DERIVATIVE, DEFICIENT OR (COHERENTLY) DEFORMED? EXPLORING EXISTENTIALIST INSIGHTS INTO FOREIGN-LANGUAGE PEDAGOGY
DERIVATIVE, DEFICIENT OR (COHERENTLY) DEFORMED? EXPLORING EXISTENTIALIST INSIGHTS INTO FOREIGN-LANGUAGE PEDAGOGY

Summary/Abstract: The paper resorts to the phenomenological framework developed by Maurice Merleau-Ponty to offer a new perspective on the recent changes in the field of foreign-language teaching. It conceptualizes the shift from EFL (English as a Foreign Language) to ELF (English as a Lingua Franca) as a progression of four waves of dissatisfaction with the “native-speaker benchmark” for assessing learner production, accompanied by a growing recognition of the fluid and situational (emergent) character of non-native discourse. Drawing upon the phenomenological concepts of parole parlée, parole parlante, sedimentation and coherent deformation the paper argues that an excessively narrow focus on the sedimentation of ELF’s recurrent structural and lexical patterns fails to account for the pre-institutionalised creativity of authentic ELF exchanges. To remedy the situation, foreign-language education should shift towards actively training learners in interactional repair strategies, mutual negotiation, lexico-grammatical simplification techniques and emergent communicative flexibility.

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