Available online at www.sciencedirect.

com

ScienceDirect
Journal of Pragmatics 66 (2014) 122--138
www.elsevier.com/locate/pragma

An analysis of polyadic English as a lingua franca (ELF)

speech: A communicative strategies framework
Beyza Björkman a,b,*
a
Department of English, Stockholm University, S-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden
b
Unit for Language and Communication, Royal Institute of Technology, 100 44 Stockholm, Sweden
Received 14 January 2013; received in revised form 27 February 2014; accepted 2 March 2014

Abstract
This paper reports on an analysis of the communicative strategies (CSs) used by speakers in spoken lingua franca English
(ELF) in an academic setting. The purpose of the work has primarily been to outline the CSs used in polyadic ELF speech which are
used to ensure communication effectiveness in consequential situations and to present a framework that shows the different
communicative functions of a number of CSs. The data comprise fifteen group sessions of naturally occurring student group-work
talk in content courses at a technical university. Detailed qualitative analyses have been carried out, resulting in a framework of the
communication strategies used by the speakers. The methodology here provides us with a taxonomy of CSs in natural ELF
interactions. The results show that other than explicitness strategies, comprehension checks, confirmation checks and clarification
requests were frequently employed CSs in the data. There were very few instances of self and other-initiated word replacement,
most likely owing to the nature of the high-stakes interactions where the focus is on the task and not the language. The results overall
also show that the speakers in these ELF interactions employed other-initiated strategies as frequently as self-initiated communi-
cative strategies.
© 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: English as a lingua franca (ELF); Communication strategies; Communicative effectiveness; Pragmatic ability; Cooperativeness;
Academic speech

1. Introduction

The globalization that we are witnessing in the world today requires people from a wide spectrum of first languages and
cultural backgrounds to communicate with each other through the use of English as a lingua franca. English is now
undeniably the lingua franca in most of these encounters around the world and is seen as the ‘‘preeminent medium of
international communication’’ (Ostler, 2010:3) in a large number of international domains. As a lingua franca, English has
achieved such a global status that it has been compared to Latin as ‘‘the Latin of its time/our age/the modern world/the
20th (21st) century/the New Millennium/the masses’’ (Ostler, 2010:3).
Consequently, English as a lingua franca (henceforth ELF) has been receiving increasing attention in research and
scholarly activity in general. Research into ELF started with some important pioneering work (e.g. Jenkins, 2000, 2007;
Mauranen, 2003, 2005, 2006a,b; Seidlhofer, 2001, 2004), and the initiation of two major ELF corpora, i.e. ELFA (Corpus of

* Correspondence to: Department of English, Stockholm University, S-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden. Tel.: +46 8 16 20 00/790 9630;
fax: +46 8 790 6030.
E-mail addresses: beyza.bjorkman@english.su.se, beyza@kth.se.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2014.03.001
0378-2166/© 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
 B. Björkman / Journal of Pragmatics 66 (2014) 122--138 123

English as a Lingua Franca in Academic Settings1) and VOICE (Vienna-Oxford International Corpus of English2) have
provided data for several studies. This was followed by other on-going corpus and research projects, e.g. ACE (the Asian
Corpus of English) the CALPIU corpus (Cultural and Linguistic Practices in the International University3) and GlobE,4 a
new project on Global English from Finland.
The studies on ELF over the last decade have provided us with important empirical descriptions of ELF usage. They
have shown that, despite the many different L1 backgrounds in most ELF settings, commonalities emerge. We now know
about the core phonological features (Jenkins, 2000), what type of phonological (Jenkins, 2000; Kirkpatrick, 2008) and
morphosyntactic (Kirkpatrick, 2008; Seidlhofer, 2004; Breiteneder, 2005; Ranta, 2006; Björkman, 2008, 2010, 2013)
commonalities to expect and how ‘common’ these features are compared to standard usage (Mauranen, 2006c;
Björkman, 2010, 2013). With respect to ELF pragmatics, early work has focused on a selection of strategies and features
(e.g. Firth, 1996; Wagner and Firth, 1997; House, 1999; Meierkord, 2000) as well as important descriptions of some
pragmatic phenomena and the effort put into preventing misunderstanding in general (Mauranen, 2006b). More recent
empirical work on the pragmatics of ELF has focused on subjectivity in ELF (House, 2009); habitat factor (Pölzl and
Seidlhofer, 2006) and pre-empting strategies (e.g. Cogo, 2009; Kaur, 2010, 2011); chunking in ELF for managing
interaction (Mauranen, 2009); pragmatic strategies used by international students (Björkman, 2011); mediation
(Hynninen, 2011); and on the ways international students (mis)manage conflicts (Knapp, 2011).
To better understand the dynamics of ELF interactions, however, there is a need to further investigate the pragmatics
of ELF usage and the communication strategies (CSs) used. The present paper attempts to undertake this task by means
of a qualitative analysis of CSs in authentic spoken ELF. The qualitative analysis is supported with frequency counts to be
able to provide a more complete picture of the nature of the ELF interactions studied. The study is a follow-up of the
author’s previous work on pragmatic strategies used by lecturers and students in spoken academic ELF (Björkman,
2011); it focuses on student group-work and presents a taxonomy of the different CSs observed in the data, rather than
focusing on a single or small number of CSs.

2. Communication strategies and some important paradigmatic difference: From SLA to ELF

Communication strategies were first discussed within the Second Language Acquisition (SLA) paradigm more than
four decades ago, constituting a new area of research. The first important pieces of work are Selinker’s study on
interlanguage and strategies used in L2 communication (1972), and Váradi (1980) and Tarone’s (1977) studies where
they discuss Selinker’s work by providing an analysis of CSs, introducing many of the categories and terms used in the
CSs research that followed. Subsequent to these early studies, a considerable amount of research was done in the late
80s and 90s to identify and classify CSs (e.g. Bialystok, 1990; Cook, 1993; Poulisse, 1987). In early work, the definition of
CSs were limited to the ‘‘insistance of problematicity’’ (Kasper and Kellerman, 1997:2), which is clear in the definitions
provided: CSs were defined as being employed ‘‘to overcome the crisis which occurs when language structures are
inadequate’’ (Tarone, 1977:195, in Kasper and Kellerman, 1997:2); ‘‘(to solve) what to an individual presents itself as a
problem’’ (Færch and Kasper, 1984:36, in Kasper and Kellerman, 1997: 2), ‘‘to express [. . .] meaning when faced with
some difficulty’’ (Corder, 1981:1035), ‘‘to compensate for breakdowns in communication. . .’’ (Canale and Swain,
1980:30), to overcome ‘‘gaps’’ or ‘‘problems’’ (Coupland et al., 1991:3), and to ‘‘achieve intended meaning on becoming
aware of problems arising during the planning of an utterance’’ (Poulisse et al., 1984:72, in Kasper and Kellerman, 1997:2)
(emphasis added).
Concerns were raised on such inclusion of problematicity in the definition of CSs by some scholars (within speech act
theory and other theories of pragmatics) who considered CSs as a spectrum of resources that speakers use to achieve
their communicative aims (e.g. Bialystok, 1983). These other definitions are broader in that they include attempts to
increase explicitness and effectiveness in CSs (Canale, 1983) instead of focusing only on difficulties speakers face.
Færch and Kasper (1984), in their discussion of the ‘interactional’ vs. ‘psycholinguistic’ definitions of CSs, maintain that
the psycholinguistic definition of CSs is broader and includes problems that may or may not be marked in performance.
They maintain that ‘‘advanced learners [. . .] can often predict a communicative problem well in advance and attempt to
solve it beforehand’’ (Færch and Kasper, 1984:61). Nevertheless, the consensus in early SLA research was that
problematicity was definitional to CSs (Kasper and Kellerman, 1997:3).
Such insistence on problematicity is one of the reasons why CSs in lingua franca interactions need to be studied
independently from the norms of the SLA paradigm. When using English as a lingua franca, speakers need to cope with a

1
http://www.helsinki.fi/englanti/elfa/elfacorpus.
2
http://www.univie.ac.at/voice/.
3
http://calpiu.dk/.
4
http://www.uef.fi/globe.
124 B. Björkman / Journal of Pragmatics 66 (2014) 122--138

number of parameters, such as different accents, proficiency levels and cultural references (Mauranen, 2007).
Traditionally, any communication includes asymmetries of similar types; there would not be any need to communicate for
exchange of information if there were no asymmetries (Linell, 1998). However, these asymmetries are typically
omnipresent in ELF interactions where speakers come from a variety of L1, cultural and social backgrounds, and therefore
may have very different communicative styles (Kaur, 2010:2704). With their strong orientation to mutual comprehensibility
and preparedness for different asymmetries, speakers in ELF settings seem to do ‘‘pro-active work’’ to ensure
communicative effectiveness (Mauranen, 2007) and use a variety of strategies ‘‘to both pre-empt and resolve’’
communicative turbulence (Kaur, 2010, 2011) (see also Björkman, 2011). In fact, this ‘‘preparedness for what might go
wrong’’ can be regarded as one of the characteristics of ELF interactions (see e.g. Mauranen, 2006b; Kaur, 2009; Smit,
2009; Cogo, 2009). In their investigations of CSs, ELF scholars have included not only the instances where a problem or
difficulty has occurred and is clearly marked in the discourse, but also potential problems that might occur because of the
asymmetries (see e.g. Kaur, 2011 on repair without any observable problems). In this sense, the notion of problematicity is
surely not irrelevant to an ELF investigation, but the definition of CSs for ELF studies includes both real and potential
problems, which allows for conducting studies on pro-active work (Mauranen, 2007).
SLA frameworks are not necessarily appropriate to study CSs in ELF use, also because they were originally
developed for language teaching. The object of the SLA paradigm is the L2 learner whose interlanguage is ‘‘deficient by
definition’’ (Kasper and Kellerman, 1997:5), and for whom the ultimate target has been set as native-like proficiency. The
definitions and frameworks of CSs in SLA research naturally reflect this main ideology in the SLA paradigm. In this
regard, SLA and ELF are disparate; they approach the native (NS)/non-native (NNS) dichotomy differently. Native-
speaker proficiency as the target may not be attainable for many learners of English (Mauranen, 2007; e.g. native-like
pronunciation). Moreover, usage that differs from the native-speaker ideal does not necessarily represent deficiency
(Siegel, 2003), and non-native ‘‘structures can be deployed resourcefully and strategically to accomplish [. . .]
interactional ends’’ (Firth and Wagner, 1997:292). ELF research has shown this repeatedly from a variety of settings (e.
g. Mauranen, 2006b; Björkman, 2010, 2013). It should also be added here that ELF research is interested in the efficient
use of the language and CSs used when there are gaps of information as well as gaps of code. The primary focus of SLA
research on CSs however has been on the strategies used when there are gaps of code in the learner language, such as
gaps of lexis (Williams et al., 1997:305).
It is not possible to discuss SLA CSs and ELF CSs as if they were separate categories, but some types of strategies
seem to be used more frequently than others in ELF settings. It can be suggested that the CSs used in ELF settings are
similar to the ‘achievement or compensatory strategies’ in the traditional conceptualizations (see Fig. 1 below) (Dörnyei,
1995:58).
There may of course be very competent ‘learners’ of English who use achievement or compensatory strategies, and
similarly, there may be ELF speakers with low levels of proficiency who are more inclined to use avoidance or reduction
strategies. However, previous research on goal-oriented ELF interactions has shown frequent use of certain strategies,
and absence of some others. The first group in Fig. 1, namely avoidance or reduction strategies, have been reported to
be largely absent in goal-oriented ELF interactions where the speakers cannot afford to abandon the message or avoid
the topic (e.g. Björkman, 2010, 2013). In such settings, they seem to make use of achievement or compensatory
strategies to deliver the message effectively. The second group above includes such strategies that have been observed
in ELF investigations, (e.g. see Seidlhofer, 20045 for a list of observations based on the VOICE corpus; Björkman, 2010,
2013 for strategy 6). Dörnyei refers to the distinctions Tarone (1980) makes between two types of strategies, i.e.
production strategies, which are aimed to using the language ‘‘efficiently and clearly’’ and communication strategies,
which are used to negotiate meaning ‘‘by offering alternative means to communicating one’s message’’ (Dörnyei,
1995:59). What is most relevant to ELF settings seems to be communication strategies, since the primary aim in lingua
franca communication is precisely communicating one’s message effectively (which is prioritized over language
complexity).

2.1. Strategies or other pragmatic phenomena reported in ELF studies

When it comes to the work on different strategies and pragmatic phenomena in the ELF paradigm, we see that most
studies have focused on the different functions of a particular strategy while some have included frameworks. See Table 1
for a summary of work on CSs in ELF speech.
Table 1 is not an exhaustive list of all the studies on ELF pragmatics; it is meant as a summary of the most relevant
studies to the present investigation. Earlier studies in Table 1, e.g. Mauranen’s work on signaling and preventing

5
Seidlhofer’s list does not report strategies but different types of use observed in the data. Nevertheless, they correspond to the strategies
given by Dörnyei, 1995 (e.g. strategy 5, use of all-purpose words) and have therefore been included here.
 B. Björkman / Journal of Pragmatics 66 (2014) 122--138 125

__________________________________________________________________________________________

Avoidance or Reduction Strategies

1. Message abandonment—leaving a message unfinished because of language difficulties.

2. Topic avoidance—avoiding topic areas or concepts which pose language difficulties.

Achievement or Compensatory Strategies

3. Circumlocution—describing or exemplifying the target object or action (e.g., the thing you open

bottles with for corkscrew).

4. Approximation—using an alternative term which expresses the meaning of the target lexical item as

closely as possible (e.g., ship for sail boat).

5. Use of all-purpose words—extending a general, empty lexical item to contexts where specific words

are lacking (e.g., the overuse of thing, stuff, make, do, as well as using words like thingie, what-do-

you-call-it).

6. Word-coinage—creating a nonexisting L2 word based on a supposed rule (e.g., vegetarianist for

vegetarian).

7. Use of nonlinguistic means—mime, gesture, facial expression, or sound imitation.

8. Literal translation—translating literally a lexical item, an idiom, a compound word or structure from

L1 to L2.

9. Foreignizing—using a L1 word by adjusting it to L2 phonologically (i.e., with a L2 pronunciation)

and/or morphologically (e.g., adding to it a L2 suffix).

10. Code switching—using a L1 word with L1 pronunciation or a L3 word with L3 pronunciation in L2.

11. Appeal for help—turning to the conversation partner for help either directly (e.g., What do you

call . . . ?) or indirectly (e.g., rising intonation, pause, eye contact, puzzled expression).

Stalling or Time-gaining Strategies

12. Use of fillers/hesitation devices—using filling words or gambits to fill pauses and to gain time to

think (e.g., well, now let me see, as a matter of fact).

________________________________________________________________________________________

Fig. 1. ‘‘CS following traditional conceptualizations’’.

Taken from Dörnyei (1995:58).

misunderstanding (2006b), have been of importance, providing a solid base for the studies that followed. At the same
time, one can see from the sketchy summary above that the researchers’ foci have been on a selection of strategies and
different functions of these selected strategies, due to their research aims. Unlike the detailed frameworks in the SLA
paradigm, there have not been any attempts to the author’s knowledge to create a CSs framework for natural ELF
interactions, with the exception of Kirkpatrick’s study (2007) (but see Ollinger, 2012). There is even less work on CSs in
academic spoken discourse (but see Mauranen, 2006b, 2007; Kaur, 2010, 2011).
Kirkpatrick (2007) provides a selection of strategies with plenty of examples, divided into ‘Speaker’ and ‘Listener’
strategies (Table 1). His data comprise five group-discussions in which English language teachers from all ten
126 B. Björkman / Journal of Pragmatics 66 (2014) 122--138

Table 1
Reported strategies and other pragmatic phenomena in some ELF studies.

Studies Strategies or other pragmatic phenomena reported Setting/data

Firth (1996) Let-it-pass Business phone interactions

from a Danish company
Make it normal
Wagner and Firth (1997) A general interactional analysis of CS including Business phone interactions
pauses and other markers, repairs, formulations from a Danish company
and control checks
Meierkord (2000) Backchanneling Student corridor talk in England
Supportive laughter
Mauranen (2006b) On preventing misunderstandings: Academic talk (seminar sessions
(see also Mauranen, and one conference discussion)
2007) from Finland
Confirmation checks
Interactive repair
Self-repair
Clarifications
Repetitions
Co-construction
Kirkpatrick (2007) Speaker strategies: Listener strategies: Discussions of English language
teachers from ASEAN countries
Spell out the word Lexical anticipation
Repeat the phrase Lexical suggestion
Be explicit Lexical correction
Paraphrase Don’t give up
Avoid local/idiomatic Request repetition
referents
Request clarification
Let it pass
Listen to the message
Participant paraphrase
Participant prompt
Lichtkoppler (2007) Repetition Accommodation office in an
Austrian student exchange
organization
Penz (2008) Comment on terms and concepts Multi-cultural English-medium
seminars at the European center
for modern languages
Comment on details of task
Comment on discourse structure
Comment on discourse content
Comment on intent
Comment on common ground
Cogo (2009) Repetition and code-switching Discussions of teachers of modern
foreign languages in an institution
of higher education
Bjørge (2010) Backchanelling Simulated student negotiations
from an English for Specific
Purposes (ESP) program
Kaur (2010, 2011) On achieving mutual understanding: International Master’s students in
Kuala Lumpur
Repetition
Paraphrase
Requests for confirmation of understanding
Requests for clarification
Björkman (2011, 2013) Comment on terms and concepts Teacher and student talk from a
technical university in Sweden
Comment on details of task
 B. Björkman / Journal of Pragmatics 66 (2014) 122--138 127
Table 1 (Continued )
Studies Strategies or other pragmatic phenomena reported Setting/data

Comment on discourse structure and content

Comment on intent
Comment on common ground
Comment on signaling importance
Backchanneling repair (self and other) (the first five
strategies were adopted from Penz, 2008)
Matsumoto (2011) Sequences of repairs of pronunciation Simulated student interactions
at a US university
Ollinger (2012) Proactive moves Retroactive moves: A variety of settings 6
Move 1: Indication of understanding
difficulty (Listener-initiated)
Move 2: Re-establishing of
understanding (Speaker-initiated)
Move 3: Confirmation of re-established
understanding (Listener-initiated)

ASEAN nations7 discuss the teaching situation in their countries and teaching environments. One is able to see the
different strategies attributed to speakers and listeners, presented with examples for each strategy. In its entirety,
Kirkpatrick’s is a useful taxonomy of CSs, as it is the most complete taxonomy, highlighting the structure of spoken ELF
used by speakers in the setting investigated.
There are, however, some points that might make Kirkpatrick’s framework less applicable to other ELF settings. First of
all, it may be problematic to categorize the participants of a multi-party interaction into the categories of ‘speaker’ and
‘listener’. As soon as a ‘listener’ responds to the speaker with the previous turn, the ‘listener’ takes the additional role of the
‘speaker’. ‘‘Speaker and hearer roles alternate constantly between participants, sometimes very quickly, and always in
real time; participants must relate to each other actively all the time, making their contributions relevant to the changing
states of the discourse’’ (Mauranen, 2012:173). In this sense, it does not seem possible to ascertain who is a speaker and
who is a listener in a naturally occurring interaction. It seems more appropriate to the nature of such authentic interactions
to categorize the strategies into ‘self-initiated’ and ‘other-initiated’ strategies, ‘self’ and ‘other’ being a well-known
categorization from Conversation Analysis (CA). Similarly, some of the speaker strategies, as defined by Kirkpatrick,
could be used by the listener or vice versa. For instance, a ‘listener’ could spell out the word from the ‘speaker’s utterance
in order to check understanding, making the strategy a ‘listener strategy’. Thirdly, Kirkpatrick’s data come from teachers of
English. Teachers brought together to discuss the teaching situation in their respective countries are likely to be conscious
of their usage. This differs considerably from a typical ELF situation where speakers simply have to complete a task
through ELF, the focus being on the subject matter.
Finally, if we look at the ‘Speaker strategies’ in Kirkpatrick’s framework (Table 1), we see strategies such as ‘repeat the
phrase’ or ‘spell out the word’. Each strategy might have multiple and overlapping functions, as stated in previous research
(Cogo, 2009:259). In fact, previous studies on ELF and CSs have focused precisely on this, namely the different functions
of a particular strategy (see Table 1). One can, for instance, repeat a phrase in order to confirm or question what has been
said, which would be the linguistic functions of repeating a phrase. It is argued here that distinguishing between these two
tiers, the strategies and their various functions, is likely to help us understand the nature of ELF interactions and CSs use.
A similar functional approach has been adopted in a CSs study with simulated group-work for English as a Foreign
language (EFL) students in English Departments (see Jamshidnejad, 2011), but to the author’s knowledge, no such study
has yet been carried out with naturally-occurring ELF data.
To summarize, although there are studies on CSs in ELF settings, most of these studies have focused on a selection of
strategies. The present paper aims to extend our knowledge on CSs and ELF interactions by:

i. presenting a taxonomy of a number of strategies observed in naturally occurring ELF interactions,

ii. reporting from academic discourse where the interactions are purely goal-oriented and where the stakes are high for the
speakers involved.

6
Ollinger’s study presents a taxonomy but is a meta analysis of eleven different studies on CSs by other scholars. The settings in these eleven
studies range from business (Bjørge, 2010) and higher education settings (Mauranen, 2010 and Björkman, 2011) to dinner table conversations
(Matsumoto, 2011).
7
Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, The Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, presented in alphabetical order.
128 B. Björkman / Journal of Pragmatics 66 (2014) 122--138

3. Setting, data and methodology

The present investigation reports from a higher education setting in Sweden in the Applied Science domain. English is
used extensively in this setting for a variety of reasons, e.g. academic mobility of students and scholars and to prepare
students for the global job market. Consequently, there is a large number of exchange students and foreign scholars in this
setting, who all face a variety of tasks that they need to complete through the medium of English. To be able to study at this
university, the applicants are required to have acquired a minimum score of 550 on the TOEFL in the paper-based test and
at least Band 5 on the IELTS.
In 2010, the Swedish government passed a law outlining application and tuition fees for all students who are not from
EU and EEC countries. The fees, which took effect in the 2011/2012 academic year, caused a dramatic decrease in the
number of incoming students. Some groups of students however are exempt from these fees. Exchange students can still
receive free tuition, since their studies are financed by agreements between their home countries and Sweden. Doctoral
programs have also continued to be tuition-free. In addition, scholarships have been introduced to be able to continue
attracting students from non-EU/EEA countries (Swedish National Agency for Higher Education8). As a result, despite a
decrease, Swedish universities have kept their flow of incoming exchange students from Europe and elsewhere, forming
large groups of international students in this setting. In this sense, the setting has continued to be a true lingua franca
setting.
The data used for the present study comprises fifteen group sessions, all from content courses, totaling up to
approximately 15 h of speech. The data was collected before the decision to introduce tuition fees took effect. No students
enrolled in English courses have been included in the study. Also, there were no native speakers of English among the
subjects. The group-work sessions investigated are speech events where students work on a task that they have been
assigned by their lecturer without the presence of the lecturer himself/herself, termed ‘study groups’ in the MICASE corpus
(Simpson et al., 2002). All the groups contained between three and five students, coming from 12 different L1
backgrounds in total (see Appendix 1). The tasks that the students had been assigned were not open-ended and all had a
required final product, e.g. a report, a group presentation, the solution of a problem.
When analyzing the data, first extensive, and then intensive analyses were carried out, forming the two-phase nature of
this study. The large corpus was analyzed extensively for CSs (see Björkman, 2010, 2013). To have a closer look at the
CSs, a total of 5 h of recordings were transcribed using the CLAN software.9 This software enables linking the sound file to
the transcript, allowing the researcher to work from the sound file and the transcript simultaneously. Some information
might be lost or data might be misanalyzed when working from transcripts only, as real data is to be found in the sound file.
The data was analyzed by means of fine-grained qualitative analyses to determine the CSs used. Each transcript is
approximately 6000 words.
Dialog, or polyadic talk, in the present study draws on Linell’s definition: ‘‘any interaction through language between
two or several individuals who are mutually co-present’’ (Linell, 1998:13). Discourse in general is highly structured; it lends
itself to ‘‘generalize across singular situations to define patterns, sequential structures, recurrent strategies and framings,
activity types, and communicative genres’’ (Linell, 1998:5). Traditionally, any communication includes asymmetries with
regard to knowledge and participation of various kinds. In the present study, these asymmetries are found in the speakers’
knowledge of the subject matter, and their levels of proficiency (as discussed in section 2 above). Although there is a
common goal in each group-work session, and a clear context (such as being enrolled in the same course, having the
same textbooks, having been assigned the same text, studying in the same department), the asymmetries make it
necessary to interact and convey the message effectively to the rest of the group by means of various CSs. In this sense,
CSs here are defined as:
. . .referring to a specific (more or less intentional or at least recurrently used) way, or method, of going about solving
(trying to solve) the problem or task defining a communicative project or communicative activity. (Linell, 1998:227)
As Linell’s definition shows, problematicity is a part of the analysis in the present paper. However, following previous
ELF studies, the notion of problematicity includes both real and potential problems (see e.g. Mauranen, 2006b).
An important issue in any study on CSs is the identification of CSs, which has long been a topic of debate in the SLA
paradigm. Identifying CSs is by no means an easy matter, as identification of CSs depends on what ‘‘one considers a CS
to be’’ and ‘‘whether one conceives of CSs as intraindividual or interindividual elements’’ (Kasper and Kellerman, 1997:3).
Among the identifiers have been temporal variables, self repairs and speech slips (Færch and Kasper, 1984). These three
types of evidence have been criticized (e.g. in Bialystok, 1990) on the grounds that such phenomena occur also with lack
of attention or distraction. While there appears to be little agreement on how to best identify CSs, it seems generally

8
http://www.vhs.se/sv/In-English.
9
http://childes.psy.cmu.edu/clan/.
 B. Björkman / Journal of Pragmatics 66 (2014) 122--138 129

accepted that the best evidence for CSs is discourse that is clearly marked by the speaker (Wagner and Firth, 1997).
Another way is to triangulate the data with retrospective protocols where the researcher plays the audio or video-recording
to the speakers and gets them to explain any strategic moves in the discourse. Although triangulation supports any data,
such retrospective practices may not be reliable (see e.g. Ericsson and Simon, 1984), as raising questions about strategic
moves in the discourse may steer subjects toward the researcher’s points of investigation and subsequently lead them to
answer in a certain way.
In the present study, the CSs were identified by studying the surrounding discourse carefully and considering the
previous and following turns. However, in some cases, references were made to instructions in the written material and
what the lecturer had said in the instructions or explanations. Such cases were included if they created explicitly marked
problems in the discourse that the students addressed by using a CS. This approach seems to have been accepted in
previous CS research, especially in broader definitions of ‘confirmation checks’. Confirmation checks, for example, ‘‘may
not relate to the immediately preceding utterance. The speaker may be seeking to confirm an earlier utterance,
instructions in the written material, some non-verbal demonstration, etc.’’ (Williams et al., 1997:311; but see Woken and
Swales, 1989 for a narrower definition). The same has been done for clarification requests, where the clarification of
‘‘anything in the preceding written or oral discourse’’ has been included, instead of only the immediately preceding
utterance (Williams et al., 1997:311; see also Rost and Ross, 1991).

4. Results: a communication strategies framework

The qualitative analyses of the data resulted in the framework presented in Table 2. The types of strategies used
showed clearly that some of these strategies were self-initiated and some other-initiated, constituting the two main
categories here. All the strategies were then grouped accordingly, forming the framework.

Table 2
The communication strategies used in the data presented in a framework.

CSs observed in the data

Self-initiated CSs Other-initiated CSs

Explicitness strategies Confirmation checks

(a) Repetition (a) Paraphrasing
(b) Simplification (b) Repetition
(c) Signaling importance (c) Overt question
(d) Paraphrasing Clarification requests
Comprehension check Questions or question repeats (Dörnyei and Scott, 1997:16)
Word replacement Co-creation of the message/anticipation (in Kirkpatrick, 2007)
Word replacement

The rest of this section will give examples of each strategy and explain the strategies above. The previous and following
turns have been included for each strategy, to allow for an understanding of how each strategy works in its context.

4.1. Self-initiated communicative strategies

In this first main category, we have self-initiated CSs, adopting the ‘self’ and ‘other’ categorization from CA studies. In
the present context, self-initiated CSs are those where the speaker himself/herself initiates the use of a CS for a variety of
communicative purposes, such as to enhance the explicitness of a statement they feel may be potentially risky, to check
the comprehension of an utterance, or to replace a word that may not be transparent to the other speakers. As explained
earlier here (section 2), ELF interactions by nature are asymmetric, and speakers in ELF settings do pro-active work for
communicative effectiveness.
The first set of strategies in this category are explicitness strategies. Explicitness has earlier been reported as a
characteristic of ELF communication (e.g. Cogo and Dewey, 2006; Mauranen, 2006b; Seidlhofer, 2004; Björkman, 2011),
supported by the findings of the present study. In total, four different strategies were observed in the data by which the
speakers create explicitness, namely repetition, simplification, signaling importance and paraphrasing. Let us now focus
on each strategy separately.

4.1.1. Self-initiated repetition

Repetition has been described as ‘re-presenting’ the previous speaker’s utterance to help the present speaker’s
comprehension and production process, to create coherence, to signal confirmation or to simply signal to the speaker that
130 B. Björkman / Journal of Pragmatics 66 (2014) 122--138

the turn is his/hers (House, 2003:568). It is characteristic of authentic, impromptu speech (Ochs, 1979). Repetition was
predominant in the data in general (see also confirmation checks and clarification requests in other-initiated CSs), and
self-initiated repetition was found to be an explicitness strategy (see Williams et al., 1997:313 on self-repetition). Extract 1
below is an example of self-repetition, where S1 repeats the segments ‘‘higher surface area per volume’’ and ‘‘increase
(ing) the temperature’’ twice in the same turn (lines 1--3), which seem to be key pieces of information for the task the
students are working on:
Extract 1
1 <S1>he said er higher surface area per volume er er er lets you increase the temperature it
2 he said, er er er higher surface area per volume will er mean that you can increase the
3 temperature</S1>
4 <S3>yeah (but) it’s er higher er surface area per volume is we have smaller droplets when
5 you have a better mixing you have higher</S3>
6 <S2>yeah</S2>
7 <S1>you can increase the temperature</S1>

It seems unlikely that S1 repeats this segment because of lack of fluency, as s/he demonstrates in the same turn that s/he
is able to change the syntax from ‘‘lets you’’ to ‘‘will mean that you can’’ (lines 1 and 2). In fact, this small change in syntax
can be regarded as an additional signal that the repetition of the key information here is done for explicitness purposes.10
The 2--3 s pause in line 2 (indicated by the,11) may be regarded as further support. It is possible that S1 observes reactions
from his/her peers to what s/he has said in line 1, and not receiving a clear response, s/he may have decided to make the
key information extra explicit by repeating it. S1 repeats ‘‘increase the temperature’’ one more time in line 7. In short, the
fact that higher volume will give one ‘‘the possibility to increase the temperature’’ seems important for the problem the
students are working on, and by repeating the key segments (in bold in Extract 1 above), S1 is trying to enhance his/her
peers’ understanding of this important piece of information.

4.1.2. Simplification
The second strategy used to create extra explicitness is simplification of terms and concepts or lexicogrammar-related
items. Below is an excerpt where two Chemistry students are working on calculating the costs of a project:

Extract 2
1 <S2>the flow and so really like what he told us at the same time</S2>
2 <S1>buy two</S1>
3 <S2>yeah two (xx) two (xx) two, what did he say about the distance</S2>
4 <S1>it will be double, I mean two times</S1>
5 <S2>two two continuous (xx)</S2>
6 <S1>yeah</S1>

In the above extract, first, S1 completes S2’s utterance in line 2, and this type of communicative behavior is termed
‘anticipation’ in the present paper (adapted from Kirkpatrick, 2007). Later on, S1 provides an answer to S2’s question, which
is ‘‘double’’ (line 4). Although saying ‘‘double’’ is providing a response to S2’s question, the addition ‘‘I mean two times’’ is S1’s
choice (and has therefore been categorized as ‘self-initiated’). S1 seems to have done so to make the answer more explicit, to
avoid the potential problem of the word ‘‘double’’ not being registered by the other students. Following this, S2 checks his/her
understanding in line 5 by saying ‘‘two two continuous’’ (see section 4.2, paraphrasing for confirmation), which is followed by
‘‘yeah’’ by S1 in line 6. It should be taken into account that after the word ‘‘double’’ the speaker (S1) pauses for 2--3 s (line 4). In
this pause, it is likely that s/he has checked reactions by the members of the group before s/he decided to continue.
Nevertheless, this seems to be a proactive strategy to avoid a potential problem (see Mauranen, 2006b).

4.1.3. Signaling importance

This type of signaling has been reported to be frequent in lecturer speech (Björkman, 2010, 2013); however, the group-
work discussions investigated here also had instances of such usage, where the speaker(s) made the importance of an
item explicit by marking it clearly in the discourse, as in Extract 3 below:

10
Although Extract 1 includes a change in syntax, most of the utterance repeated remains the same, which is why this case has not been
categorized as ‘paraphrasing’. Paraphrasing would have required giving the same message in different words, in a ‘‘new or different way’’ (Neil,
1996 in Kaur, 2009).
11
ELFA Transcription Guide. http://www.helsinki.fi/englanti/elfa/ELFA%20transcription%20guide.pdf.
 B. Björkman / Journal of Pragmatics 66 (2014) 122--138 131

Extract 3
1 <S1>and er you should write the you should write down the reference list I mean</S1>
2 <S4>yes</S4>
3 <S1>you of course you saw this information from internet or some from some handbook
4 you should write down the reference it’s very important for us</S1>
5 <S4>it is very important</S4>
6 <S1>yes</S1>

Here we see how S1 first says they should remember to write the reference list (line 1). S/he goes further and adds how
important it is to have proper referencing (line 4). This is registered by S4 in line 5 through repetition. Highlighting key
information seems to be a proactive strategy employed for communicative effectiveness.

4.1.4. Self-initiated paraphrasing

Paraphrasing can generally be accepted as providing the same content by modifying the previous utterance or ongoing
utterance. Paraphrasing in the present study has been used as a category for cases that go beyond simplification, which
has been observed in general as simplifying a lexical item. Extract 4 below is from a course on Energy Systems where a
group of students are working on a project report on a problem they have solved. S1 thinks they should bring together the
parts they have written separately and ‘‘improve’’ the work (line 1). We see a pause after this and some attempts to explain
what s/he means, starting with ‘‘we just er we just’’ (line 1) continuing with saying they do not know whether the work meets
the requirements or whether it is ‘‘good or bad quality’’ (lines 2--3). In lines 6 and 7, s/he continues his/her paraphrasing of
the same idea:

Extract 4
1 <S1>but I think we should unite it and improve it, we just er we just we just finished the part
2 but we don’t know whether it’s meet the requirement maybe it’s good good quality or poor
3 quality I don’t know</S1>
4 <S4>but in fact you know @@ I almost have no (patient) to read everything you other
5 people @@</S4>
6 <S1>but I think we should do because before we hand in our paper we should correct some
7 mistake or improve it I think and we should er organize the contents yeah I think so</S1>

4.1.5. Comprehension check

The next strategy is confirmation request, mentioned in previous ELF studies (e.g. Mauranen, 2006b; Kaur, 2010,
2011). Comprehension checks generally seem to be questions that the speaker asks to see ‘‘if the partner can follow the
speaker’’ (Jamshidnejad, 2011:3762). They may simply be short utterances, such as ‘‘Understand?’’ (Williams et al.,
1997:313), or may consist of longer stretches, such as ‘‘(Do) you know what I mean/what I am saying?’’, such as in line 5 in
Extract 5 below, taken from a Vehicle Engineering group-work:

Extract 5
1 <S2>We can take question four</S2>
2 <S4>Yeah the inertia forces are always 180 degrees shifted to the to the acceleration, but if
3 you take a look at er erm the stiffness force and restoring force due due to stiffness they
4 always count at 180 degrees shifted to the to the way to the deflection so these forces are
5 always somehow a little too late you know what I mean (if), this one already this the inertia
6 forces already stop the the motion of due to to a to the acceleration so but there is another
7 problem because if if, if the acceleration stops these will will err tend to to keep the motion
8 going</S4>

The speaker above is talking about a complex matter, and somewhere toward the middle of the turn, in line 5, s/he says ‘‘you
know what I mean’’ to see if the other members of the group can follow what is being said. This is followed by a 2--3 s pause. It
is likely that in this pause, s/he has checked reactions from the members of the group such as nodding etc. After this pause, s/
he continues elaborating on the topic. This CS seems self-initiated, as the previous turn by S2 (line 1) only seems to
announce the number of the question from the task the group is working on, without a signal of a potential problem.

4.1.6. Self-initiated word replacement

Word replacement is a type of repair, and it can occur even when there is nothing to correct, as discussed for repair in
general (see Kaur, 2011; Kurhila, 2001; Schegloff et al., 1990). It is important to distinguish between repair and correction.
132 B. Björkman / Journal of Pragmatics 66 (2014) 122--138

The present study has the category ‘co-creation of the message/anticipation’ (Kirkpatrick, 2007), aiming to show the
difference between what is simply correction (i.e. the act of correcting an item uttered before the correction) and what is the
co-creation of a message by the speakers involved.
While some of the instances of word replacement here were clearly related to language use, there were other types that
seemed to be more about content matters. The following Extract (6) includes both types, where the speaker first has
lexicogrammatical word replacement (lines 1 and 2 on ‘‘argumented’’ and ‘‘argued’’), which is clearly about form, and then
‘‘increases’’ and ‘‘decreases’’ (line 3), which is likely to be about content matters. For the purposes of the present paper,
the word replacement in line 2 is more interesting as it has to do with language issues.

Extract 6
1 <S4>I couldn’t see it by looking at it @@ yeah but I would guess so because he always
2 argumented like argued like if we increase the air speed the stiffness of the wing decreases
3 so if the stiffness decreases I would say the frequency increases er decreases as well</S4>

4.2. Other-initiated communicative strategies

The second main category of CSs in the present study is other-initiated strategies, following the ‘self’ and ‘other’
categorization from CA studies. Other-initiated CSs are those where the speaker employs a CS after another speaker
expresses a communicative need and marks the discourse for this communicative need, such as asking about part(s) of
the preceding utterance. Also included in this category are CSs that are used by speakers to enhance their own
comprehension of others’ preceding utterances.
Confirmation checks constitute the first set of strategies within this group. In general, confirmation checks are used to
confirm the understanding of a previous utterance (e.g. Long, 1981). In the present paper, three CSs were identified that
were used for checking understanding, namely paraphrasing, repetition and overt question.

4.2.1. Other-initiated paraphrasing

The speakers in the data often paraphrased the previous utterance in an effort to check that they had understood the
utterance correctly. This type of strategy has also been referred to as ‘interpretive summary strategy’ in a previous SLA
study (Jamshidnejad, 2011). In the present paper, the term ‘paraphrase’ has been used, as in this CS, the same content is
expressed with different words, ‘‘with some modification of the first utterance’’ (Williams et al., 1997:312). See Extract 7
below for an example of this CS:

Extract 7
1 <S1>So how about your feeling about the last trip trip to the waste water plant<NAME OF
2 PLACE></S1>
3 <S4>Sorry</S4>
4 <S1>I mean we have already visited waster water plant of<NAME OF PLACE>and how do
5 you think it I mean do you have any feeling?</S1>
6 <S4>I don’t know she didn’t show us sediment picture I can’t understand what this plant for
7 and what (xx) only (that) there’s some types</S4>
8 <S1>Oh I think it’s a rather huge project that built under under ground maybe in other
9 countries the waste water plant always near</S1>
10 <S4>And there’s so few people to manage it it’s so big so huge plant can’t imagine only
11 thirty people manage this plant</S4>

In Extract 7, S1 wants to find out what S4 thought about the field trip they made to a waste water plant. The way S1 asks
the question is not clear to S4, and leads to ‘‘Sorry’’ in line 3. This causes S1 to paraphrase what s/he has said in different
ways by saying ‘‘How do you think it?’’ and ‘‘Do you have any feeling?’’ (lines 4--5). Although the two paraphrased forms
are not standard usage, they seem to work, leading to S4’s thoughts on the field trip (lines 6--7 and 10--11).

4.2.2. Other-initiated repetition

Repetition of key information has previously been reported as a commonly used strategy in ELF interactions (e.g.
Lichtkoppler, 2007; Cogo, 2009; Mauranen, 2012:220), and frequent repetition of others’ utterances seems to be ‘‘an
important element in achieving (cooperativeness)’’ in ELF interactions (Mauranen, 2010:17). In Extract 8, after S1’s
question on the word ‘‘transparency’’ and the word he cannot recall (line 2), S2 provides the word ‘‘slides’’ (line 3), which
seems to be the word to be used for their purposes. When s/he does so, s/he utters the word four times in the same turn
(line 3), and one more time in the next turn (line 5).
 B. Björkman / Journal of Pragmatics 66 (2014) 122--138 133

Extract 8
1 <S1>good ok, and then, at the end, at the end then he said something about transparency
2 what is that, in the binder (xx) special he said transparency you said yes what is that</S1>
3 <S2>ah yes slides slides because he used the Swedish word slides slides</S2>
4 <S1>oh</S1>
5 <S2>the slides we had in the course</S2>

4.2.3. Overt question

The present category simply refers to cases where the speakers raise questions about the previous utterance because
it has not been clear, and they do so by using confirmation checks (see also Jamshidnejad, 2011). In Extract 9 below, ‘‘put
very big mass’’ (line 3) is not clear to S1, leading to S1 checking his/her understanding by raising a question in line 8. S2’s
explanation (line 9) which includes the same phrase ‘‘putting a mass’’ with the additional information ‘‘without any
stiffness’’ does not seem to suffice, leading to the repetition of S2’s utterance by S1 with question intonation in line 10
(clarification request; see section 4.2.4 below). Finally, S2 provides further explanation by giving examples (lines 11--12).

Extract 9
1 <S2>but it is the condition to have er a flutter speed er larger than divergence speed but I
2 think in in for aircraft it’s er it’s er, never have guessed that you have divergence speed great
3 er less than the flutter speed so erm I I put very big mass er which is half the mass of the
4 total wing but I think in a real real case you can’t do that because you don’t want to have
5 flutter speed er larger than the divergence speed but we we</S2>
6 <S3>mhm</S3>
7 <S2>that’s why I find it from this reason</S2>
8 <S1>with with putting a mass do you mean that you made the wing more stiff</S1>
9 <S2>no you just put a mass without any stiffness</S2>
10 <S1>without any stiffness</S1>(question intonation)
11 <S2>yeah you just you know just just like a something you you glue on it or you you stick on
12 it or something</S2>

4.2.4. Clarification requests

Clarification requests are different from confirmation checks in the sense that speakers, by using clarification requests,
ask for explanations or more information on something they have not fully understood (Dörnyei and Scott, 1997:16). Also,
the respondent to a clarification request needs to do considerably more ‘‘interactional work’’ to respond to such a request
(Williams et al., 1997:312). A question repeat is the repetition of a word or a segment with question intonation (Dörnyei and
Scott, 1997; also see Jamshidnejad, 2011:3762). In Extract 10 below, S2 repeats the word ‘lease’ after S1’s first turn with
a question intonation (line 2), and is accompanied by S3 in the turn after. S1 gives a synonym in line 4. This synonym is
registered by S3 and S2 in the following turns and this is marked by repetition (lines 5 and 6). This case has been
categorized as clarification request, because S2 needs to know what is meant by the word ‘‘lease’’ and seems to be asking
for information with a clearly marked question repeat (line 2).

Extract 10
1 <S1>I can ask them if they have have a lease a lease program</S1>
2 <S2>lease</S2>(question intonation)
3 <S3>lease like you</S3>
4 <S1>rent</S1>
5 <S3>rent</S3>
6 <S2>rent</S2>

4.2.5. Co-creating the message/anticipation

The data included some instances of co-creation of the message by two or more speakers, where speakers fill in the
blanks in each other’s utterances in an effort to produce a complete utterance, which in turn means a complete message.
Kirkpatrick terms this type of usage ‘lexical anticipation’ (Kirkpatrick, 2007). In Extract 11, S1 uses the word ‘‘eats’’ for the
microwave using a lot of energy (lines 1 and 2). This word is transparent enough in terms of its meaning, and the context
seems clear to S2, but when S1 shows signs of having difficulty finding the right verb in the next turn (line 4), S2 suggests
‘‘consume’’ in line 5. By doing so, S2 helps S1 complete the utterance, resulting in the co-creation of the message.
134 B. Björkman / Journal of Pragmatics 66 (2014) 122--138

Extract 11
1 <S1>because he said the energy cost for microwave is the energy you know it eats a lot of
2 energy</S1>
3 <S2>yeah yeah to</S2>
4 <S1>yeah yeah but I am gonna ask him what what does it what does it</S1>
5 <S2>consume</S2>
6 <S1>yeah consume and</S1>

4.2.6. Other-initiated word replacement

There were very few cases of other-initiated word replacement in the data. Extract 12 below is a few turns after the
repetition of ‘‘transparency vs. slides’’ in Extract 8 above (section 4.2.2). What happens after this extract seems to be an
example of word replacement. Only a few turns later, S1 uses the word ‘‘transparencies’’ again, which S2 repairs as ‘‘slides’’.

Extract 12
1 <S2>I don’t know, but it’s like I er you can have a look if you like I can write down where to
2 how to because we have to check we have to check distillation part</S2>
3 <S1>yeah</S1>
4 <S2>check<SHOWING PAGES IN THE BOOK>I think they are asking that part</S2>
5 <S1>yeah check transparencies</S1>
6 <S2>slides</S2>
7 <S1>slides slides</S1>

4.3. Frequency of the use of different strategies

Tables 3 and 4 give the number of instances for self and other-initiated strategies respectively. The aim here is not to
present statistical results but to give the reader an idea of the frequency of different types of strategies.

Table 3
The number of self-initiated CSs observed in each group-work session (GRW).

Self-initiated CSs in the data GRW1 GRW2 GRW3 GRW4 GRW5 S

Explicitness strategies Repetition 1 5 2 4 2 14 39

Simplification 0 0 1 0 0 1
Signaling importance 0 0 0 2 1 3
Paraphrasing 0 4 2 10 5 21

Comprehension check 4 5 5 7 6 27
Word replacement 0 0 2 4 0 6
S 5 14 12 27 14 72

Table 4
The number of other-initiated CSs observed in each group-work session (GRW).

Other-initiated CSs in the data GRW1 GRW2 GRW3 GRW4 GRW5 S

Confirmation checks Paraphrasing 3 2 4 3 1 13 47

Repetition 4 4 3 6 1 18
Overt questions 2 3 3 5 3 16

Clarification requests 7 9 6 5 5 32
Co-creation of the message/anticipation 0 2 1 0 1 4
Word replacement 0 2 0 1 0 3
S 16 22 17 20 11 86

From the figures, we can see that the five student groups are relatively similar to each other within the categories of self
and other-initiated CSs, with the exception of GRW1 in terms of self-initiated strategies (Table 3). Altogether there were
158 instances of CSs in the data, 72 being self-initiated (Table 3) and 86 other-initiated CSs (Table 4). One difference,
perhaps, is the slightly higher numbers of other-initiated strategies, caused primarily by the high frequency of clarification
requests and the total of confirmation checks. In the self-initiated CSs category, other than the four different types of CSs
aimed at creating explicitness, comprehension checks constitute the largest sub-category. The results will be discussed in
the following section.
 B. Björkman / Journal of Pragmatics 66 (2014) 122--138 135

5. Discussion and conclusion

The present paper aimed to present a taxonomy of the observed CSs present in spoken academic interactions
where English is a lingua franca. The investigation revealed a number of CSs, divided into the two main categories of
self and other-initiated CSs. The results here need to be considered with respect to the setting investigated, as early
research showed that the use of CSs can be ‘‘strongly constrained by the institutional setting, participant roles and the
overall and local goals that need to be achieved for the task at hand’’ (Williams et al., 1997). So, the results and the
description in the present paper are likely to be representative of similar high-stakes ELF interactions in similar
academic settings. Analyses of other types of interactions, e.g. small talk, may show a different set of CSs (e.g. in
Meierkord, 2000).
It has been maintained that understanding is inherent in running conversation (Linell, 1998:78) and that the mere fact
that the conversation is flowing is a sign of the parties registering each other’s utterances. However, the situation is
different in ELF settings. In ELF interactions, there are many different types of asymmetries, which require speakers to
employ a number of strategies (aimed at creating extra explicitness, asking for confirmation, anticipating each other’s
utterances, etc. to ensure communicative effectiveness), as the analysis shows here.
The analysis illustrates low frequencies of some CSs while the frequencies for some CSs or CSs groups are relatively
high. In the results presented in Tables 3 and 4, one notices the very few instances of self and other-initiated word
replacement. The high-stakes nature of the present data may be helpful in interpreting the results regarding some of the
CSs here. The engineering students here working on projects and problems to be solved were focused almost entirely on
the task at hand. The goal of the speakers in such interactions is not necessarily ‘‘‘interactional’ socialization but
‘transactional’ achievement of a shared goal’’ (Shaw, 2011:74). While they seemed to pay great attention to conveying
content to their fellow group-members by means of a number of CSs; they did not seem to be bothered by non-standard
morphosyntactic production of different types (see also Björkman, 2013).
If we then consider the CSs that seem frequent in the data, we see explicitness strategies and comprehension checks
in self-initiated CSs, and confirmation checks and clarification requests in other-initiated CSs as the largest sub-
categories. The picture these results provide us with is similar to what has been reported in ELF research earlier. In the
self-initiated CSs, we see a total of 66 instances of explicitness strategies and comprehension checks (92% of the self-
initiated CSs). The ELF interactions here appear to be of a cooperative nature where the speakers use such pro-active
strategies to increase explicitness and to prevent potential misunderstandings in general (see Mauranen, 2006b, 2007),
where ‘‘they enhance the clarity of their utterances to improve the chances of what they say being understood’’ (Kaur,
2011:2713). If we look more closely, there appear slight differences that are worth mentioning. In the other-initiated CSs,
the two largest groups of CSs are confirmation checks and clarification requests (79 cases altogether; 92% of the other-
initiated CSs and 50% of all the CSs identified in the present data). The speakers in the present data quite often seem to be
asking the speaker to confirm whether or not their understanding of an utterance is correct (see also Jamshidnejad,
2011:3762) and asking for explanation or clarification for a particular item in a previous turn. While it is not the aim of the
present paper to provide statistical information, the figures tell us 45% of all the CSs observed here are self-initiated, and
55% other-initiated. Overall, comprehension checks, confirmation checks and clarification requests constitute 67% of all
the CSs observed. Also, the largest categories here, namely confirmation checks and clarification requests constitute
50% of all the CSs in the entire data.
Misunderstandings have been reported to be rare in ELF interactions (e.g. Mauranen, 2006b; Kaur, 2011; Pölzl and
Seidlhofer, 2006; Seidlhofer, 2004). Mauranen maintains that speakers in ELF interactions ‘‘seem to be prepared for the
possibility of misunderstanding and take steps to pre-empt that, which in effect results in misunderstandings being are’’
(2012:7). This is certainly true for the present data as well. The present study, however, offers additional information and a
comparison of self and other-initiated CSs. In the interactions investigated, it seems like communicative effectiveness is
reached not only because speakers do pre-work with pro-active strategies, but also because they at least equally
frequently employ other-initiated CSs, which actually make up 55% of all the CSs observed here. So, the ‘listeners’ (as
defined by Kirkpatrick, 2007) seem to work at least as hard as the ‘speakers’ by checking whether their understanding is
correct and by asking for more information on what has been uttered. We can then suggest that communicative turbulence
is rare because of this joint effort where both parties employ a number of CSs. I believe this result is relevant and important
for any study on how CSs are used to achieve communicative effectiveness, especially when investigating consequential,
high-stakes interactions where the focus is not language.

Acknowledgments

The author is grateful to the editor Jonathan Culpeper and the two anonymous reviewers for their very helpful
feedback, which has greatly improved this paper. The author is also indebted to Philip Shaw and Niina Hynninen for very
useful comments on an earlier version of this paper.
136 B. Björkman / Journal of Pragmatics 66 (2014) 122--138

Appendix 1

See Table A1.

Table A1
The first languages (L1s) and participants in the present study.

L1s Exchange students Ethnically non-Swedish students Ethnically Swedish students

Arabic -- 3 1
Chinese 4 -- --
Finnish 1 -- --
French 5 -- --
German 2 -- --
Greek 3 -- --
Icelandic 1 -- --
Italian 2 -- --
Punjabi -- 1 --
Russian 1 -- --
Swedish -- -- 11
Turkish 1 2 --

References

Bialystok, Ellen, 1983. Some factors in the selection and implementation of communication strategies. In: Færch, C., Kasper, G. (Eds.), Strategies
in Interlanguage Communication. Longmans, London, UK, pp. 100--118.
Bialystok, Ellen, 1990. Communication Strategies. Blackwell, Oxford.
Bjørge, Anne Kari, 2010. Conflict or cooperation: the use of backchanneling in ELF negotiations. Engl. Specif. Purp. 29 (3), 191--203.
Björkman, Beyza, 2008. ‘So where we are?’ spoken lingua franca English at a technical university in Sweden. English Today 24 (2), 35--41.
Björkman, Beyza, 2010. Spoken lingua franca English as a Swedish technical university: an investigation of form and communicative
effectiveness. (Unpublished PhD thesis) Stockholm University.
Björkman, Beyza, 2011. Pragmatic strategies in English as an academic lingua franca: ways of achieving communicative effectiveness.
J. Pragmat. 43 (4), 950--964.
Björkman, Beyza, 2013. English as an academic lingua franca: an investigation of form and communicative effectiveness. De Gruyter Mouton,
Berlin/Boston.
Breiteneder, Angelika, 2005. The naturalness of English as a European lingua franca: the case of the ‘third person -s’. Vienna English Working
Papers 14, 3--26.
Canale, Michael, 1983. From communicative competence to communicative language pedagogy. In: Richard, J.C., Schmidt, R.W. (Eds.),
Language and Communication. Longman, London, pp. 2--28.
Canale, Michael, Swain, Merrill, 1980. Theoretical bases of communicative approaches to second language teaching and testing. Appl. Ling. 1 (1),
1--47.
Cogo, Alessia, 2009. Accommodating difference in ELF conversations. In: Mauranen, A., Ranta, E. (Eds.), English as a Lingua Franca: Studies
and Findings. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle, pp. 254--273.
Cogo, Alessia, Dewey, Martin, 2006. Efficiency in ELF communication: from pragmatic motives to lexico-grammatical innovation. Nordic J. English
Stud. 5 (2), 59--93.
Cook, Vivian, 1993. Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition. St. Martin’s Press, New York.
Corder, Stephen Pit, 1981. Error Analysis and Interlanguage. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Coupland, Nikolas, Giles, Howard, Wiemann, John M., 1991. Miscommunication and Problematic Talk. Sage, London.
Dörnyei, Zoltan, 1995. On the teachability of communication strategies. TESOL Quart. 29 (1), 55--84.
Dörnyei, Zoltan, Scott, Mary Lee, 1997. Communication strategies in a second language: definitions and taxonomies. Lang. Learn. 47 (1), 173--
210.
Ericsson, Anders K., Simon, Herbert, 1984. Protocol Analysis: Verbal Reports as Data. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
Færch, Claus, Kasper, Gabriele, 1984. Two ways of defining communication strategies. Lang. Learn. 34 (1), 45--63.
Firth, Alan, 1996. The discursive accomplishment of normality: on ‘lingua franca’ English and conversation analysis. J. Pragmat. 26 (2), 237--259.
Firth, Alan, Wagner, Johannes, 1997. On discourse, communication and (some) fundamental concepts in SLA research. Modern Lang. J. 81,
285--300.
House, Juliane, 1999. Misunderstanding in intercultural communication: interactions in English as a lingua franca and the myth of mutual
intelligibility. In: Gnutzmann, C. (Ed.), Teaching and Learning English as a Global Language. Stauffenburg, Tübingen, pp. 133--160.
House, Juliane, 2003. Teaching and learning pragmatic fluency in a foreign language: the case of English as a lingua franca. In: Martínez Flor, A.,
Usó Juan, E., Fernández Guerra, A. (Eds.), Pragmatic Competence and Foreign Language Teaching. Publicacions de la Universitat Jaume I,
Castellò de la Plana, pp. 133--159.
House, Juliane, 2009. Introduction: the pragmatics of English as a lingua franca. Intercult. Pragmat. 6 (2), 141--145.
 B. Björkman / Journal of Pragmatics 66 (2014) 122--138 137

Hynninen, Niina, 2011. The practice of ‘mediation’ in English as a lingua franca interaction. J. Pragmat. 43 (4), 965--977.
Jamshidnejad, Alireza, 2011. Functional approach to communication strategies: an analysis of language learners’ performance in interactional
discourse. J. Pragmat. 43, 3757--3769.
Jenkins, Jennifer, 2000. The Phonology of English as an International Language: New Models, New Norms, New Goals. Oxford University Press,
Oxford.
Jenkins, Jennifer, 2007. English as a Lingua Franca: Attitude and Identity. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Kasper, Gabriele, Kellerman, Eric, 1997. Communication Strategies: Psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic perspectives. Longman, Addison
Wesley.
Kaur, Jagdish, 2009. Pre-empting problems of understanding in English as a lingua franca. In: Mauranen, A., Ranta, E. (Eds.), English as a Lingua
Franca: Studies and Findings. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle, pp. 107--123.
Kaur, Jagdish, 2010. Achieving mutual understanding in world Englishes. World Englishes 29 (2), 192--208.
Kaur, Jagdish, 2011. Raising explicitness through self-repair in English as a lingua franca. J. Pragmat. 43 (11), 2704--2715.
Kirkpatrick, Andy, 2007. The communicative strategies of ASEAN speakers of English as a lingua franca. In: Prescott, D. (Ed.), English in
Southeast Asia: Varieties, Literacies and Literatures. Cambridge Scholars, Newcastle, England, pp. 118--137.
Kirkpatrick, Andy, 2008. English as the official language of the association of southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN): features and strategies. English
Today 24 (2), 27--34.
Knapp, Annelie, 2011. Using English as a lingua franca for (mis-)managing conflict in an International university context: an example from a course
in engineering. J. Pragmat. 43 (4), 978--990.
Kurhila, Salla, 2001. Correction of talk between native and non-native speaker. J. Pragmat. 33 (7), 1083--1110.
Lichtkoppler, Julia, 2007. ‘Male. Male.’ -- ‘Male?’ -- The sex is male. ‘‘The role of repetition in English as a lingua franca conversations’’. Vienna
English Working Papers 16 (1), 39--65.
Linell, Per, 1998. Approaching Dialogue. John Benjamins, Amsterdam/Philadelphia.
Long, Michael, 1981. Input, interaction and second language acquisition. In: Winitz, H. (Ed.), Native Language and Foreign Language Acquisition.
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, vol. 379. New York Academy of Sciences, New York, pp. 259--278.
Matsumoto, Yumi, 2011. Successful ELF communications and Implications for ELT: sequential analysis of ELF pronunciation negotiation
strategies. Mod. Lang. J. 95 (1), 97--114.
Mauranen, Anna, 2003. The corpus of English as lingua franca in academic settings. TESOL Quart. 37 (3), 513--527.
Mauranen, Anna, 2005. English as lingua Franca: an unknown language? In: Cortese, G., Duszak, A. (Eds.), Identity, Community, Discourse:
English in Intercultural Settings. Peter Lang, Frankfurt, pp. 269--292.
Mauranen, Anna, 2006a. A rich domain of ELF -- the ELFA corpus of academic discourse. Nordic J. English Stud. 5 (2), 145--159.
Mauranen, Anna, 2006b. Signaling and preventing misunderstanding in English as lingua Franca communication. Int. J. Sociol. Lang. 177, 123--
150.
Mauranen, Anna, 2006c. Speaking the discipline: discourse and socialisation in ELF and L1 English. Acad. Discourse Across Discip. 42, 271.
Mauranen, Anna, 2007. Hybrid voices: English as the lingua franca of academics. In: Flottum, K. (Ed.), Language and Discipline Perspectives on
Academic Discourse. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle upon Tyne, pp. 243--259.
Mauranen, Anna, 2009. Chunking in ELF: expressions for managing interaction. Intercult. Pragmat. 6 (2), 217--233.
Mauranen, Anna, 2010. Features of English as a lingua franca in academia. Helsinki English Stud. 6, 6--28.
Mauranen, Anna, 2012. Exploring ELF: Academic English Shaped by Non-native Speakers. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Meierkord, Christiane, 2000. Interpreting successful lingua franca interaction. An analysis of nonnative-/non-native small talk conversations in
English. In: Pittner, K., Fetzer, A. (Eds.), Neuere Entwicklungen in Der Gesprächsforschung. Sonderausgabe Von LinguisticOnline 5 (1).
Neil, Deborah M., 1996. Collaboration in Intercultural Discourse: Examples from a Multicultural Australian Workplace. Peter Lang, Frankfurt am
Main.
Ochs, Elinor, 1979. Planned and unplanned discourse. In: Talmy Givón, T. (Ed.), Syntax and Semantics: Discourse and Syntax, vol. 12.
Academic Press, New York, pp. 51--80.
Ollinger, Astrid, 2012. The Good ELF User: A Qualitative Meta-analysis of Strategic Language Use Behaviours in English as a lingua franca.
(Unpublished master’s thesis) University of Vienna.
Ostler, Nicholas, 2010. The Last Lingua Franca: English Until the Return of Babel. Walker and Company, New York.
Penz, Hermine, 2008. What do we mean by that? ELF in intercultural project work. In: Paper presented at the ESSE Conference, University of
Aarhus, Denmark, August 22--26.
Pölzl, Ulrike, Seidlhofer, Barbara, 2006. In and on their own terms: the habitat factor in English as a lingua franca interactions. Int. J. Sociol. Lang.
177, 151--176.
Poulisse, Nanda, 1987. Problems and solutions in the classification of compensatory strategies. Second Lang. Res. 3, 141--153.
Poulisse, Nanda, Bongaerts, Theo, Kellerman, Eric, 1984. On the use of compensatory strategies in second language performance. Interlang.
Stud. Bull. 8, 70--105.
Ranta, Elina, 2006. The ‘attractive’ progressive --- why use the -ing form in English as a lingua franca? Nordic J. English Stud. 5 (2), 95--116.
Rost, Michael, Ross, Steven, 1991. Learner use of strategies in interaction: typology and teachability. Lang. Learn. 41, 235--268.
Schegloff, Emanuel, Jefferson, Gail, Sacks, Harvey, 1990. The preference for self-correction in the organization of repair in conversation. In:
Psatsas, G. (Ed.), Interaction Competence. The International Institute for Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis and University Press
of America Inc., Washington, DC, pp. 31--61.
Seidlhofer, Barbara, 2001. Closing a conceptual gap: the case for a description of English as a lingua franca. Int. J. Appl. Ling. 11 (2), 133--158.
Seidlhofer, Barbara, 2004. Research perspectives on teaching English as a lingua franca. Annu. Rev. Appl. Ling. 24 (1), 209--239.
Selinker, Larry, 1972. Interlanguage. IRAL 10, 209--230.
Shaw, Philip, 2011. Conditions for success in lingua franca interaction. ASp 60, 65--79.
Siegel, Jeff, 2003. Social context. In: Doughty, C.J., Long, M. (Eds.), The Handbook of Second Language Acquisition. Blackwell, Oxford, UK,
pp. 178--224.
138 B. Björkman / Journal of Pragmatics 66 (2014) 122--138

Simpson, Rita C., Briggs, Sarah L., Ovens, Janine, Swales, John M., 2002. The Michigan Corpus of Academic Spoken English. The Regents of
the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI.
Smit, Ute, 2009. Emic evaluations and interactive processes in a classroom community. In: Mauranen, A., Ranta, E. (Eds.), English as a Lingua
Franca: Studies and Findings. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle, pp. 200--225.
Tarone, Elaine, 1977. Conscious communication strategies in interlanguage: a progress report. In: Brown, H.D., Yorio, C.A., Crymes, R.C. (Eds.),
On TESOL ’77. TESOL, Washington, DC, pp. 194--203.
Tarone, Elaine, 1980. Communication strategies, foreigner talk and repair in interlanguage. Lang. Learn. 30, 417--431.
Váradi, Tamás, 1980. Strategies of target language learner communication: message adjustment. In: Paper Presented at the 6th Conference of
the Rumanian-English Linguistics Project, Timisoara, 1973, vol. 18. IRAL, pp. 59--71.
Wagner, Johannes, Firth, Alan, 1997. Communication strategies at work. In: Kasper, G., Kellerman, Eric (Eds.), Communication Strategies:
Psycholinguistic and Sociolinguistic Perspectives in the Applied Linguistics and Language Study Series. Longman, Essex, pp. 323--344.
Williams, Jessica, Inscoe, Rebecca, Tasker, Thomas, 1997. Communication strategies in an interactional context: the mutual achievement of
comprehension. In: Kasper, G., Kellerman, E. (Eds.), Communication Strategies: Psycholinguistic and Sociolinguistic Perspectives in the
Applied Linguistics and Language Study Series. Longman, Essex, pp. 304--322.
Woken, M.D., Swales, John, 1989. Expertise and authority in native-non-native conversations. The need for a variable account. In: Gass, S.,
Madden, C., Preston, D., Selinker, L. (Eds.), Variation in Second Language Acquisition: Discourse and Pragmatics. Multilingual Matters.
Clevedon, UK, pp. 211--227.

Beyza Björkman is an associate senior lecturer at the Department of English, Stockholm University. She has written a PhD thesis, a monograph
and several articles on the use of English as a lingua franca in academic environments. Her other research interests include spoken academic
discourse in general, academic literacy, linguistic equality, language change and language policy. Her most current research focuses on the
pragmatic aspects English as a lingua franca as the medium of education, focusing on polyadic lingua franca speech in student--student
interaction and student--lecturer interaction.