Investigating ELF group membership: a case study focusing on The Baltic Times

The growth of the use of English as the world’s primary language for international communication has obviously been continuing for several decades. The number of speakers keeps expanding, with native speakers’ of the ‘core’ varieties of British and American English far outnumbered by bilingual speakers. Whether such developments are desirable has been much debated, as have the possible consequences of this unprecedented spread of one language. A global language in contact with a notable proportion of the world’s languages cannot remain intact. All speakers, including native speakers will have to accommodate to other emerging varieties through which individuality or nationality can be expressed.