“…an immensely enjoyable collection of essays…”
Anglia, Band 123, Heft 1, 2005.
The complex politics of English as a world language provides the backdrop both for linguistic studies of varieties of English around the world and for postcolonial literary criticism. The present volume offers contributions from linguists and literary scholars that explore this common ground in a spirit of open interdisciplinary dialogue.
Leading authorities assess the state of the art to suggest directions for further research, with substantial case studies ranging over a wide variety of topics – from the legitimacy of language norms of lingua franca communication to the recognition of newer post-colonial varieties of English in the online OED. Four regional sections treat the Caribbean (including the diaspora), Africa, the Indian subcontinent, and Australasia and the Pacific Rim.
Each section maintains a careful balance between linguistics and literature, and external and indigenous perspectives on issues. The book is the most balanced, complete and up-to-date treatment of the topic to date.
Table of Contents
Christian MAIR: Linguistics, Literature and the Postcolonial Englishes: An Introduction
RESISTING (IN) ENGLISH: GLOBALIZATION AND ITS COUNTER-DISCOURSES
Alastair PENNYCOOK: Beyond Homogeny and Heterogeny: English as a Global and Worldly Language
Robert Phillipson: English for the Globe, or Only for Globe-Trotters? The world of the EU
Tove SKUTNABB-KANGAS: Linguistic Diversity and Biodiversity: The Threat from Killer Languages
Michael TOOLAN: English as the Supranational Language of Human Rights?
Peter MÜHLHÄUSLER: English as an Exotic Language
Richard J. ALEXANDER: G.lobal L.anguages O.ppress B.ut A.re L.iberating, Too: The Dialectics of English
Photis LYSANDROU and Yvonne LYSANDROU : Proregression and Dynamic Stasis: The Ambivalent Impact of English as Reflected in
Postcolonial Writing
Susanne MÜHLEISEN: Towards Global Diglossia? English in the Sciences and the Humanities
Jennie PRICE: The Recording of Vocabulary from the Major Varieties of English in the Oxford English Dictionary
Barbara SEIDLHOFER and Jennifer JENKINS: English as a Lingua Franca and the Politics of Property
THE CARIBBEAN AND THE AFRICAN DIASPORA IN NORTH AMERICA AND BRITAIN
Hubert DEVONISH: Language Advocacy and ‘Conquest’ Diglossia in the ‘Anglophone’ Caribbean
Hazel SIMMONS-McDONALD: Decolonizing English: The Caribbean Counter-Thrust
Fiona DARROCH: Re-Reading the Religious Bodies of Postcolonial Literature
Michael MEYER: An African’s Trouble with His Masters’ Voices
Petra TOURNAY : Home, Hybridity and (post)colonial Discourse in Caryl Phillips’s A State of Independence
ENGLISH AND ENGLISH-LANGUAGE WRITING IN AFRICA
Nkonko M. KAMWANGAMALU: When 2+9= 1: English and the Politics of Language Planning in a Multilingual Society: South Africa
KEMBO-SURE: The Democratization of Language Policy: A Cultural-Linguistic Analysis of the Status of English in Kenya
Safari T.A. MAFU: Postcolonial Language Planning in Tanzania: What Are the Difficulties and What is the Way Out?
Eleonora CHIAVETTA: “Hear from my own lips”: The Language of Women’s Autobiographies
Dagmar DEUBER and Patrick OLOKO: Linguistic and Literary Development of Nigerian Pidgin: The Contribution of Radio Drama
Haike FRANK: “That’s all out of shape”: Language and Racism in South African Drama
Helga RAMSEY-KURZ: Beyond the Domain of Literacy: The Illiterate Other in The Heart of the Matter, Things Fall Apart and Waiting for the Barbarians
Richard SAMIN: “The nuisance one learns to put up with”: English as a Linguistic Compromise in Es’kia Mphahlele’s
Fiction
THE POLITICS OF ENGLISH ON THE ASIAN SUBCONTINENT
D.C.R.A. GOONETILLEKE: The Interface of Language, Literature and Politics in Sri Lanka: A Paradigm for Ex-Colonies of Britain
Premila PAUL: The Master’s Language and its Indian Uses
Rajiva WIJESINHA: Bringing Back the Bathwater: New Initiatives in English Policy in Sri Lanka
Vera ALEXANDER: Cross-Cultural Encounters in Amit Chaudhuri’s Afternoon Raag and Yasmine Gooneratne’s A Change of Skies
Yvette TAN: Imperial Pretensions and The Pleasures of Conquest
Christine VOGT-WILLIAM: “Language is the skin of my thought”: Language Relations in Ancient Promises and The God of Small
Things
NEW ZEALAND, CANADA, THE PHILIPPINES: ENGLISH IN MULTILINGUAL CONSTELLATIONS AROUND THE PACIFIC RIM
PETER H. MARSDEN: From “carefully modulated murmur” to “not a place for sooks”: New Zealand Ways of Writing
English
Michelle KEOWN: Maori or English? The Politics of Language in Patricia Grace’s Baby No-Eyes
Janet HOLMES, Maria STUBBE and Meredith MARRA: Language, Humour and Ethnic Identity Marking in New Zealand English
Erika HASEBE-LUDT: Métissage and Memory: The Politics of Literacy Education in Canadian
Curriculum and Classrooms
Kerstin KNOPF: “Joseph you know him he don trus dah Anglais” Or: English as Postcolonial Language in Canadian Indigenous
Films
Danilo MANARPAAC: “When I was a child I spake as a child”: Reflecting on the Limits of a
Nationalist Language Policy
CONTRIBUTORS.