Contending with Globalization in World Englishes

Mukul Saxena · Tope Omoniyi

May 2010 · Critical Language and Literacy Studies Book 9 · Multilingual Matters

About this ebook

This book engages with English in globalization, re-examining and re-interpreting the contemporary contexts of its acquisition and use. The chapters contained in this book weave together four inter-related themes that define the role of English in the global context: the ‘centrality of structure’, ‘relationships of interdependence’, ‘social constructions of difference’ and ‘reproduction of inequality’. These themes enable the authors to draw attention to the dynamics of the contemporary realities of the ‘English-speaking’ and ‘English-using’ nations, especially as they compete for cultural, social, economic and symbolic capital in global networks. In engaging World Englishes with the sociolinguistics of globalization, the authors raise some fundamental questions about the status, structure, and functions of World Englishes.

About the author

Mukul Saxena is Assistant Professor in the Centre for Applied Linguistics, Warwick University, UK. Before this, he worked in Brunei Darussalam, Lancaster and York. His publications and research interests are in the areas of (English-)bilingual classroom interaction, Multilingual literacies, Language maintenance & shift, World Englishes.

Tope Omoniyi is Professor of Sociolinguistics in the School of Arts at Roehampton University, London (UK). His research interests straddle issues in language and identity, language in education, and language policy and planning in Europe and Africa. His scholarly articles and reviews have appeared in numerous journals. He is the author of The Sociolinguistics of Borderlands: Two Nations, One People (AWP 2004) and editor and co-editor of several volumes of essays.