ACCOMMODATING TOWARD YOUR AUDIENCE Do Native Speakers of English Know How to Accommodate Their Communication Strategies Toward Nonnative Speakers of English? Emma Sweeney Zhu Hua Birkbeck, University of London, UK The study seeks to add to the current debate on English as a lingua franca by analyzing the role of the native speakers of English in intercultural business negotiations and to what extent they effectively accommodate lingua franca speakers. The data, gathered from a sample of 14 native English speakers and 13 nonnative English speakers, consist of interactions collected through a discourse completion task and a short questionnaire. The results showed that the native speakers in this sample used a wider range of linguistic devices than the nonnative speakers. The majority of the native speakers attempted to accommodate nonnative speakers, but there was significant variation in the way that individual partici- pants chose their strategies and approached accommodation. The most striking finding was the imbal- ance between the native speakers’ understanding of the issues of intercultural communication and their inability to effectively accommodate nonnative speakers. The implications are discussed. Keywords: English as a lingua franca; communication accommodation; business interactions; intercultural communication; negotiation AN OVERVIEW OF ENGLISH AS A LINGUA FRANCA (ELF) COMMUNICATION IN INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS INTERACTIONS English is globally recognized as the language of international business communication. However, its position and its nature could be dramatically Emma Sweeney is a PhD student at Birkbeck College, University of London. Her main research interest is the use of English as a lingua franca in intercultural business interactions. Zhu Hua is a reader in Applied Linguistics and Communication at Birkbeck College, University of London. Her main research interests include speech and language development and disorders of children (especially children who are speaking languages other than English), pragmatics, conversation analysis and cross-cultural communication. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Emma Sweeney, Birkbeck, University of London, Department of Applied Linguistics and Communication, 43 Gordon Square, London, U.K; e-mail:emma_sw@fastmail.fm. Journal of Business Communication, Volume X, Number X, Month XXXX xx-xx DOI: 10.1177/0021943610377308 © 2010 by the Association for Business Communication