ABSTRACT
It has become a truism to say that the extent to which English is now used as a lingua franca is unprecedented in that it has become an all-pervasive feature of a globalized world. But although the extent of its use is unprecedented, it is, of course, by no means the only example of a language that, originally confined to and defined by a relatively small community of users, has spread beyond its borders to become an international means of communication. In this respect, it can be said that ELF is a new phenomenon in degree but not in kind. And as with other languages, the extension into lingua franca use quite naturally involves variation and change as the language is adapted to meet the needs of different communicative contexts and purposes. The study of ELF is essentially the study of adaptive variation and under what conditions this is activated. As such, it too has its precedents, for the study of linguistic variation has long been central to sociolinguistic enquiry.
