An Interdisciplinary Approach to English as a Lingua Franca

The central theme of this issue of Status Quaestionis revolves around the controversial nature of English as a lingua franca (ELF), a topic that has gained momentum in language research ever since the process of globalization has turned English into the primary international language in fields as diverse as business, science, technology, education, leisure and tourism. Indeed, the steadily growing number of academic publications, journals, books, seminars and international conferences dedicated to ELF shows that a thriving area of academic studies has developed over the last twenty years. The aim of this issue of Status Quaestionis is to engage in the current scientific debate with contributions from parallel disciplines, to stimulate an improved understanding of some of the most relevant aspects to take into consideration, like constructivism and the emergent nature of ELF, the transcultural and multilingual dimension of ELF, education for intercultural citizenship via ELF, the contribution of corpus linguistics to BELF studies, and the pedagogic implications of ELF in ELT. Altogether, this special issue of Status Quaestionis contains a selection of thirteen articles, written by international scholars from around the world, whose research provides more insight into the complex nature of ELF. Their contributions have been grouped according to four thematic areas: a) Reflections on Language Development; b) ELF and Second Language Education; c) BELF; d) ELF and ELT Around the World.