The Interconnectedness of English as a Lingua Franca(elf), Study abroad and Language learner beliefs Plan: I. Introduction II. Main part

The Interconnectedness of English as a Lingua Franca(ELF), Study abroad and Language learner beliefs
Plan:
I. Introduction
II. Main part

1. 
   The Interconnectedness of English as a Lingua Franca(ELF), Study abroad and Language learner beliefs
   
2. 
   The relationship between cultural identity and pronunciation of non-native speakers of English in an EFL setting
   
3. 
   The relationship between cultural identity
   
4. 
   Relationship between cultural identity and pronunciation of non-native speakers of English in an EFL setting Elizabeth
   

III. Conclusion
IV. Reference


Introduction
English as a Lingua Franca, the result of the recent massive expan-sion in English use across the countries where English has no insti-tutionalized status (i.e. the expanding circle; Kachru, 1985), is the lat-est manifestation of the kind of language known as a ‘lingua franca’.In essence a lingua franca in its original sense is a contact languageused among people who come from different first language groups,and for this reason, it has normally been someone’s second or subse-quent language. The first lingua franca to be explicitly labelled as suchwas ‘a variety that was spoken along the South-Eastern coast of theMediterranean between approximately the 15th and the 19th century’(Knapp & Meierkord, 2002: 9), although earlier languages (known,for example, as ‘auxiliary language’, ‘trade language’ and the like)had performed lingua franca roles. Knapp and Meierkord (2002: 9)describe this first lingua franca ‘proper’ as being ‘probably based onsome Italian dialects’ and including ‘elements from Spanish, French,Portuguese, Arabic, Turkish, Greek and Persian’, its hybrid nature being adefining feature of all the lingua francas that have followed.English as a Lingua Franca (henceforth ELF) shares many of thecharacteristics of other lingua francas with one notable exception: theinvolvement of native speakers (NSs). The historical lingua francas hadno NSs, but because of its global spread, ELF differs in this respect. For,as Seidlhofer points out, ‘it has to be remembered that ELF interactionsoften also include interlocutors from the Inner and Outer Circles’ (2004:211–212), and as Jenkins has argued elsewhere, ‘to put it another way,ELF does not stop being ELF if inner or outer circle members happen tobe present’ (2007: 2). By contrast with other lingua francas, then, ELF does Gardener’s (1985) socio-cultural model shows that culture is among the variables that can affect learning languages. In addition, a series of studies were prompted by Dörnyie (2005) to gauge the effect of motivation on language learning. This correlational study endeavored to find out any possible interaction between these variables, i.e., cultural identity, intrinsic motivation, and pronunciation knowledge of Iranian EFL learners at intermediate level. To this end, 9 items from Mathews’ Cultural Identity Questionnaire (2007) (as cited in Bazrafshan, 2015) along with intrinsic/extrinsic motivation questionnaire developed by Noels, Pelletier, Clement, and Vallerand (2000) were given to the 49 intermediate Iranian EFL learners who were selected among 74 learners studying at Mahan Language Institute in Birjand. The participants’ pronunciation knowledge was also measured through an interview. The results of the data analysis through Pearson correlation revealed that cultural identity shows no relationship with pronunciation knowledge of the participants, whereas more intrinsically motivated language learners gained higher scores on the pronunciation test. Pedagogical implications are discussed.