Editor's Column: Provincializing English

PMLA ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 129 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Gikandi
Keyword(s):  
British Empire ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Global Politics ◽  
Global English ◽  
End Of History ◽  
The World ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Global Language ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Emerging Powers

What are we to do with english? Of all the major languages of the world, it causes the most anxiety. Its words seem to want to invade the citadels of other languages, forcing institutions such as the Académie Française to call for barricades against it; in the enclaves of Englishness, a Celtic fringe struggles to hold on to the remnants of the mother tongue; and in most parts of the world those without the ostensibly anointed language often see themselves as permanently locked out of the spring-wells of modernity. Sometimes the global linguistic map appears to be a simple division between those with English and those without it. In the reaches of the former British Empire, a swath of the globe stretching from Vancouver east to the Malay Peninsula, English has come to be seen as an advantage in the competitive world of global politics and trade; in the emerging powers of East Asia, most notably China and South Korea, the consumption of global English is evident in the huge sale of books on English as a second language; in parts of the world traditionally cut off from English, including eastern Europe, the mastery of the language marks the moment of arrival. Most linguistic research on English is carried out in institutions in the Germanic and Nordic zones of northern Europe. In popular books on language and in serious linguistic studies, a powerful myth of English as the global language has taken hold. We are presented not with a world at the end of history but with one in which English sits at the center of a new global community: “English-speaking people and their culture are more widespread in numbers and influence than any civilization the world has ever seen,” claims Robert McCrum (257).

The English Department as Imperial Commonwealth, or The Global Past and Global Future of English Studies

boundary 2 ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 139-176
Author(s):  
Joe Cleary
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
British Empire ◽  
English Language ◽  
Organizational Structures ◽  
English Department ◽  
English Studies ◽  
Global English ◽  
English Departments ◽  
The World ◽  
Anglo American

Though canons and faculty have greatly diversified in recent decades, English departments around the world fundamentally prioritize English and American literatures. To this extent, they resemble the Anglo-American imperial commonwealths that some toward the end of the nineteenth century advocated for in order to stave off the decline of the British Empire and to shore up a permanent Anglo-American supremacy against all threats. Still, as the English language becomes “global,” English departments today founder for a variety of reasons and convey a persistent sense of crisis. Has the time come radically to decolonize the English department, not only at the level of curriculum but also in terms of its basic organizational structures to facilitate the study of anglophone literatures now planetary in reach? If so, how might this best be achieved in the British and American core countries and also in the more peripheral regions of Anglophonia?

scholarly journals Englishization, Identity Regulation and Imperialism

2016 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mehdi Boussebaa ◽  
Andrew D. Brown
Keyword(s):  
International Competitiveness ◽  
Analytical Framework ◽  
Identity Work ◽  
Macro Level ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Global English ◽  
Meso Level ◽  
Creative Identity ◽  
The World ◽  
Global Language

What are the power/identity implications of the increasing Englishization of non-Anglophone workplaces around the world? We address this question using an analytical framework that combines a focus on micro/meso-level processes of identity regulation with attentiveness to the macro-level discourse of English as a global language. Drawing on reflexive fieldwork conducted at a major French university, we show how Englishization is bound up with processes of normalization, surveillance and conformist identity work that serve to discipline local selves in line with the imperative of international competitiveness. Concomitantly, we also show that Englishization is not a totalizing form of identity regulation; it is contested, complained about and appropriated in the creative identity work of those subject to it. Yet, moving from the micro/meso- to the macro-level, we argue that Englishization is ultimately ‘remaking’ locals as Anglophones through a quasi-voluntary process of imperialism in the context of a US-dominated era of ‘globalization’ and ‘global English’. We discuss the theoretical implications of these insights and open some avenues for future research.

Comments on Victor Lieberman, Strange Parallels

2011 ◽  
Vol 70 (4) ◽  
pp. 971-974
Author(s):  
John E. Wills
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Recent Book ◽  
Louis Xiv ◽  
Global Context ◽  
Peter The Great ◽  
Review Copy ◽  
The World ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Large Work

In the presence of such a powerhouse lineup of Asianists I think I will tiptoe off to the other end of Lieberman's Eurasia and presume on my unique qualifications in this company as having published over twenty pages for the general reader on the France of Louis XIV and fifteen on the Russia of Peter the Great. Also, I have a bee in my bonnet at the moment about how the world changed between 1770 and 1830, and will have most to say about what Lieberman offers on that period. I owe Jerry Bentley a review article on all this for the Journal of World History, because he got me a review copy of the large work of Jürgen Osterhammel, Die Verwandlung der Welt: Eine Geschichte des 19. Jahrhunderts. I also got hooked by listening in on a fine conference at the Clark Library in Los Angeles in 2008, which led to The Age of Revolutions in Global Context, edited by David Armitage and Sanjay Subrahmanyam. A less recent book which I think is an under-appreciated breakthrough for this effort is Chris Bayly's Imperial Meridian: The British Empire and the World, 1780–1830.

Anglo-American Post-War Coöperation and the Interests of Europe

1942 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 656-666 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arnold Wolfers
Keyword(s):  
British Empire ◽  
The United States ◽  
League Of Nations ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
The World ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
Post War ◽  
Essential Prerequisite ◽  
Peace In Europe

Often it has been asserted that if the United States had stood by her allies after 1918 and joined the League of Nations, peace in Europe would have been secure. While this overstresses the point, it is certainly true that the lack of unity among the victors, both at Versailles and afterwards, deprived the world of anything like a center of coördination and leadership. Even the Concert of Europe of bygone days could claim greater authority than a League from which five out of seven great powers were either permanently or temporarily absent, and in which the two remaining powers, Britain and France, were rarely in agreement.In view of this experience, it makes sense to regard continued coöperation between at least some of the important allies of this war, assuming the defeat of Hitler and his partners, as being an essential prerequisite for a more durable peace. If at least the two great English-speaking powers could form between themselves a solid partnership, so it is argued, would not their combined strength and their supremacy of the seas quite naturally attract other nations into their orbit and thus enable them to preserve the order and peace of the world? Their rôle is envisaged as a kind of enlarged replica of that which the British Empire fulfilled with no little success throughout most of the nineteenth century.

scholarly journals HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES ON THE DEVELOPMENT AND SPREAD OF ENGLISH

2012 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 52-69
Author(s):  
Graeme Davis
Keyword(s):  
World Wide ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Historical Perspectives ◽  
The North ◽  
Local Dialect ◽  
The World ◽  
The Status ◽  
Global Status ◽  
Global Language ◽  
A Minor

There has never been a language like English. Mother tongue to around 375 million people and second language to many hundreds of millions more, the first language of business and the internet, English is truly a world-wide language. English has a unique position as the essential language skill for the world, for it is in English that the world is communicating. It is the prime beneficiary of the world-wide communications revolution and the only language ever to have achieved global status. In recorded history – in a little over one-thousand five-hundred years - it has grown from the local dialect of a minor Germanic tribe of a few thousand people living in the north of continental Europe to become the most widespread language ever. Never before has any language achieved the status now enjoyed by English, nor could this dominance have been predicted. How English has become the global language is a natural area for enquiry.

scholarly journals Boosting Students’ Self-Esteem in Speaking through Self-Footage

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ririn Ovilia
Keyword(s):  
Self Esteem ◽  
Business World ◽  
The World ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Speaking Performance ◽  
Global Language

Abstract: An imperative requisite of mastering English as a global language used in not only education, but also in business world, has been an acknowledged issue for current people all over the world. This triggers education institutions, more specifically schools, put efforts to deal with the challenge of improving learners’ English skill, especially speaking. Along with it, immersing the values of characters into education, one of which is called as self-esteem, is also considered as a duty. One thing that makes this duty worthwhile to do is that psychologically self-esteem helps learners tolerate hard situations, prevents them from feeling depressed in doing difficult tasks or projects and falling short of their potential. To promote the so-called self-esteem amongst the learners of English, self-footage as a learning media is proposed to be an effective starter in which the learners could actualize their English speaking performance. This paper attempts to describe the theory of self-esteem along with its importance and how self-footage is used to endorse students’ self-esteem and speaking skill.Keywords: Self-esteem, self-footage, speaking

scholarly journals Is English a Killer Language or an International Auxiliary? Its Use and Function in a Globalised World

2012 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nick Ceramella
Keyword(s):  
British Empire ◽  
English Language ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
The Other ◽  
Font Size ◽  
Long Run ◽  
The World ◽  
The Usa ◽  
And Function

<strong><strong></strong></strong><p align="LEFT">I<span style="font-family: DejaVuSerifCondensed; font-size: small;">n the Introduction to this article, I deal with the importance of speaking one’s </span>own language as a way to assert one’s identity. Then I pass on to the evolution of the English language from its start as Old English, spoken by only a few thousand Angles and Saxons.</p><p align="LEFT"><span style="font-family: DejaVuSerifCondensed; font-size: small;">I remark how, at fi rst, it was contaminated by thousands of </span>Latin, French and Scandinavian words, of which contemporary English still bears many clear traces, but nobody has ever thought that English was ever in danger of disappearing. By contrast, in the long run, it became the mother tongue of the speakers in comparatively newly founded countries, such as the USA, Australia, and New Zealand, and owing to the spread of the British Empire, it has dramatically increased its appeal becoming the most spoken and infl uential language in the world. Thus, according to some linguists, it has led several languages virtually to the verge of disappearance. Therefore, I argue whether English has really vampirised them, or has simply contributed to make people understand each other, sometimes even in the same country where lots of diff erent tongues are spoken (e.g. Nigeria).</p><p align="LEFT">It is self-evident that English has gradually been taking the role of a common unifying factor in our globalised world. In this view, I envisage a scenario where English may even become the offi cial l anguage o f the E U with the c ontributions &amp; coming, though in varying doses, from all the speakers of the other EU languages.</p>

scholarly journals The Growth of Nationality in Canada

1878 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 362-383
Author(s):  
Sydney Robjohns
Keyword(s):  
Great Britain ◽  
British Empire ◽  
Gulf Stream ◽  
Common Interest ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Liberal Party ◽  
The World ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Break Up

In recent lectures delivered at Birmingham Mr. Froude referred to the strained relations existing between England and the colonies, and indicated the temporary nature of the present arrangement. The question, in his opinion, is one which if left to the course of events will settleitself by the colonies drifting further away; but that if this people deem the continued union of the empire worth struggling for, and prepare themselves to encounter and overcome difficulties, then might accrue advantage to Great Britain and benefit to all Englishspeaking people. To quote Doctor Parker Peps, the country ”must be called upon to make a vigorous effort in this instance; but if our interesting friend should not be able to make that effort successfully, then a crisis must arise.” But Mr. Froude apparently falls into a similar error to Sir Julius Vogel, who imports Will into a subject which is one of natural forces only and purely. An important section of the Liberal party cannot “design or favour ” the break-up of the empire, at their will; neither can Mr. Froude nor Mr. Forster, whatever their wishes may be, suggest a practical basis of permament legislative union. Lord Blachford, Mr. Goldwin Smith, and others may indicates the tendency of natural forces, may mark on a chart the course of the Gulf Stream; but who can resist those forces? If one dare to predict at all, the growth of nationality in our colonies and the capacity of the Anglo-Saxon race point to another and a more beneficent result than even the federation of the British Empire, namely, the union consequent upon a common interest, opinion, language, and sympathy, of the English-speaking people throughout the world.

scholarly journals Brave new globalisation

2001 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 13-14
Author(s):  
Taina Ahtela
Keyword(s):  
Information Exchange ◽  
Global Economy ◽  
Global Politics ◽  
Global Markets ◽  
Global Information ◽  
End Of History ◽  
Global Responsibility ◽  
Real Issue ◽  
The World ◽  
Global Values

The global economy. Global information exchange. Global politics. Global markets. Global values. Global responsibility. Globalization, “globality”, globalism, the “G-word”, “mondialisation du monde” or “worldization of the world”. Globalization defines both the development optimists’ greatest dreams as well as its critics’ worst nightmares. Its progression cannot be stopped, and mostly the real issue in discussions about globalization concerns the rules that regulate it or rather the lack of them. Whether one loves globalization or hates it, few doubt its existence. But the only thing about globalization that is certain seems to be that there is no agreement either on the concept nor its substance. With its self-legitimating symptoms it makes talk of the end of history or ideology seem slightly amusing.

scholarly journals OLGA GRUSHIN`S LANGUAGE: A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE ON LOCAL CULTURE

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 172-175
Author(s):  
E.S. Lebedeva ◽  
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
Global Perspective ◽  
Local Culture ◽  
Russian Culture ◽  
Native Culture ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The World ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Global Language ◽  
Language Text

The writings of the Russian English-speaking author Olga Grushin have long been studied by Russian and international linguists and literary scholars, and revealed the way the Russian translingual writer builds her English-language text, what techniques she uses to convey features of her native culture. Olga Grushin positions herself as a Russian author, which is confirmed by the analysis of her writings. The present paper expands the material of the research and focuses on the analysis of the Twitter posts made by Olga Grushin. As Grushin's local culture is transmitted to the world through the global language - English, a wide range of readers for whom Russian culture is not native have access to her texts. This study also looks at how Grushin's Russian culture is perceived by English-speaking readers with different cultural background through their reviews of her novels in the Instagram.

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