Cultures of English as a Lingua Franca

This article brought up a lot of debateable topics; the one that I focused on is the relationship between language and culture.  Are they related? Can the two be separated?  In the first week of class, we talked about how there is no set definition of what culture is.  On page 570, Baker writes that "language both embodies and creates cultural reality."  Go to any country, even here in the United States, and you will see how integrated the two terms really are.  Language is a part of culture; culture is a part of language.  They cannot be separated and go hand in hand.  So what does this information have to do with English as a lingua franca?  Since there are so many different varieties of ENglish and so many different cultures that have English as an L1.  "learners of English are not learning to join a single language community, but are shuttling between communities, between local and global." (574).  In the interviews conducted in this study, several Thai students were set up with other students and researchers.  In Extract 4, Oy was talking about how she felt when she spoke English.  SHe said "in English, you can express yourself more...English is a kind of message containing something that will make other people more open" (580).  The other participant, Nami, talked about how she was influenced by English speaking norms and how she learned to adapt them so they suited her whenever she needed them.  From this study, we learned that the "participants do seem to view ELF as a vehicle for expressing and perhaps creating cultures and identifications" (586).  These aprticipants help us to understand how connected language and culture are.  "Language can never be culturally neutral."
There are so many different reasons for why people learn English. However, to "the learners of English as a lingua franca, the ability to negotiate, mediate, and adapt to emerging communicative practices is important." (p. 588).