Express-ability in ELF communication

Abstract

Abstract:In ELF research, ample evidence has been collected to show that communication in (dialogic) ELF interactions works and that it does so in intriguingly creative ways. In a questionnaire survey and an in-depth interview study, simultaneous conference interpreters present a less optimistic view with regard to (monologic) mediated multilingual settings, which are increasingly shaped by a growing number of non-native English-speaking participants. Moreover, the interpreters put the adverse effects of ELF speaker output on their cognitive processing down to the speakers' restricted power of expression. This is paralleled by empirical evidence from ELF speakers in TELF (the Tübingen English as a Lingua Franca corpus and database), who put into perspective their general feeling that they can cope in ELF interactions (which is in line with the ELF study findings mentioned above) by voicing dissatisfaction with their restricted capacity of expressing what they want to convey with the required or desired degree of precision.In a theoretical discussion, the Express-ability Principle is introduced to capture the nature of the human effort for expression (complementary to Bartlett's effort after meaning). In the subsequent presentation, sociocultural and psycholinguistic research sheds light on express-ability in the context of ELF by applying Slobin's Thinking for Speaking (TFS) hypothesis to second-language contexts. It reveals the interface between verbal (L1) thinking and externalized (L2) speech and explains expression-related problems in terms of transfer effects in connection with age of acquisition and linguistic environment. This directs further ELF research into the nature of express-ability towards an examination of production processes, developmental and procedural aspects in early and late bilingual ELF speakers, a shared languages benefit to compensate for cross-linguistic transfer and the (relative) effectiveness of unmediated and mediated ELF communication.Keywords: English as a lingua franca (ELF); conference interpreters; expressability principle; Thinking-for-Speaking (TFS); early and late bilingual ELF speakers; shared languages benefit. * I should like to thank Robert DeKeyser, Kurt Kohn, Anna Mauranen, Tim McNamara, and Barbara Seidlhofer for mind-opening comments in personal communication and the two anonymous reviewers for comments that advanced my argument. Michaela Albl-Mikasa'Express-ability' in der ELF-Kommunikation Zusammenfassung: Eine Umfrage unter professionellen Konferenzdolmetschern sowie Interviews mit diesen Dolmetschern und mit ELF-Sprechern aus dem TELFKorpus verweisen auf einen Widerspruch zwischen dem allgemeinen Eindruck von ELF-Sprechern, dass sie in der Kommunikation zurechtkommen (was Forschungsergebnissen eines strategischen Funktionierens in ELF-Interaktionen entspricht) und ihrer Unzufriedenheit mit den eigenen eingeschränkten Ausdrucksmöglichkeiten (die Dolmetscher wiederum als Verarbeitungshindernisse erleben). Mit der Einführung des "express-ability principle" lässt s...

The imaginary invalid. Conference interpreters and English as a lingua franca

“…They claim that the ELF speakers’ restricted ability to make explicit exactly what they want to convey and their insufficiency at carrying through their line of argumentation (cf. Albl‐Mikasa ) poses problems to ELF communication in general, regardless of interpreter‐mediated processing conditions. As discussed above, the interpreters’ position is not only arguable, but ELF researchers may even find interpreters are a welcome test case because of their intense confrontation with ELF usage.…”

“…According to the report by one of Germany's top conference interpreter team organizers (in personal communication), they have, in fact, come to take into account not only the conference languages, but also the speakers’ L1s in contracting interpreters. For the interpreters, what I termed the “shared languages benefit” (Albl‐Mikasa : 105) is a fact of their everyday working life and the (German speaking) interpreters in the interviews felt strongly that colleagues having to interpret (German) ELF speakers into European languages (other than German), but do not know German, often had a very hard time.…”

“…In the questionnaire survey, they detail the reasons why 69% of them prefer to interpret the input of native English speakers in the following way: their word flow; clearer, more logical and more differentiated argumentation; deliberate and purposeful use of concepts and terms; more natural way of putting things or ability to get their message across made it easier for the interpreters to follow what speakers were getting at and allowed for fundamental interpreter processes such as anticipation and inferencing (Albl‐Mikasa : 135). From the interpreters’ perspective it is ELF speakers’ restricted “express‐ability” (Albl‐Mikasa ) that affects their work.…”

“…Retrospective questioning of the participants in the ELF communication settings, by contrast, might find instead that they are less effective and less satisfactory from the point of view of the interlocutors’ ability to express what they intend to say, i.e. to cast into expression conceptual thought and propositional meaning (see the psycholinguistic approach to express‐ability in Albl‐Mikasa ). Consequently, what looks like successful communication in analyses of transcribed data could be less so in the concrete setting of the wider, authentic situation.…”

ELF speakers’ restricted power of expression

“…As a result, in a number of qualitative statements to open questions, the interpreters expressed that job satisfaction was on the decline (2010: 141). Furthermore, the restricted power of expression on the part of ELF speakers was identified as a major trouble spot (see Albl-Mikasa 2013a).…”