The Routledge Companion to English Language Studies (Routledge Companions)
By Janet Maybin, Joan Swann
* Publisher: Routledge
* Number Of Pages: 336
* Publication Date: 2009-08-13
* ISBN-10 / ASIN: 0415401739
* ISBN-13 / EAN: 9780415401739
0415401739
0415403383
0203878957
9780415401739
9780415403382
9780203878958
Product Description:
The Routledge Companion to English Language Studies is an accessible guide to the major topics, debates and issues in English Language Studies. This authoritative collection includes entries written by well-known language specialists from a diverse range of backgrounds who examine and explain established knowledge and recent developments in the field. Covering a wide range of topics such as globalization, gender and sexuality and food packaging, this volume provides critical overviews of:
approaches to researching, describing and analyzing English
the position of English as a global language
the use of English in texts, practices and discourses
variation and diversity throughout the English-speaking world.
Fully cross-referenced throughout and featuring useful definitions of key terms and concepts, this is an invaluable guide for teachers wishing to check, consolidate or update their knowledge, and is an ideal resource for all students of English Language Studies.
CONTENTS
List of illustrations vii
Contributors viii
Acknowledgements xii
1 Introduction 1
Janet Maybin and Joan Swann
Part I The fabric of English 9
2 Describing English 11
Caroline Coffin and Kieran O’Halloran
3 Texts and practices 42
Ann Hewings and Sarah North
4 From variation to hybridity 76
Rajend Mesthrie and Joan Swann
Further reading 108
Part II Issues and debates 111
5 English and globalization 113
Alastair Pennycook
6 English and creativity 122
Rob Pope
7 ‘Hearts and minds’: persuasive language in ancient and modern
public debate 134
Guy Cook
8 Computer-mediated English 146
Brenda Danet
CONTENTS
vi
9 English language teaching in the Outer and Expanding Circles 157
Suresh Canagarajah and Selim Ben Said
10 English at school in England 171
Richard Andrews
11 Institutional discourse 181
Celia Roberts
12 Using English in the legal process 196
Diana Eades
13 Language, gender and sexuality 208
Deborah Cameron
14 Perspectives on children learning English: from structures to
practices 218
Barbara Mayor
15 Academic literacies: new directions in theory and practice 232
Brian Street
16 Spelling as a social practice 243
Mark Sebba
17 Multilingual discourses on wheels and public English in Africa:
a case for ‘vague linguistique’ 258
Sinfree Makoni and Busi Makoni
18 Domesticating the Other: English and translation 271
Susan Bassnett
Bibliography 282
Index 314
The Companion to English Language Studies is designed as a resource for those
studying English language at undergraduate or postgraduate level. It will also be
of interest to those teaching English, and others who wish to check, consolidate
or update their knowledge of an area of English Language Studies. The book
focuses mainly on contemporary English Language Studies (for more detailed
accounts of the history of English, see the suggestions in Further Reading at the
end of Part I) and draws on work by language specialists from a range of backgrounds.
It takes into account the contemporary position of English in the world
and recent developments in the study of the English language and its use, as we
explain below.
First, English is affected by its position as a global language, at a point in
history when we are witnessing accelerating globalisation, mass movements of
peoples and increasing intercultural communication on an unprecedented scale.
On the one hand, the number of speakers of English is increasing: it has been
estimated that one in four people in the world currently speaks English (Graddol
2006) and that English will be spoken by three billion people, or 40 per cent
of the global population, in 2040 (Crystal 2004). On the other hand, it is also
the case that the global dominance of English has been challenged by other
languages, for instance Mandarin. Furthermore, the dramatic increase in the
number of speakers of English predicted by Crystal relates mainly to those who
speak English as an additional language rather than to native speakers. English
is spoken within multilingual contexts across the globe, and the study of English
in such contexts is raising new questions about scholarly concepts and explanations
which have been previously accepted within the field.
In addition to addressing the dynamic global role of English, the contents of
this volume reflect an important two-way conceptual shift that occurred towards
the end of the twentieth century, i.e. the ‘social turn’ in language studies and a
parallel ‘turn to discourse’ in the social sciences more generally. These two
‘turns’ both involved an increasing interest among researchers and theorists in
the ‘processual’, ‘constitutive’ and ‘ideological’ dimensions of language.
Increasingly, language use is seen not simply as reflecting the identities of its
speakers, and the cultural contexts in which it is spoken, but as reproducing
institutions, identities and cultures. The discursive turn within the social sciences
has involved recognition of the significance of discourse, or particular ways of
speaking and writing, for the articulation and local management of a range of
social processes. References to a ‘postmodern turn’ are also found among
JANET MAYBIN AND JOAN SWANN
2
researchers who emphasise the fluid and dynamic nature of language, and the
highly contextualised nature of language meaning.
Within language studies, a social approach has been evident in the academic
area of sociolinguistics from its inception in the 1960s, and in linguistic anthropology
for rather longer. But social concerns are now much more salient, even in
fields such as grammar. There is increasing interest in English as a means of
communication, with all the contingent social and cultural factors which this
entails, and an increasing tendency to conceptualise language and literacy as
ideological social practice. English language specialists now share with psychologists,
sociologists, anthropologists and historians areas of interest such as
language and identity, power and ideology, and the politics of representation,
and they also draw on a shared body of critical theory. The social turn in
language studies is evident in the more socially-orientated and contextualised
studies discussed in the chapters within Part I of the book, and in social, contextual
and critical approaches presented in the chapters within Part II.
The changing global role of English, processes of globalisation and intellectual
trends in the academy are all reshaping the nature of English Language
Studies, and reinvigorating the ways in which English is conceptualised,
described and analysed. |
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