The Global And Local Dimensions Of English Language And Literature

The interaction between the global and the local has inspired inquiry into the multifarious manifestations of English nowadays, stimulating scholarly research into its diverse linguistic, cultural, and pedagogical landscapes. Drawing together various strands of the 'Global English' debate, the papers in this book question and expand on the interaction between Global English and local contexts in the Alpine-Adriatic region, and examine the complexities from different, yet complementary, perspectives: the cultural, the methodological (ELT), the translational, and the linguistic. (Series: Linguistik und Sprachvermittlung - Vol. 4)

Written in a detailed and fascinating manner, this book is ideal for general readers interested in the English language.

The English language is the medium of globalisation and it is itself deeply affected by globalisation. As a result, the teaching and learning dimension of English as a tool for global communication needs rethinking - especially in the traditional English language classroom, which is still largely based on Anglo-American language norms and contents. The articles of this volume reflect the ongoing international discussion with regard to the use and acquisition of English in a world-wide context. The contributions cover four essential domains of this discussion: 1. Political, Cultural and Sociolinguistic Dimensions, 2. Teaching and Learning English in a Global Context: "Old" and "New" Standards, 3. Learners in Primary, Secondary and Higher Education: Focus on Europe and 4. Teacher Education. The volume goes beyond the language teaching context and approaches the globalisation of English from several perspectives.

The global spread of English both reproduces and reinforces oppressive structures of inequality. But such structures can no longer be seen as imposed from an imperial center, as English is now actively adopted and appropriated in local contexts around the world. This book argues that such conditions call for a new critique of global English, one that is sensitive to both the political economic conditions of globalization and speakers’ local practices. Linking Bourdieu’s theory of the linguistic market and his practice-based perspective with recent advances in sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology, this book offers a fresh new critique of global English. The authors highlight the material, discursive, and semiotic processes through which the value of English in the linguistic market is constructed, and suggest possible policy interventions that may be adopted to address the problems of global English. Through its serious engagement with current sociolinguistic theory and insightful analysis of the multiple dimensions of English in the world, this book challenges the readers to think about what we need to do to confront the social inequalities that are perpetuated by the global spread of English

This collection of critical essays investigates the intersections of the global and local in literature and language. Exploring the connections that exist between global forms of knowledge and their local, regional applications, it explores multiple ways in which literature is influenced, and in turn, influences, movements and events across the world and how these are articulated in various genres of world literature, including the resultant challenges to translation. This book also explores the way in which languages, especially English, transform and continue to be reinvented in its use across the world. Using perspectives from sociolinguistics, discourse analysis and semiotics, this volume focuses on diasporic literature, travel literature, and literature in translation from different parts of the world to study the ways in which languages change and grow as they are sought to be 'owned' by the communities which use them in different contexts. Emphasizing on interdisciplinary studies and methodologies, this collection centralizes both research that theorizes the links between the local and the global and that which shows, through practical evidence, how the local and global interact in new and challenging ways.

This collection of critical essays investigates the intersections of the global and local in literature and language. Exploring the connections that exist between global forms of knowledge and their local, regional applications, this volume explores multiple ways in which literature is influenced, and in turn, influences, movements and events across the world and how these are articulated in various genres of world literature, including the resultant challenges to translation. This book also explores the way in which languages, especially English, transform and continue to be reinvented in its use across the world. Using perspectives from sociolinguistics, discourse analysis and semiotics, this volume focuses on diasporic literature, travel literature, and literature in translation from different parts of the world to study the ways in which languages change and grow as they are sought to be ‘owned’ by the communities which use them in different contexts. Emphasizing on interdisciplinary studies and methodologies, this collection centralizes both research that theorizes the links between the local and the global and that which shows, through practical evidence, how the local and global interact in new and challenging ways.

Space and time, their infiniteness and/or their limit(ation)s, their coding, conceptualization and the relationship between the two, have been intriguing people for millennia. Linguistics and literature are no exceptions in this sense. This book brings together eight essays which all deal with the expression of space and/or time in language and/or literature. The book explores the issues of space, time and their interrelation from two different perspectives: the linguistic and the literary. The first section—Time and Space in Language—contains four papers which focus on linguistics, i.e. explore issues relative to the expression of time and space in natural languages. The topics under consideration include: typology regarding the expression of spatial information in languages around the world (Ch.1), space as expressed and conceptualized in neutral, postural and verbs of fictive motion (Ch. 2), prepositional semantics (Ch.3), aspectuality (in Tamil, Ch. 4). All articles propose innovative topics and/or approaches, crossreferring when possible between space and time. Given that all seem to propose at least some elements of “language universality” vs. “language variability”, the strong cognitivist nature of the approach (even when the paper is not written within a cognitive linguistic framework) represents a particularly strong feature of the section, with a strong appeal to experts from fields that need not necessarily be linguistic. The second section of this volume—Space and Time in Literature—brings together four essays dealing with literary topics. Inherent in each narrative are both temporal and spatial implications because a literary text testifies of a certain time, it is from and about a certain period, as well as about a certain space, even if virtual. A particularly strong feature of these papers is that they envision space and time as complementary parameters of experience and not as conceptual opposites, following the transfer of perspective through the whole century. Departing from the late nineteenth century England’s and Croatia’s fictive spaces (Ch. 5), the topic moves via the American Southern Gothic, focusing on Faulkner from the thirties to the early sixties (Ch. 6), via the post-WWII perspectives on history, probing the postmodern context of temporality (Ch 7), to finally reach the contemporary era of post 9/11 space-time (Ch 8). The voyage from chapter five to eight is thus a journey through space and time that allows for some answers to the nature of reality (of a variety of space-times) as conceived by both the authors of these essays as well as by the authors that these essays discuss. The main goal of the editors has been to bring together different scientific traditions which can contribute complementary concerns and methodologies to the issues under exam; from the literary and descriptive via the diachronic and typological explorations all the way to cognitive (linguistic) analyses, bordering psycholinguistics and neuroscience. One of the strengths of this volume thus lies in the diversity of perspectives articulated within it, where the agreements, but also the controversies and divergences demonstrate constant changes in society which, in turn, shapes our views of space-time/reality. All this also suggests that science and literature are not above or apart from their culture, but embedded within it, and that there exists a strong relativistic interrelation between (spatio-temporal) reality and culture. The only hope to objectively envisage any if not all of the above, is by learning how to move (our thought) through space, time or, to put it in simpler terms, how to shift perspectives.

Winner of the Kobayashi Hideo Award, The Fall of Language in the Age of English lays bare the struggle to retain the brilliance of one's own language in this period of English-language dominance. Born in Tokyo but raised and educated in the United States, Minae Mizumura acknowledges the value of a universal language in the pursuit of knowledge yet also embraces the different ways of understanding offered by multiple tongues. She warns against losing this precious diversity. Universal languages have always played a pivotal role in advancing human societies, Mizumura shows, but in the globalized world of the Internet, English is fast becoming the sole common language of humanity. The process is unstoppable, and striving for total language equality is delusional—and yet, particular kinds of knowledge can be gained only through writings in specific languages. Mizumura calls these writings "texts" and their ultimate form "literature." Only through literature and, more fundamentally, through the diverse languages that give birth to a variety of literatures, can we nurture and enrich humanity. Incorporating her own experiences as a writer and a lover of language and embedding a parallel history of Japanese, Mizumura offers an intimate look at the phenomena of individual and national expression.

This book examines the special nature of English both as a global and a local language, focusing on some of the ongoing changes and on the emerging new structural and discoursal characteristics of varieties of English. Although it is widely recognised that processes of language change and contact bear affinities, for example, to processes observable in second-language acquisition and lingua franca use, the research into these fields has so far not been sufficiently brought into contact with each other. The articles in this volume set out to combine all these perspectives in ways that give us a better understanding of the changing nature of English in the modern world.