Negotiating Lingua Francas

This work was originally written as a PhD thesis at University of Southampton. It is inspired by The Butterfly Effect Theories to investigate lingua franca phenomena as complex adaptive systems within other complex adaptive systems. It focuses on English as a lingua franca and highlights Arabic as a lingua franca as well. This study’s large-scale surveys and interviews are aimed to explore users’ (in)tolerance towards misalignment with standard and native language usages and how their positions relate to their reported language practices, beliefs, attitudes, motives, identity management, ideologies, religions, context, and time. As a butterfly fapping its wings may cause a hurricane, this work shows how any small change in any small part, especially in contextual and temporal dimensions, has the power to set off a string of escalating changes in lingua franca and transcultural interactions.