The Second International Conference of English as a Lingua Franca Event

A year is a long time in a field as dynamic and fast-moving as English as a Linga Franca (ELF). Even in the few months since the First International ELF Conference in Helsinki last March, there have been all kinds of exciting developments in ELF research, and we can expect a lot more by the time of the second ELF conference in April 2009.

There is an impressive line-up of plenary speakers: the two key ELF corpus compilers, Professor Barbara Seidlhofer (University of Vienna), Director of VOICE and Professor Anna Mauranen (University of Helsinki), Director of the ELFA Corpus, along with Professor Henry Widdowson (University of Vienna), who has been associated with, and inspired, ELF research from the start.

These three plenary speakers will be joined in a panel discussion on the final day of the conference by by two other key figures in ELF research: Dr Alan Firth (University of Newcastle) and Professor Andy Kirkpatrick (Hong Kong Institute of Education), who will chair the discussion.

Alongside the large events will be an impressive line-up of individual papers and colloquia given by ELF researchers from around the world.

The Southampton conference will be held on a single, easily accessible site, which will provide abundant social/networking opportunities. Because all lunches and dinners (including the conference dinner) are included in the registration fee, you will have more opportunity than is often possible at conferences to meet and talk with ELF researchers you already know but rarely have the chance to speak face-to-face with, and to make contact with people who, until now, you have only known by name. There will also be seminar rooms available on the afternoon after the formal end of the conference, for use by groups of researchers who want to meet together to develop ideas and/or establish more formal links.

We anticipate that this conference will be an important opportunity for existing ELF researchers to present their own recent work, find out about that of others, make new contacts and develop existing ones. It will also be the perfect place for those new to the field of ELF, and who would like to know more, to learn about it from the many people directly involved.