Andy Mering - Mid-Atlantic English in the EFL Context

Although their work deserves tremendous respect, it can be argued that Seidlhofer’s and Jenkins’ conceptualisation of English will lead to a glaring discrepancy between their propagation of relative freedom of speaking and the demands for standard forms placed on those EFL users who write in English for an international target audience, scientists, for example. Their line of reasoning is therefore disputable, because what EFL pedagogy needs is a coherent and solid sociolinguistic framework for both teachers and students upon which they can rely.

Regarding the issue of reappraising EFL methodologies by bringing them in line with an acrolectal lingua franca pattern, it is appropriate to briefly mention Jenkins’ research. Jenkins’ research explores English pronunciation teaching with an emphasis on mutual intelligibility rather than NS language norms. With her publications, she popularised a core of Lingua Franca features (Jenkins, 2000, 2003, 2007), the so-called “Lingua Franca Core” (henceforth abbreviated to LFC) (2007, pp. 23 ff.). It is based on the premise that different ‘varieties’ of Euro-English can develop, each having its distinctive features: e. g. German English with no phonological distinction between ‘think’ and ‘sink’, or French English, where in ‘hot’, the vowel is unrounded and hence approximates more the vowel sound of ‘hut’ (cf. Jenkins, 2001, p. 18). In her research papers, Jenkins discusses the core and non-core phonological features destined for NNSs.

The following is an abridged, non-exhaustive overview of the core and non-core phonological features:

• All English consonant sounds are to be mastered except for the dental fricatives /θ/ and /ð/. These dental fricatives are non-core features. In Jenkins’ view, they do not impede intelligibility. Possible substitutions are /f/ and /v/, which commonly occur in Cockney English, for example.

• Speakers just need to pronounce the clear /l/. The dark /l/’ [ɫ]) becomes a redundant sound. In Jenkins’ opinion, L-Vocalisation might also be acceptable, but more extensive research is needed to substantiate its communicative usefulness.

• Learners are not allowed to simplify consonant clusters at the beginning of words, i. e. the /r/ at the start of ‘product’, for example, must not be dropped.

• Vowel length contrasts, e. g. the difference in length between the vowel sounds in the words ‘live’ and ‘leave’ should generally be respected.

• No voicing of medial /t/, i. e. ‘latter’ is not to be pronounced in the GA way.

• No insistence on stress timing.

• The /ɜː/ vowel sound like in ‘girl’ must be pronounced accurately.

• Nuclear or tonic stress (i. e. the word which is stressed within a ‘tone group’) is important for a lingua franca speaker: ‘Let’s meet NEXT Friday’ and ‘Let’s meet next FRIDAY’.

• The schwa-sound /ə/. The use of the full vowel sound in place of /ə/ is also stipulated by Jenkins as a non-core feature (Jenkins, 2000, p. 147). English learners can however add a short schwa (/ə/) at the end of a word ending with a consonant, but this should not create another word with which it might be confused (e. g. ‘hard’ sounding like ‘harder’).

• The placement of the word stresses whose variability is considerable across L1 varieties is also part of Jenkins’ non-core taxonomy.

With respect to the implementation of Jenkins’ suggested phonology of English as an international language, she stresses that her LFC ought not to be regarded as prescriptive but rather as a guideline to which learners might resort in order to communicate effectively in international settings (Jenkins, 2007, pp. 238; 2005, 535–543). Nevertheless, the rationale behind Jenkins’ LFC concept is disputable for at least the following three reasons (Jenkins, 2000, pp. 123–134).

Firstly, when critically rehearsing Jenkins’ standard language ideology associated with her LFC, her posture towards NSs of English is tantamount to a socio-linguistic and pedagogical affront. She argues that NSs of English will be “relegated to a back seat” (Jenkins, 2000, p. 201). As a corollary, her manner of sociolinguistic reasoning implies that EFL learners’ approximation of NS accents is being downgraded (2000, p. 204). Moreover, NSs will also be obliged to adapt their speech patterns to NNSs’ ones by appropriating the LFC core features (2000, p. 201; 2007, p. 135). Trudgill’s stance (as cited in Schmitt, 2016, p. 43) is unequivocal regarding this phonological aspect of accommodation: “So there we are then. After thirty years of using my own native […] English in international contexts (and, as I have immodestly supposed, accommodating to international audiences with some degree of success), I will have to relearn how to pronounce my own language effectively.” Furthermore, Jenkins 15and other endorsers of her LFC concept posit that the above suggested conceptual overhaul of English is conducive to expressing English learners’ identities through their respective L1 accents. Jenkins therefore clearly postulates that most ELF learners want to retain their accented rendition of English (Jenkins, 2000, p. 16). Research, however, brought to light that learners very often do not want to sound foreign. Against this backdrop, it can also be argued that an L1 accent is not always seen in a favourable light by EFL learners’ interlocutors. It might be regarded as a lack of skill or motivation of acquiring English as a foreign language. I have noticed during my teaching that there is a considerable category of students who aim for native-like competence in a sustained, hard effort and with great skill. Schmitt aptly labels this endeavour “the pronunciation as art function” (2016, p. 25).

Along the same lines, it is also useful to refer to Timmis’s large-scale study, which investigated NNS teachers’ and learners’ posture towards the most appropriate pedagogical model of English. In terms of pronunciation, 67 % of all student informants revealed their preference for NS pronunciation and not for an L2 accented version of English (2002). As a result, the issue of the ultimate attainment in native-like acquisition of English cannot be somewhat simplistically discarded as non-negligible. From a pedagogical and psychological point of view, when NSs compliment EFL students and EFL teachers on their almost impeccable English, this gives both groups a much-needed boost of self-confidence and self-esteem that are important keys to increasing their achievements as students and teachers. In addition, a significant number of the EFL constituency often shows great interest in travelling to English-speaking countries such as the UK, not least for cultural and linguistic reasons. Hence, as Gnutzmann put it, “it seems highly appropriate that pupils learn and get to know English as a Foreign Language, i. e. a language that explicitly refers to the native English-speaking territories and societies” (2008, pp. 116–117). Viewed from a classroom perspective, it can be argued that Timmis’s balanced viewpoint establishes its considerable relevance to the EFL constituency regarding the NS vs NNS controversy: “While it is clearly inappropriate to foist native-speaker norms on students who neither want or need them, it is clearly scarcely more appropriate to offer students a target which manifestly does not meet their aspirations” (Timmis, 2002, p. 249). 16

Secondly, another point of critique in relation to Jenkins’ LFC model is her research methodology and scope when she lists those pronunciation features that allegedly involve breakdowns in intelligible NNS-NNS communication. As this model was developed for hundreds of millions of English speakers on the globe, the data base can limit the reliability of her research outcome. In actual fact, Jenkins’ empirical investigation only relates to “two studies, an experiment, and a corpus of field observations” (Jenkins, 2000, p. 123). Information on the scope of the material and the composition of the research participants are rather scarce. Furthermore, she only probed into participants from three different L1 backgrounds, viz. Japanese, Swiss German, Swiss French (Jenkins, 2000, p. 84). To get a fuller and sociolinguistically more conclusive picture of NNS-NNS communication, it would have been more appropriate if Jenkins had chosen participants from more diverse language backgrounds.