The article discusses the current changing of linguistic norms in English as a lingua franca of global communication nowadays. It aims at both determining the causes of language deviations and analyzing language errors as well as their impact on the effectiveness of the English language communication. Based on the analysis of abundant empirical material, we prove that language innovations are caused by the immanent structural, functional, and pragmatic variability / instability of the English language; they are also associated with cognitive and sociocultural evolution. The research methodology includes: a corpus-based analysis of speech errors; interpretative, context and discourse analyses of the sources of language errors, as well as their distribution, adaptation, habitualization, legitimization, and regulation. We discuss the degree of influence of these processes on native and non-native speakers. Special attention is paid to multilingual interference and the Internet language creation. The findings show that it is impossible to separate language errors from language innovations today. Such conventional governing principles of error normalization as credibility, codification, and approval are still playing an important role while the demographic and geographic principles are losing their significance. The Internet communication often proliferates error normalization processes, which result in evaluating (accepting or rejecting) any innovation according to the principle of “virtual validity”. In conclusion, the English language status as a language of the international communication significantly transforms its norms, rules, and traditions. We think, this will not worsen it, but allow people of different nationalities to communicate in English more effective using their “English variant”, which is the most adapted one to their cognitive, functional and pragmatic needs.
