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The Politics of English
South Asia, Southeast Asia and the Asia Pacific
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
Published online on 8 March 2013
Published online on 8 March 2013
© John Benjamins Publishing Company
Table of Contents
- Preface | pp. vii–x
- 1. Language policies, language ideologies and local language practicesAlastair Pennycook | pp. 1–18
- Part I. South Asia
- 2. The politics of HinglishAnjali Gera Roy | pp. 21–36
- 3. Globalization and multilingualism: Text types in the linguistic ecology of DelhiViniti Vaish | pp. 37–60
- 4. Kaduva of privileged power, instrument of rural empowerment? The politics of English (and Sinhala and Tamil) in Sri LankaLisa Lim | pp. 61–80
- 5. The interface of language, literature and politics in Sri Lanka: A paradigm for ex-colonies of BritainD.C.R.A. Goonetilleke | pp. 81–102
- Part II. Southeast Asia
- 6. Governing English in Singapore: Some challenges for Singapore’s language policyLionel Wee | pp. 105–124
- 7. Uncertain locale: The dialectics of space and the cultural politics of English in SingaporeRobbie B.H. Goh | pp. 125–144
- 8. The encroachment of English in Malaysian cultural expressionIsmail S. Talib | pp. 145–166
- 9. “They think speaking in English isn’t good, you know”: Negotiating bilingual identities in the Malay communityJoanne Rajadurai | pp. 167–186
- 10. The grip of English and Philippine language policyBeatriz P. Lorente | pp. 187–204
- 11. Nimble tongues: Philippine English and the feminization of labourMaria Teresa Tinio | pp. 205–224
- Part III. Asia Pacific
- 12. English vs. English conversation: Language teaching in modern JapanMie Hiramoto | pp. 227–248
- 13. Language policy and practice in English loanwords in JapaneseEmi Morita | pp. 249–268
- 14. English speakers in Korea: A short literary historyEun Kyung Min | pp. 269–286
- 15. English, class and neoliberalism in South KoreaJoseph Sung-Yul Park | pp. 287–302
- 16. ConclusionLionel Wee, Lisa Lim and Robbie B.H. Goh | pp. 303–316
- Contributors | pp. 317–320
- Index | pp. 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 (11)
Cited by 11 other publications
Hwami, Munyaradzi & Michelle Bedeker
Ahn, Hyejeong, Shu Ohki & Yvette Slaughter
Mirhosseini, Seyyed-Abdolhamid
Druviete, Ina
Peters, Pam
Ito, Rika
Ito, Rika
Ito, Rika & Megan Bisila
Lage-Otero, Eduardo
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 25 november 2025. 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.