English as a working language in a Transnational Education environment in China: ELF from the angle of situated and cooperative cognition

The growing internationalization of education over the past two decades, often with a focus on Transnational Education, together with increased acceptance of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF), especially in university contexts, has resulted in a growing body of work that has informed English language learning and teaching. Whilst much of the research is within the area of language learning within ELF contexts, this paper is focused on ELF as a working language within the university environment. To frame the discussion, the paper first introduces the context of the research site and its wider context within China. It then goes on to describe the study, which looks at whether communicative success takes place in the Transnational setting through focusing on an analysis of committee meetings, chosen as they play a central role in providing a framework for decision-making with regard to policy in the institution being studied. Concentrating on two committee meetings, the study uses participant observation research methods to gain a detailed insight into how the committees operate from the perspective and role of the committee secretary, an ELF speaker in each case, highlighting the resources, both linguistic and otherwise, that the committee secretary draws on to fulfill her role. The paper considers what impact this has on communicative success being achieved, before concluding that language problems may be offset by collaborative, co-constructed and supportive behavior, going beyond the interactions that ELF researchers usually concentrate on. Finally, the paper suggests that further analysis of the corpus of data from the study will add to our understanding of the process of notes and minute-taking in these ELF environments, as it will allow the influencing factors to be identified.