47VNU Journal of Foreign Studies, Vol 36, No 4 (2020) 47 62 ASSESSING REAL WORLD USE OF ENGLISH AS A LINGUA FRANCA (ELF) A VALIDITY ARGUMENT Sheryl Cooke* British Council, University of Jyväskylä, Finland 989 Beijing West Road, Shanghai, 200041, PR China Received 26 February 2020 Revised 20 March 2020; Accepted 20 July 2020 Abstract Real world use of English involves speakers and listeners from various linguistic backgrounds whose primary goal is mutual comprehensibility and the majority of conv[.]