The Politics of English

South Asia, Southeast Asia and the Asia Pacific

Editors

Lionel Wee

| National University of Singapore

Robbie B.H. Goh

| National University of Singapore

Lisa Lim

| University of Hong Kong

Hardbound – Available

ISBN 9789027228352 | EUR 95.00 | USD 143.00

e-Book –

ISBN 9789027272133 | EUR 95.00 | USD 143.00

This volume brings together contributions that explore the increasingly important roles that English plays in Asia, including its contribution to economic growth, national imaginaries and creative writing. These are issues that are political in a broad sense, but the diversity of Asian contexts also means that the social, political and cultural ramifications of the spread of English into Asia will have to be understood in relation to the challenges facing specific societies. The chapters in the book collectively illustrate this diversity by focusing on countries from South Asia, Southeast Asia and the Asia Pacific. Each country has two contributions devoted to it: one paper provides an overview of the country’s language policy and its positioning of English, and another provides a critical discussion of creative expressions involving the use of English. Taken together, the papers in the volume detail the most recent developments concerning the politics of English in Asia.

[Studies in World Language Problems, 4] 2013. ix, 322 pp.

Publishing status: Available

https://doi.org/10.1075/wlp.4

Table of Contents

Preface	vii–x
1. Language policies, language ideologies and local language practices Alastair Pennycook	1–18
Part I. South Asia
2. The politics of Hinglish Anjali Gera Roy	21–36
3. Globalization and multilingualism: Text types in the linguistic ecology of Delhi Viniti Vaish	37–60
4. Kaduva of privileged power, instrument of rural empowerment?: The politics of English (and Sinhala and Tamil) in Sri Lanka Lisa Lim	61–80
5. The interface of language, literature and politics in Sri Lanka: A paradigm for ex-colonies of Britain D.C.R.A. Goonetilleke	81–102
Part II. Southeast Asia
6. Governing English in Singapore: Some challenges for Singapore’s language policy Lionel Wee	105–124
7. Uncertain locale: The dialectics of space and the cultural politics of English in Singapore Robbie B.H. Goh	125–144
8. The encroachment of English in Malaysian cultural expression Ismail S. Talib	145–166
9. “They think speaking in English isn’t good, you know”: Negotiating bilingual identities in the Malay community Joanne Rajadurai	167–186
10. The grip of English and Philippine language policy Beatriz P. Lorente	187–204
11. Nimble tongues: Philippine English and the feminization of labour Maria Teresa Tinio	205–224
Part III. Asia Pacific
12. English vs. English conversation: Language teaching in modern Japan Mie Hiramoto	227–248
13. Language policy and practice in English loanwords in Japanese Emi Morita	249–268
14. English speakers in Korea: A short literary history Eun Kyung Min	269–286
15. English, class and neoliberalism in South Korea Joseph Sung-Yul Park	287–302
16. Conclusion Lionel Wee, Lisa Lim and Robbie B.H. Goh	303–316
Contributors	317–320
Index	321–322

“Without exception, the essays are interesting and informative, and provide hypotheses and insights that can readily be applied to other sociolinguistic contexts. The volume as a whole is a valuable contribution to the study of English in Asia and to the broader field of world Englishes.”

Peter Lowenberg, in World Englishes 33:3 (2014)

“[A] particulary rich mosaic of cultural domains including linguistic landscapes, literature and poetry, personal narratives, ELT textbooks and government documents. At the same time, sitting alongside each of these domains and providing continuity are the sister chapters on each country that provide an overview of language policy.”

Jonathan Newton, Victoria University of Wellington, in English World-Wide Vol 36:3 (2015)

Cited by

Cited by 4 other publications

Ito, Rika

2020. North Pillow Brings Bad Luck: Construction of Ideologies of English in a Japanese TV Drama, Massan. Japanese Studies 40:2 ► pp. 141 ff.

Ito, Rika & Megan Bisila

2020. Blond hair, blue eyes, and “bad” Japanese: representing foreigner stereotypes in Japanese anime. Language Awareness 29:3-4 ► pp. 286 ff.

Lage-Otero, Eduardo

2016. In Second and Foreign Language Education, ► pp. 1 ff.

Lage-Otero, Eduardo

2017. In Second and Foreign Language Education, ► pp. 265 ff.

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 08 february 2021. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Subjects

Linguistics

Language policy

Sociolinguistics and Dialectology

English linguistics

BIC Subject: CF/2AB – Linguistics/English

BISAC Subject: LAN009000 – LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / General

U.S. Library of Congress Control Number: 2012049584 | Marc record