Enablements and constraints: inventorying affordances associated with lingua franca English

Abstract

Transcultural flows of capital, culture and communication have created conditions for the widespread movement of people around the globe, leading to increasing diversity in countries of destination. In contexts of global migration lingua franca English is indispensable in initial and survival communication. For migrants to northern European countries where lingua franca English functions as a ‘contact language’ in ‘contact zone encounters’, it is of value not only as a communication medium, but also as a resource for learning typologically similar host-country languages. Drawing on the concept of affordances, the purpose of this study is to create an inventory of the ways in which English can facilitate, but also constrain social interaction and the acquisition of Swedish. Interviews conducted with 14 recently arrived migrants with English in their repertoires revealed the presence of enabling and constraining affordances in social, classroom, material and cognitive domains. Discussing the study findings, it is suggested that the ways in which the individual attunes to an affordance associated with English, perceiving it as either enabling or constraining, is dependent on their current motivational and affective state and in-the-moment cognitive processing.

Keywords:

• affordances
• ELF
• global English
• migration
• Sweden
• language mode theory
• individual differences

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the anonymous reviewers of this paper for the many important insights they have offered. I would also like to thank the fourteen students who took part in the study.

Notes

1. Gauged as around or above the mid-point on a line ranging from ‘only basic phrases’ to ‘like a native speaker’.

2. Three participants (Babak, Galina and Safia) were interviewed once due to leaving the programme and illness.

3. Where two interviews were conducted the transcripts were treated as a single text.