The Rise of English: Global Politics and the Power of Language

Rosemary Salomone

May 2022 · Tantor Media Inc · Narrated by Suzanne Toren

About this audiobook

Spoken by a quarter of the world's population, English is today's lingua franca-its common tongue. The language of business, popular media, and international politics, English has become commodified for its economic value and increasingly detached from any particular nation. This meteoric "rise of English" has many obvious benefits to communication. But the rise of English has very real downsides at times generating intense legal conflicts. In Europe, imperatives of political integration, job mobility, and university rankings compete with pride in national language and heritage as countries like France attempt to curb its spread. In countries like India, South Africa, Morocco, and Rwanda, it has stratified society along lines of English proficiency and devalued commonly spoken languages. In Anglophone countries like the United States and England, English isolates us from the cultural and economic benefits of speaking other languages. In The Rise of English, Rosemary Salomone offers a commanding view of the unprecedented spread of English and the far-reaching effects it has on global and local politics, economics, media, education, and business.

About the author

Rosemary Salomone is the Kenneth Wang Professor of Law at St. John's University School of Law. Trained as a linguist and a lawyer, she is an internationally recognized expert and commentator on language rights, education law and policy, and comparative equality. She is an elected member of the American Law Institute.

Suzanne Toren is an actor who has appeared on and off Broadway, in regional theaters, and occasionally on TV. Over a period of several decades, she has narrated close to 1000 audiobooks for most major publishers. She has received multiple Audie nominations and many industry awards, including Narrator of the Year.