Korean tourists’ perceptions of English as a lingua franca (ELF): a phenomenological approach

ABSTRACT This paper explores tourists’ perceptions of English as a lingua franca (ELF) to understand the ELF phenomenon in tourist destinations by analyzing in-depth interviews with 15 Korean tourists from a phenomenological approach. The findings show that participants had awareness of the growing role of ELF in tourism and perceived English use in destinations as an opportunity for selfdevelopment and the index of social development while the dominance of English was recognized as unequal linguistic power relations such as linguistic imperialism. This study provides implications for tourist destination management and marketing on language-related issues to satisfy and attract more tourists.