Introduction to "Oral Communication in English: Established Trends, Good Practice(s), and Future Perspectives"

Communicating in English is so widely practised in the international scientific and academic communities worldwide that this language is taken for granted in any national or local context where the first language is not necessarily English. Moreover, this common practice is typified by its very wide variety of users and receivers: both native and non-native speakers with diverse levels of competence in English are required to pursue clear and comprehensible communication in English in their professional or study context of choice in addressing native and non-native speakers of English who are strongly motivated to absorb and assimilate old and new contents in an immediate, effective and efficient way. Oral English is increasingly used as a koiné for study, research and professional purposes, and as an increasingly standardised lingua franca that is mostly spoken as a second language though being the first language of a limited percentage of speakers (Siegel 1985: 359). Nevertheless, as Hymes (1971) had already anticipated, English is actually by no means a koiné, as this would entail it to stabilize and become a primary language. On the contrary, the development of English should be approached within the context of its expansion in contents and roles, and resulting mixture of different varieties. The problem of the effectiveness of oral communication in (academic and non-academic) technical-scientific contexts requires a preliminary statement of 'clarity, understandability and effectiveness' as regards the speakers and listeners we will define as 'English as an International Language users', thus extending the target audience of many of today's international scientific, technical and/or academic English oral texts. To this end, there is an urgent need to take a snapshot of the main difficulties that a speaker or listener (native or non-English speaking) may encounter in approaching international oral scientific contexts (lectures, conferences, debates, dialogues, instructions, explanations and meetings in academic or professional contexts in general). The renowned weakness of the oral English training apparatus in multiple international professional settings is often reported by those who, even after years of uninterrupted study of the language, report lack of success in their performances and the missed attainment or implementation of fixed goals.