Hi Takehiko,

Thank you for the VOICE reference - it certainly has the potential to be a
valuable resource, but what a shame they haven't included phonetic detail. Do
you know why? I couldn't find their rationale for that. They use the IPA for
some features (e.g. onomatapoeia), so it's not because of readability...

Regarding your point about some features of the Lingua Franca core being
impractical - I agree absolutely. The ELF core is an interesting theoretical
exercise, but can't be put into practice. For example, the idea that the English
dental fricatives can be 'mispronounced' without leading to unintelligibility.
This is probably true in most cases, but what are teachers supposed to do about
it? Depending on a speaker's L1, the 'mispronounced' versions could be just
about anything that's [+anterior, -continuant]. If ELF teachers in each country
around the world were to tell their students that different phonemes can be
substituted for English 'th', wouldn't that just build more complexity into the
system?

Also, I may have misunderstood their research agenda here, but some of the ELF
argument seems to be an attempt to apply techniques of generative phonology. It
looks like they're trying to treat the different varieties of English as
instances of 'surface variation' from which they'll try to derive the /UR/, ie.
a phonemic inventory which will be the 'Lingua Franca core.' If that is their
goal, it's impossible. You can't derive one underlying 'phoneme' from thousands
of 'allophones.' Or have I misunderstood what they're trying to do?

By the way, Takehiko, who and what do you teach at Chuo university? If you teach
future English teachers, I'd love to hear your opinions on the MEXT 'Action
Plan'; although I realize that's not really a PronSIG topic!

Steph