English as a Lingua Franca

Résumé ou Introduction

The paper discusses English as a Lingua Franca. Lingua Franca (LF) is the term used when referring to a common language between interlocutors of different native languages, usually of also different ethnic and cultural backgrounds. Back in the 14nth century AC, the expansion of trade between people of different ethnicities around the Mediterranean area, led to the creation of a pidgin language, a language with simple grammar and lexicon, which made communication between traders possible. This pidgin language was a mixture of mostly Italian with additions from other languages like French, Spanish, Arabic, Greek and Turkish. Today the term Lingua Franca has expanded to include vehicular languages used around the world used amongst people with different origins and native languages. English is the current, most widespread language to be used as a lingua franca, raising issues of proper definition, effective methods of research, successful teaching and evaluation and respect for the global multicultural environment of the world today.