Linguistic Imperialism Continued

Abstract

In recent years, applied linguistics has made increasing use of a ‘critical theory’ perspective in order to reassess a variety of ELT policies and practices (Waters 2009). Studies involving this approach identify linguistic ‘structures of control’ that give rise to imbalances in socio-political power and advocate ways of reforming them. Linguistic Imperialism Continued is a representative example of this genre. Indeed, it is written by someone who can lay claim, via the publication in the early 1990s of his Linguistic Imperialism (Phillipson 1992), to being one of the main progenitors, if not the ‘godfather’, of such studies. This review therefore provides an opportunity to consider both the merits of this, his latest book on the same topic, as well as the relevance of this strand of theorizing to ELT in general. Linguistic Imperialism Continued consists of the author’s writings on the subject of linguistic imperialism since 1992. By way of an introduction, the book begins with his entry for the topic in the Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics (Brown 2006). In it, he defines the concept, argues for its continuing relevance, and briefly introduces a number of subthemes, which are explored in greater detail in subsequent sections. The remaining contents are arranged in chronological order within two main subsections, the first comprising anthology pieces and journal articles (one of them followed by several responses from other authors), and the second containing a number of book reviews.