Ownership and maintenance of a language in transnational use. Should we leave our lingua franca alone?

English is a very special language in that it has many more non-native speakers than native speakers, and that it is used in far more settings where there are no native speakers present than in those between or including native speakers. Many of these settings are within contexts of higher education, due to increased transnational student mobility, university teacher mobility and offshore delivery of university education. In this paper it is argued that in discussing norms for international English, an ownership discourse and a maintenance (or cultivation) discourse should be distinguished. Some ideas from public goods theory are introduced that could be applied to an appreciation of international English. Finally, it is argued why even a language in international use needs cultivation.