Signum: Estudos da Linguagem (Jun 2014)
STUDIES ON ENGLISH AS A LINGUA FRANCA IN BRAZIL (2005-2012): A QUALITATIVE METASYNTHESIS
Abstract
This work aims at presenting an overview of studies focusing on English as a global lingua franca published in Brazil between 2005-2012. The following sources were scrutinized: CAPES Database of Theses, Scholar Google and highly qualified Brazilian journals of Languages/Applied Linguistics using the key terms: English as a lingua franca, English as a global language, English as an international language and English as a multinational language. Additionally, a specific book was included, totalling 67 studies. Through a systematic literature review and a qualitative metasynthesis of the studies (SARNIGHAUSEN, 2011), we concluded that in the majority of the studies the lingua franca concept is understood as a context of language use, mainly, but not exclusively, between non-native speakers of English. The themes suggest the predominance of pedagogical concerns. However, in the absence of corpus-based investigations which include Brazilians, teacher education programs have to rely on essay based literature, which predominates in our country.
