ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at English as a lingua franca (ELF) in academic contexts from three perspectives: the macro level, the cognitive level and the micro-social level of interaction. In view of the two senses of ‘complexity’, ELF is complex in both senses of the term, that is, both complicated and a complex system. ELF is depicted as a complex system and a complex contact language, a second-order contact between similects. Features that are widely shared across similects may also be especially salient or particularly learnable elements of a given language, reflecting some kind of ‘subjective simplicity’. Speakers’ similects come into contact with each other when they interact in ELF, and the result is a mix of different similects. Continued large-scale ELF interaction may result in structural shifts of balance altering preferences towards more explicit structures, at the expense of more implicit ones such as non-finite or abbreviated clauses.
