Introduction The global spread of English has brought English to new un-English sociolinguistic and sociocultural contexts. With the development of new norms in these sociolinguistic contexts the current discussions have begun to revolve around the issues of English language standards and defining proficiency in the English language. While some (Quirk, 1985) argue that a single standard English (American or British English should be promoted the whole world over, others (e.g. Kachru, 1985) argue that new standard Englishes have arised in new sociolinguistic and sociocultural contexts and these sociolinguistic reality of English should be recognized. While the former defines proficiency in terms of the native speaker, the latter argues that "the native speaker is not always a valid yardstick for the global uses of English (Kachru, 1992, p.358) and focuses on non-natives' proficiency in the light of bilingualism or multilingualism. The discussions on the issues of standards and proficiency, however, are not restricted to these two opposing camps but extend to several other models of English labed by different terminologies such as "English as a Lingua Franca" (enkins, 2000.2006: