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STUDY ONE
for the family. Those who had to use English mentioned several different situ¬
ations. The majority of the participants reported that they had to use English
when going shopping; Lujza, for instance, claimed that having learned English
was useful when she had to “go shopping and buy some products.” Lina also
stated that whenever she was abroad, she had to buy tickets for public transport
and use English to communicate with locals using the English language, which
again resonates with the literature emphasizing the lingua franca nature of
the English language (Crystal 2003, De Wilde et al. 2019, Djigunovic 2018,
Sauer—Ellis 2019, Sayer—Ban 2014, Sundqvist—Sylvén 2014, Sylven-Sundgvist
2012).
Students also used English when they had to ask for information or give
information to other people. Valentina, for instance, pointed out that:
If we wanted to go somewhere, and my sibling was not there, I was able to ask how
to get from point A to point B, and if we had a question about something, I could
ask for information.
This is further reinforced by Lucas, who stated that “there is always some¬
body who can help you in English”. He also gave an account of his family trip
to Greece when he wanted to purchase a bracelet.
In Greece, I had to tell a street vendor selling bracelets that Iam not going to spend
10€ on a bracelet, but he... was from Nigeria, so he spoke good English, that’s why I
could tell him I’m not going to give him 10€. [...] [K]nowing English was very useful
since it was his mother tongue, I could make it clear that he is not getting 10€.
It is clear from the accounts of the students who had to use English abroad
that speaking English is indeed a valuable asset as it can help one get from A
to B or even find a solution in different situations, even when one of the inter¬
locutors has difficulties expressing themselves in English. Lucas stated,
Thad to talk to a half-French, half-English gentleman, who had to resort to gestures
to make himself understood. But it definitely helped that I understood even a little
bit of English. However, he just suddenly switched to French in the middle of the
sentence multiple times.
Participants seem to use the English language quite a few times when abroad
as, in most cases, it is the only common ground in intercultural communica¬
tion, and they also seem to realize the importance and global dominance of
the English language, which reinforces the findings of previous research car¬
ried out in the Hungarian context (cf. Csizér—Lukacs 2010).