As Aft said the correct term for what you describe is "Flying elbow", Jack Nicklaus did that, seems he played quite well with it. The main thing is to make sure your elbow returns to the right side on the downswing. More important is where you are at the top, if your elbow is flying and you have a flat swing, you got problems, if it fly's with an upright swing plane, not that big a problem, in fact an upright swing is almost impossible without the elbow flying.

You may indeed be chickenwinging it, it happens at the beginning or just after impact, in the later you swing over the top causing the left arm to colaspe at impact, elbow pops out. If on the backswing you begin the swing with little or no body turn, the right arm colaspes, you pull the club to far inside, this is also a chickwing and could put you into a flying elbow and a flat swing.

The idea here is to turn the shoulders, chest, arms, club back together, so the first four feet or so on the backswing, everything is pretty much as it was at address in relation to one another. Put another way, half way back (club parallel to target line and the ground) if you stop, hold that position and move your feet 90 degrees to the target line, you could drop your arms and club to the ground and pretty much be in your address postion, nothing has changed relative to these body parts, including a square clubface. This is just a check point, you won't be able hit balls because you moved your feet, but when you do this if the club points to the right, you layed off, points to the left you moved outside the plane, any clubface rotation from square will be immediately seen.

Once you perfect this position, to get to the top you simply continue your turn moving the hands vertically and allowing the right arm to fold, this will put you in a much better position at the top.