English is a language at the centre of research into language contact, because its global spread has resulted in contact with an enormous variety of different languages worldwide, leading to the creation of many new varieties of English, including second language varieties, and also pidgins and creoles. This book takes an original look at what happens when speakers of these different varieties interact with one another. Using her own rich fieldwork data from diverse international and South African contexts, Meierkord proposes an innovative approach to how Englishes merge and blend in such interactions, creating further new forms of English and further changes to the language. Through skilful analyses and descriptions, the book provides fascinating insights into where and who the users of English as a lingua franca are and what English then looks like at the levels of phonetics, morphosyntax, the lexicon and discourse.

'… a very welcome addition to our reference selves; it nicely complements the comprehensive descriptive four volume series Varieties of English (by Mouton de Gruyter, 2008) or the more theoretical Postcolonial Englishes (Schneider, 2007, also by Cambridge University Press); and it shows again the great progress that has been made in this sub-discipline over the past 30 years.' Archiv

Christiane Meierkord is Chair Professor of English Linguistics in the English Department at Ruhr-University Bochum, Germany.