The Relocation of English

Abstract

The picture that emerges from the discussion that has unfolded in this book so far is one where two antithetic narratives about the relocation of English run along parallel lines: the academic discourse narrative and the public discourse narrative. On the one hand, the academic discourse narrative tells of an English language that has been transplanted in different parts of the world and describes the ways in which this linguistic re-rooting has been accompanied by local processes of acculturation. It also describes how these, in turn, have given rise to varieties of English that have reached different levels of development, stabilisation and recognition. On the other hand, the public discourse narrative tells of an English language that, because of its worldwide diffusion, is constantly under threat of corruption by the negative influence of local languages and cultures. One sees the acculturation and consequent diversification of English as a positive and necessary phenomenon producing beneficial liberatory effects for its users, while the other sees it as counterproductive and detrimental to the effectiveness of global communication.KeywordsEnglish LanguageMass NounIndividual SpeakerSyntactic DifferenceDiscourse NarrativeThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.