ABSTRACT
Drawing on data from the Asian Corpus of English (ACE), a corpus of English as a lingua franca (ELT) use among Asian multilinguals, the majority of whom are from Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries, this chapter illustrates how English is being shaped and adapted by Asian multilinguals, both linguistically and culturally. The chapter focuses on the use or non-use of a selection of non-standard morpho-syntactic forms and whether or not their use gives rise to problems in communication. It discusses the role of the speaker's first language in terms of both code-mixing and linguistic transfer. The chapter also focuses on how speakers represent their own culture(s) and the cultures of the region in their use of English. It concludes with suggestions for ELT pedagogy and policy. A major focus of the ELT curriculum could be to inform the students about the linguistic, cultural and religious diversity of ASEAN.
