ABSTRACT
In recent years, the exponential growth in the international use of English has thrown into question the status of native speaker norms in contemporary English language teaching. The specific question that has arisen is, ‘In a world where English is increasingly spoken by non-native speakers, is it possible or desirable for native speaker norms to be the target for English language learners?’ The debate has been particularly intense in the field of pronunciation teaching, arguably because pronunciation is such an overt emblem of identity. An early proposal for a move away from native speaker norms in English language teaching (ELT) was Jenkins’s (1998) proposal for a lingua franca core (LFC), which argued for a pedagogic focus on sounds central to international communication rather than the unfocused inclusion of the full inventory of phonological features (e.g. consonant and vowel sounds) used by native speakers. It was a seminal contribution to the debate and a rallying cry for those proposing a shift away from native speaker norms on sociocultural grounds. Critics, however, have argued that the LFC represents an impoverished syllabus for pronunciation learning and may fail to meet learners’ aspirations.This chapter reviews the main lines of the debate regarding the varying pronunciation needs of learners within the diverse settings of the English-speaking world before focusing on a specific proposal to meet these needs: the LFC. The chapter then reviews the empirical studies that have examined both learners’ and teachers’ attitudes concerning the LFC. The chapter also reviews studies that have identified the key pronunciation features that seem to affect intelligibility in international communication. Finally, the chapter outlines how an ELT pronunciation syllabus might be framed that reflects both a need for realistic goals and a need to acknowledge learners’ own aspirations. The concluding argument is that context, choice and consultation are key factors in addressing the question of which features of English pronunciation to teach and learn.
