Turkish EFL Learners’ Attitudes towards ELF and Standard English at Tertiary Level
Abstract
In recent years, the term “English as a Lingua Franca” has been employed to indicate a way of communication in English between speakers with different native languages. When English became so widespread, different Englishes emerged in different parts of the world, and this brought up the question of whether there should be a Standard English or not. The purpose of this descriptive research study is to explore both Turkish EFL students’ perceptions on English as a Lingua Franca and how their attitudes are shaped in terms of Standard English. The study was conducted with 173 English tertiary level students taking one-year intensive language course in school of foreign languages at two state universities. An online questionnaire was used in the study, which made it possible to collect both quantitative and qualitative data. In the analysis procedure, descriptive statistics were used for the first research question and for the second research question; responses to the open-ended questions were analyzed through content analysis to obtain in depth the understanding of the views of participants. The results show that students are aware of the position and the value of English as a common language and that students have positive attitudes towards English.
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References
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