Analysing multilingual/lingua franca interactions using conversation analysis

A growing number of English as a lingua franca (ELF) researchers use conversation analysis (CA) for analysing interactional data. Yet, CA was originally developed by American sociologists who mainly worked on audio recordings of native English speakers. The transcription conventions ( Jefferson 1983 , 2004 ) that conversation analysts still largely use have been criticised for exoticising non-native speaker talk by promoting the use of eye dialect ( ten Have 2007 ). This chapter discusses the suitability of eye dialect in ELF transcriptions by showing illuminating examples from ELF data. It proposes a modified CA transcription model for multilingual/lingua franca materials that is detailed enough to generate accurate interpretations but easier to follow than eye dialect.