Pragmatic strategies in casual multiparty ELF conversations.

With the unprecedented spread of the English language and its new role as a global language, studies on varieties of English have increased enormously. One of the consequences in Europe of this spread is an interest in ELF, English as a Lingua Franca.The role played by English in Europe today is quite unlike the commonly accepted understanding of a lingua franca in that it seems not to simply have a transactional function; studies support the claim that ELF, and ELF Europe within it, ought to be considered a new variety of English. Research into this possible new variety of English has mostly focused on phonology and lexico-grammar, yet a focus on the pragmatics of ELF exchanges may best disclose the real ‘character’ of this variety. Within the broader scope of World Englishes, the Native/non-Native issue and that of intelligibility, through an analysis of two multiparty ELF casual conversations selected from a larger expressly gathered corpus, the paper tries to shed some light on the pragmatic skills of ELF speakers