Abstract As ELF scholars warn us against treating linguistic productions of “non-native” English speakers as “errors” when they are sociolinguistically driven variation, it is necessary to investigate how speakers in Expanding Circle settings conceptualise, label and experience such uses themselves. This paper reports a qualitative study of the metalinguistic and evaluative practices of university students in Chile, Mexico and Spain. It explores how they ascribe (un)desirable meanings to different ways of speaking English as an additional language (i. e. indexical relations), whether these symbolic associations are seen to influence students’ own linguistic use, and the extent to which such indexical relations are theorised as inherent in language form or as symbolic and negotiable (i. e. metasemiotic awareness). The analysis of more than 53 hours of elicited interview talk reveals a complex web of available social meaning relations and multidirectional accounts of the effects that such meanings have on students’ linguistic and semiotic practices. Although many students display awareness of the contextual variability of social meaning-making processes (Coupland. 2007. Style: Language variation and identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), only a minority were able to directly challenge dominant indexical associations and stereotypical trait attributions. The findings underscore the need for English language teachers to understand their students’ semiotic goals and interpretative repertoires, firstly to avoid discriminating against sociolinguistically motivated variation in students’ English use and secondly, to provide them with additional tools to negotiate their position as speakers of English as an additional language. The paper also reflects on the implications that these findings have for how we explain variation and attitudinal ambivalence in ELF research.

中文翻译：

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“说不好话更时尚”：来自西班牙语国家的英语用户的索引性和后代意识

摘要当ELF学者警告我们不要将以英语为母语的非母语人士的语言作品当是由社会语言驱动的变异形式视为“错误”时，有必要研究Expanding Circle环境中的演讲者如何概念化，标注和体验此类用法。本文对智利，墨西哥和西班牙的大学生的语言学和评估实践进行了定性研究。它探讨了他们如何将（不想要的）含义归因于将英语作为另一种语言（即索引关系）的不同表达方式，这些符号联想是否被视为影响学生自己的语言使用以及这种索引关系的理论化程度语言形式固有的或象征性的和可谈判的（即后代符号意识）。对超过53个小时的访谈谈话进行的分析揭示了一个复杂的网络，其中包含可用的社会意义关系以及这些意义对学生的语言和符号学实践的影响的多方向说明。尽管许多学生表现出对社会意义形成过程的上下文可变性的意识（Coupland。2007。风格：语言变异和身份。剑桥：剑桥大学出版社），但只有少数人能够直接挑战占主导地位的索引联想和定型特质归因。研究结果突显了英语教师需要了解学生的符号目标和解释性表述，首先是避免歧视学生使用英语时出于社会语言动机的差异，其次，为他们提供其他工具，以谈判他们作为英语作为另一种语言的发言者的地位。本文还反思了这些发现对我们如何解释ELF研究中的变异和态度矛盾的含义。