Research directions in medical English as a lingua franca (MELF)

Abstract This article asserts that medical English as a lingua franca (MELF) represents an important direction for future research in ELF. The flow of health care workers across international borders and the role of English as the dominant language of international communication and medicine position MELF interactions as increasingly common in medical contexts worldwide. Research is called for with respect to the relationship of MELF to ELF, and specifically whether ELF linguistic features and pragmatic strategies are incorporated in medical contexts, where communicative immediacy and precision figure centrally. Since criticisms of ELF research include its relatively narrow contexts for study (to date mostly European and on a lesser scale East Asian) and its limited domains (higher education and business), MELF presents an opportunity to expand the research scope of ELF considerably. While suggesting that migrant destinations like the states of the Gulf Cooperation Council represent especially relevant sites for researching MELF, the article argues that a definition of ELF that includes native speaker interactions allows for the possibility of MELF research where English is considered a dominant native language. Concerns over the effect of miscommunication on patient safety are well researched in health care disciplines, and so a fuller understanding of MELF may assist in the delivery of safe and effective patient care within the linguistic complexity characterizing health care.