Mauranen, Anna: Exploring ELF: Academic English shaped by non-native speakers, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2012; ISBN: 978-0521-17752-8

This book could be seen as an early representative of a mature phase of ELF studies,in which the validity of ELF usage is well enough established for the focus tobe on dispassionate investigation rather than advocacy. It is based on the millionwordHelsinki ELFA corpus of academic speech in English produced (mainly) byspeakers with a different home language. The author’s wide reading, clear vision,and rational approach make it an exceptionally valuable book, not only withinELF studies but in terms of a number of general issues raised. Mauranen sets thediscussion of SLU (second language use) in the context of established studiesof translation studies, second language acquisition, spoken language, languagechange, and language processing and presents empirical findings with implicationsfor all these areas and for language teaching