ABSTRACT
Lingua franca economies are inherently more elitist than translation economies with implications for the distribution of material and symbolic wealth. The predominance of second-language users over native speakers has had important implications for the way in which English is conceptualized for the purposes of language policy, education and translation. The English as a Lingua Franca model demoted the native speaker even further by advocating that non-native speaker English should be recognized as a legitimate variety in its own right, amenable to description and codification. The classic distinctions between original/translation and author/translator have also been undermined by developments in areas of translation where English has traditionally been used as a pivot language. English has been particularly undermined in the context of user-generated translation of Japanese popular culture. In many cases the amateur forms have emerged precisely to improve on heavily edited English versions and the translations that are based on them.
