English as a lingua franca used at international meetings

The paper deals with the use of English as a lingua franca. It concentrates on the environment of international meetings where English is used as a lingua franca. The aim of the research conducted through a survey of members of a NATO working group is to find out how native and non-native speakers feel about English used as a lingua franca during international meetings and how these two groups of speakers see each other in multinational interaction from the point of view of linguistics. The sections dealing with non-native speakers concentrate on the level of knowledge of English and on how native speakers cope with the English used during the meetings. The sections dealing with the views of English native speakers should establish the approach they take towards mistakes made by non-native speakers, whether native speakers should adjust the way they speak at international meetings and how they generally view the fact that their mother tongue is used all around the world.