English as a lingua franca in International Business Contexts. Pedagogical Implications for the Teaching of English for Specific Business Purposes

The unprecedented spread of English has changed the socio-political landscape across Europe, with English predominating over important societal domains in which it is used as a lingua franca. Therefore English as a lingua franca (ELF) constitutes the prevailing reality of English (Seidlhofer 2009: 237) at present. In the light of these developments, it is hardly surprising that domain-specific uses of English have made significant inroads in the business context. Similarly, the development of Business English as a lingua franca (BELF) (Gerritsen and Nickerson 2009) has to be viewed in the wider framework of globalisation (Dewey 2007) and the internationalisation of business practices. As a result, communities of practice have formed in this domain, constituted through uses of BELF in corporate communication such as business meetings (Ehrenreich 2010). More precisely, the pragmatics of BELF communication comprises accommodation strategies (e.g., Rogerson-Revell 2010; Sweeney and Hua 2010) and rapport management (Planken 2005). The strategic nature of discourse in this communicative genre however has important pedagogical implications for the training of proficient users of BELF. The discourse of the didacticization of global English (Sing 2007) stipulates the implementation of pluricentric, less normative pedagogical models to address the communicative needs of these users. BELF competence thus involves a shift of emphasis in favour of clarity and the accuracy of content rather than linguistic correctness (Kankaaranta and Planken 2010). Consequently, the teaching and learning of BELF is best conceived of as facilitating students to develop the strategic and functional choices necessary to communicate effectively in various business genres.