Abstract
As repeatedly pointed out recently, with the acceleration of globalization English is increasingly used by people from different lingua cultural backgrounds as a lingua franca (ELF) often as the only option in that specific interaction (Seidlhofer, 2011; Widdowson, 2013). After briefly introducing what is happening in the use of English, or rather ELF, the world over, this paper specifically focuses on the use of English in the Japanese context from both academic and business perspectives by introducing some findings from the author and her colleagues’ on-going research. The paper then discusses a discrepancy still often observed between the realities of language use and pedagogy. Finally, implications of the findings for language pedagogy are discussed.
