standards are hardly imposed and (3) local students have a mixed level of English proficiency. The authors also examined the participants’ lived experiences in the organization, where the following issues surfaced: (1) sending of communication messages beyond working hours, (2) bureaucratic working environment and (3) changing of policies.

The authors' research implies the need for programs and policies that will help EFL teachers deal with instructional and other socio-cultural challenges in an Asian context.

In the Asian setting, there is a dearth of literature that focuses on the experience of university lecturers of English as a Foreign Language (EFL), in particular, their teaching challenges. The authors confronted this gap by understanding the local beliefs about EFL teaching among English-speaking university lecturers.

The aim of this article was to understand about cultural representation in these coursebooks and if it is reflected the status of English as a lingua franca.

This article is a report on a case study in the form of content analysis of different categories of culture represented in English language coursebooks used in schools of Iran. In order to do so, references to source, target, international and universal cultures were classified into four aspects: perspectives, products, practices and persons.

Generally, the findings suggested that despite the high frequency of cultural elements, the representation favoured the source culture, while the target, international and universal cultures were heavily under-represented.

Apart from the valuable contributions of the study, the implications of the study are that despite the high frequency of cultural elements, the representation favoured the source culture, while the target, international and universal cultures were heavily under-represented. Therefore, the imbalance in the content of materials on different cultures needs to be redressed. While the main concern of this investigation is the frequency of appearance, which replicates the extent of source, target, international and universal cultures represented in the coursebooks, the impact of the materials, affected by how the cultural elements are used and perceived by teachers and pupils, is beyond the scope of the present study; hence, future studies in this area are deeply encouraged, and it is recommended for further research.

The implications for resolving the imbalance in cultural representation are also being explained.

Bearing in mind the importance of coursebooks as well as the role of culture in teaching the English language, this article aims at understanding about cultural representation within the newly developed Iranian English language coursebooks for schools, an issue that has never been studied by Iranian scholars with respect to the newly published materials.