ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the concept of identity, and suggests that the account of L1-based identity and pronunciation is inadequate in these times of 'high' or 'late' modernity or postmodernity. In contrast, the ethnographic and political map of an area of the modern world resembles not Kokoschka but, say, Modigliani. Jenkins proposes a 'Lingua Franca Core' (LFC) for pronunciation, divided into essential items which are necessary for intelligibility, and so need to be taught and non-essential items which do not. The LFC is 'grounded in Received Pronunciation (RP) and General American (GA), but focuses only on features that are said to be crucial for intelligibility among Non-Native Speakers of English (NNESs). The LFC identifies four areas in which it is necessary to eliminate error if a speaker's pronunciation is to be intelligible in English as a lingua franca (ELF) communication: individual consonants, consonant clusters, vowels, and nuclear stress placement.
