What English Is and Does: A Study of Students’ Perceptions of English and English as a Lingua Franca (ELF)

Recent applied linguistic research into English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) portrays English as a transactional tool decoupled from native norms and values and urges a need for change in English Language Teaching (ELT), with ELF serving as a central concept in redefining teaching paradigms. This chapter summarizes qualitative research data illustrating the views on the contemporary sociolinguistic realities of English of a sample of undergraduate non-native English speakers (NNESs) students at an Italian university. The way the students characterized what English is and does, as revealed by interview data, interrogates ELF ideology, as the prevailing characterizations of English pointed to prestige and attractiveness, which English derives from culture-specific norms and values, in contrast to the ELF notion of a deterritorialized, denativized, and culturally neutral language. While the findings reported here have no immediate pedagogical relevance, they nevertheless highlight the importance of problematizing the notion of ELF.