English as a lingua franca in Europe: A mismatch between policy and practice

In this article, we argue that the European Union, in which English has over the past couple ofdecades become the de facto lingua franca, should acknowledge the usefulness of English inthis role, and that instead of ignoring what is happening in practice, should build English into EUlanguage policy. This, we believe, will mean coming to terms with the kinds of language formsand skills involved in the use of European ELF (English as a Lingua Franca), and a correspondingmove away from outdated assumptions that European speakers of English (if they ‘must’ useEnglish at all) should defer to native English norms (the kind that are taught in traditionalEnglish as a Foreign Language, or EFL, classes). We begin the article by tracing the developmentof ELF, focusing particularly on Europe. We go on to present the findings of an empirical researchproject we conducted into ELF in European communication, and to consider recently changingperceptions towards the ELF phenomenon particularly among its younger European users. Weconclude with a number of implications that our article raises for EU language policy.