Page 225 - Handbooks of Applied Linguistics Communication Competence Language and Communication Problems Practical Solutions

Lingua franca communication in multiethnic contexts 203

municate by radio in clear and simple English with people whose native lan-
guage was not English.” 4
All the above forms of English clearly classify as what Hüllen (1992) has
called “languages of communication” (Kommunikationssprachen) as opposed
to “languages of identification” (Identifikationssprachen). As a language of
communication, in Hüllen’s terms, a language is used as a culture-free code, and
its individual linguistic signs perform referential functions only (Hüllen 1992:
305). Several authors (e.g. Knapp 1987, 1991, or Lesnyák 2004) hold that “lan-
guage use in lingua franca situations is limited to functional areas, thus the only
demands on speakers are those of intelligibility and function” (Lesnyák 2004:
20). But recently, there has been some debate about whether a language used as
a lingua franca can also serve expressive purposes, or, in Hüllen’s terms,
whether it qualifies as a language of identification under certain circumstances.
Given the extended function of lingua francas, one can hardly hold that lin-
gua franca communication is a culture-free form of interaction. From within the
concept of culture as mutually created through interaction (Sherzer 1987), cul-
ture in lingua franca communication has been seen as disursively constructed
and as having a hybrid character resulting from the different participants’ con-
tributing towards it. For the lingua franca English, Hüllen (1982: 86) estimates
that interaction in this language will involve the emergence of secondary speech
communities (as opposed to macro-societal speech communities), characterized
by their own temporary communicative conventions, when he assumes the fol-
lowing: “With every Italian and German, Dutch and Frenchman who uses Eng-
lish as a mediating language, there arises a unique and genuine speech com-
munity where the roles and the rules of mutual understanding have to first be
established.” Hüllen seems to conceive of an inter-community which develops a
form of inter-culture of its own, at least with respect to its communicative con-
ventions (see Corder and Meyerhoff in this volume). This idea of an “inter” or
“third” culture has occupied research in different frameworks for the last two
decades or so (e.g. Koole and ten Thije 1994). However, there is as yet no con-
clusive evidence for the establishment and existence of such a third culture and
how it surfaces in the verbal behavior of lingua franca users.

2.2. Lingua francas for expressive purposes

The idea that any language, and thus also a language used as a lingua franca,
could be culture-free is one which we can hardly imagine if the language is not
only used in contexts such as the ones just mentioned above. Increased mi-
gration, both compulsory and voluntary, has resulted in an incline of those con-
texts in which the use of a lingua franca extends well beyond the transactional
function of using a language. Migration does not only result in trade and inter-
national business but also in interpersonal relations.