The relocation of English

Recent debate on the nature of English as a Lingua Franca has highlighted the momentous importance that this field of study has. The differences in point of view expressed are underpinned by mutual respect and by a shared fundamental notion: English is not the exclusive property of a few speech communities. This notion generates a sense of urgency as far as a shift in current ELT paradigms is concerned. This paper first explores and poses some questions about some of the core issues inherent to ELF and then proceeds to suggest that an excessive amount of emphasis has perhaps been devoted to English as “code”. This observation is based on the idea that English is, fundamentally, from many points of view, a social construct and it is therefore on the IDEA of English that more attention could be devoted, in order to push the construct itself towards a conceptual relocation of English, from its tenacious Anglosaxon roots towards a truly shared worldwide ownership of this language.