SERBIAN ENGLISH THROUGH THE LENS OF THE ELF RESEARCH PARADIGM

Abstract

Linguists around the world have been researching international English for a long time, forming three paradigms of thought and research – English as an International Language (EIL), World English (WE) and English as a Lingua Franca (ELF). The aim of this paper is to present a review of the research conducted so far regarding English in Serbia and, thus, to offer insight into the inner workings of Serbian English, all in the light of ELF research. Bearing in mind that research within the ELF paradigm framework is not carried out often in Serbia, all the studies presented in this paper view the Serbian English variety as learners’ language. The elimination of contrastive studies was taken as the basic criterion for literature selection, which made it possible to compare the Serbian linguists’ studies with the ELF paradigm framework. Studies within the scope of phonetics/phonology and pragmatics were found. As regards to phonetics and phonology, papers of only two authors fit in with the established criterion. The findings of their studies confirm that Serbian English speakers have acquired the phonetic features necessary for international communication, i.e. the ELF phonetic core. Nonetheless, it was not possible to compare Serbian English pragmatic studies with ELF research – ELF studies involve spoken corpora, while Serbian English studies encompass questionnaires and interviews. Therefore, there is much to be discovered about the Serbian variety of English. Conducting further research into Serbian English within the ELF paradigm would allow comparison with ELF standards and unveil those linguistic elements which students in Serbia need to acquire in order to participate in international communication more efficiently.