ABSTRACT
Over its (still quite brief) history, ELF research, as well as resistance to it, has been much concerned with the theoretical and practical issue of how the conceptualization of ELF relates to Standard English (StE), and to standard language ideology more generally. The unprecedented spread of ‘English’ in the wake of globalization has brought up for reconsideration many basic and well-established assumptions about language and languages: assumptions about the stability and distinctiveness of linguistic systems, about monolingual norms and communal identity and the nature of native speaker competence, all of which are intricately bound up with notions of the standard language.
