English as a lingua franca English as a lingua franca English as a lingua franca (ELF) is the use of the English language as "a common means of communication for speakers of different first languages". ELF is also "defined functionally by its use in intercultural communication rather than formally by its reference to native-speaker norms" whereas English as a foreign language aims at meeting native speaker norms and gives prominence to native speaker cultural aspects. While lingua francas have been used for centuries, what makes ELF a novel phenomenon is the extent to which it is used – both functionally and geographically. A typical ELF
Communication protocol how it is to be implemented. Communication protocols have to be agreed upon by the parties involved. To reach agreement, a protocol may be developed into a technical standard. A programming language describes the same for computations, so there is a close analogy between protocols and programming languages: "protocols are to communication what programming languages are to computations". Multiple protocols often describe different aspects of a single communication. A group of protocols designed to work together are known as a protocol suite; when implemented in software they are a protocol stack. Internet communication protocols are published by the Internet Engineering