WEB-ресурс научно-практических конференций

Кльотцл С. Г.

A LOVE AFFAIR WITH ENGLISH AS A LINGUA FRANCA: THE CASE OF LINGUISTIC HYBRIDITY IN COUPLES TALK

Immigration patterns, rapid international transport, new technologies of communication and opportunities for working and studying in international teams and networks are all contributing to the importance of intercultural communication in the world. The assumption is often made that all that is needed for intercultural communication to be successful is to learn the other’s language for one of the parties or for both parties to adopt a lingua franca, a common language that is the first language of neither.

It is generally assumed amongst experts that English is a dominant lingua franca followed by French in Western Europe (Ammon, U.). In fact, nowadays English as an international language “serves a whole range of different communities and their institutional purposes, and this transcends traditional communal and cultural boundaries” [4, p. 385]. People with very varied norms and scopes of proficiency use English more and more. As Seidlhofer surmises, English lingua franca users are “ agents in the spread and development of English: they are not just at the receiving end, but contribute to the shaping of the language and functions it fulfils and so, as speech communities, take possession of the language” [3, p. 214]. In other words (in Seidlhofer’s words), English as a lingua franca (henceforth ELF) has taken on a life of its own, independent to a considerable degree of the norms established by its native users.

As a consequence, English as a lingua franca interactions have recently been the object of detailed study by scholars in a wide range of fields (Firth A., Jenkins J., House J., Knapp G. & Meierkord C., Meierkord C; Lesznyak A., Seidlhofer B.) . Although the main focus has been on ELF in workplaces and other institutional contexts rather than on private interactions between pairs of people in romantic relationships, there are some points that have resonated throughout much research into ELF, and can be a starting point for exploring the ways in which partners with different linguacultural backgrounds accomplish their “coupleness” through ELF. First, most studies have indicated that ELF is in many ways peculiar use of the language whose norms often defy native standards and may involve the direct or indirect interplay of three or even more linguistic and cultural systems (Knapp G. & Meierkord C.). Second, because of the diversity at the heart of this communicative medium, the form of this English is negotiated by each community for speakers’ purposes (Canagarajah S., Seidlhofer B.). Hence, the assumption can be made that the linguistic hybridity, governed by partners’ multilingual nature and by the peculiarities of ELF discourse, is an intrinsic multi-facet element of ELF interaction that forms part of the particular speech style of ELF couples talk.

Applying Bakhtin’s [1, 2] notion of linguistic hybridity as polyphony, the present article attempts to answer the central question that guides the research into the hybrid features of the ELF of the couple-talk namely , what is linguistic hybridity, and how it is to be characterised. Emphasizing the ambivalence of hybridity as a theoretical construct, the following brief account juxtaposes contrasting views on the notion and considers the concerns that the Bakhtinian view of hybridity as polyphony raises in regard to ELF couple communication.

Inasmuch as the concept of hybridity has a long history within cultural and literary studies [5], it is useful to refer selectively to the scholarly consideration that hybridity has received outside of ELF research by drawing on those discussions that appear to be helpful to answer the question about its nature and to investigate its representation in ELF couples private communication. Although most linguists agree with the point that linguistic hybridity is a natural process of language development, and stands for heterogeneity and mixture, theorizing on the notion has produced at least two main opposing views on it. On the one hand, many postcolonial theorists use the term to refer to new cultural forms, practices, spaces, and identities created from a synthesis of diverse elements (Arteaga A., Bhabha H.). On the other hand, a number of critics (Young R., Joseph M., Bailey B.) argue that, often exploited to disrupt narrow social and cultural categories, hybridity can reduce all differences to a generic state of mixture, and is often accompanied and structured by the relations of power and domination.

The reconciling approach is that of Bakhtin [1, 2] who sees hybridity as itself a hybrid concept. The author considers the notion of linguistic hybridity in terms of musical polyphony [1] and delineates it as “a mixture of two social languages within the limits of a single utterance, an encounter, within the arena of utterance, between two linguistic consciousnesses, separated from one another by epoch, by social differentiation or by some other factor” [2, p. 358]. Claiming that hybrid utterances bring together and promote dialogue between diverse worldviews, the scholar makes distinction between intentional hybridity and unconscious organic hybridity: “It frequently happens that even one and the same word belong simultaneously to two languages, two belief systems that intersect in a hybrid construction – and consequently, the word has two contradictory meanings, two accents. [... W]hile it is true the mixture of linguistic world views in organic hybrids remains mute and opaque” [2, p. 304,360]. The scholar surmises that languages change historically primarily by hybridisation, whereas organic hybridisation will tend towards fusion, “never making use of conscious contrasts and oppositions” [2, p. 360], and intentional hybridity will enable a competing activity, and “a politicised setting of cultural differences against each other dialogically” [5, p. 22].

In all, at least two points articulated by Bakhtin can have important consequences for the use of hybridity in conceptualising ELF couples practices. First, the Bakhtinian polyphony [1, p. 96] as the simultaneous use of different kinds of forms and signs with the elements of complimentarily ( uni-directional double voicing ), and the elements of contrast ( vari-directional double voicing ) based on their sociohistorical associations can be a useful way of elaborating on different forms that multivoicing can take in ELF couple talk. Second, both the uniqueness of ELF couple talk and communicative goal as well as the partners’ competence in the language they use for interaction and the place they live might influence performance just as much as cultural background does (Tannen D., Pavlenko A., Piller I.). Therefore, a bilingual and bicultural relationship does not just come about because partners were born in different countries and learned different first languages. Both monolinguacultural and bi/multilingua-cultural relationships are actively created and performed within a rich linguistic tapestry of interrelated varieties. Consequently, it can be claimed that ELF discourse is not totally different way of using language but extension of the way language is used in monolingual discourse. Thus, while encompassing both monolingual and multilingual forms, Bakhtin’s polyphony / multivoicing allows a broader basis for theorising about the nature of linguistic hybridity in ELF couple talk than within the confines of a focus on bilingual code switching, or code mixing.

References :

1. Бахтин, М.М. Собрание сочинений. – М.: Русские словари, 2000. – Т. 2., 800 с.

2. Bakhtin, Mikhail. The dialogic imagination: Four essays by M. M. Bakhtin. Ed. M. Holquist; trans. C. Emerson and M. Holquist. Austin : University of Texas Press, 1981 – 444 p.

3. Seidlhofer, B. Research perspectives on teaching English as a lingua franca// Annual Review of Applied Linguistics. - 2004. - № 24. – P. 209-239.

4. Widdo wson, H. The ownership of English// TESOL Quarterly. - 1994. -№ 28. – P. 377-389.

5. Young, R. J.C. Colonial desire: hybridity in theory, culture and race . - London : Routledge, 1995. – 236 p.