ASNEL Papers 07

The Politics of English as a World Language.
New Horizons in Postcolonial Cultural Studies.

ASNEL Papers 7.
MAIR, Christian (Ed.)
Brill, Amsterdam/New York, NY, 2003.

order

“…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.