Understanding English as a Lingua Franca

In Understanding English as a Lingua Franca, Barbara Seidlhofer deals with the linguistic implications of globalization in the Expanding Circle (Kachru 1992) viewed from a transformationalist perspective, as opposed to one that is hyperglobalist. As such, globalization is taken as the driving force behind social, economic, and political changes in the local setting, often to the benefit of its inhabitants. It need not be seen as the imposition of the global on to the local, leading to linguistic imperialism and cultural homogenization in the way hyperglobalists tend to view it (for example Phillipson 1992). From a transformationalist viewpoint, English is perceived as an international medium of…