Today, English has taken on a significant status in the global economy. It is the language adopted in most international business transactions and by international organizations such as the World Bank and the OECD. Given this fact, I invite readers to briefly reflect on the constraints that favor the predominance of a standard contact language for commercial, political, and social relations.

We are facing a knowledge-based economy, called the non-material economy, in which English is a necessary linguistic and communicative skill in production. Therefore, English is considered a means of production in activities such as teleworking and screen-based labor, developed by international companies engaged in producing and manipulating intellectual properties (knowledge-intensive industries), which have risen significantly in recent decades and belong to the third sector of the world economy (ALMEIDA, 2020a, 2020b).

This new global economic system, imbued with new technologies and the spread of electronic media, has made English a transnational language. Consequently, international economic activities today are notoriously mediated by English as the lingua franca of these negotiations.

Lingua franca (or contact language) is a term of Latin origin attributed to a common language for contact and communication between linguistically distinct groups or members of groups for international trade and other political and social interactions. Historically, lingua francas such as Latin, French, and Portuguese arose for commercial, diplomatic, and administrative reasons and as a resource for exchanging information between scientists and other scholars of different nationalities.

The newly established National Common Curriculum (BNCC – BRASIL, 2017) document brings the vision of the English language as a lingua franca. Under this conception, the understanding is that English is detached from the notion of belonging to a particular territory and, consequently, from the typical cultures of specific communities, which legitimize its uses in their local contexts.

Also, according to the BNCC, the English language is no longer that of the “foreigner” from hegemonic countries, whose speakers serve as a model to follow, nor is it a variant of the English language. In this perspective, the uses made of it by speakers spread all over the world, with different linguistic and cultural repertoires, are welcomed and legitimized, which makes it possible, for example, to question the view that the only “correct” English – and to be taught – is that spoken by North-American or British citizens. In this sense, by taking on its status as a lingua franca – a language that materializes in hybrid uses, marked by fluidity and open to the invention of new ways of saying, driven by multilingual speakers and its multicultural characteristics, the English language becomes a symbolic asset for speakers around the world.

Finally, I understand that this is a discussion that needs to take place in all educational institutions now since it addresses emergency issues, which directly reflect on the teaching of English in school classrooms, mainly because it is now a mandatory curriculum component in the final years of elementary school in Paraná and the rest of the country. Thus, I believe it is of fundamental importance to establish dialogues by English language teachers in initial development, in undergraduate courses, and by teachers working in Paraná schools to reflect on the pedagogical implications of teaching English as a lingua franca.

REFERENCES:

ALMEIDA, R.S. Globalização do Inglês: impactos mercadológicos e reflexos na formação de professores no Brasil. São Paulo: Pontes Editores, 2020.

ALMEIDA, R.S. O inglês como língua franca. Opinião. Tribuna do Norte do Paraná, Apucarana, p. 2 – 2, 07 fev. 2020.

BRASIL. Base Nacional Comum Curricular. Ministério da Educação. Brasília-DF, 2017.

IMAGES:

It is available at https://www.unit.br/blog/descubra-a-importancia-do-ingles-para-negocios

It is available at http://basenacionalcomum.mec.gov.br/

It is available at https://www.clickguarulhos.com.br/2018/06/19/inscricoes-para-cursos-gratuitos-de-ingles-espanhol-frances-e-outros-sao-abertas/