Abstract

This article explores the feelings of imposture that are sometimes experienced by multilingual subjects—learners of a language other than their own or users of multiple languages—and their difficulty of finding authentic or legitimate subject positions in a global world with fluid boundaries and uncertain categories of identity. It examines what modernist and poststructuralist approaches to the problem of imposture can yield in applied linguistic theory. Modernist scholars focus on revealing abuses of institutional power and on uncovering the artificiality of language rituals, whereas poststructuralist scholars seek to understand the social and historical conditions of possibility of discourses of imposture. They attempt to deal with the pervasive contradictions of the search for authenticity and legitimacy in a world of commodified discourses and self-declared authorities. In such a world, multilingual subjects have a particular role to play to transform imposture into the multilingual art of interrogating and imagining various forms of discourse.

• © Oxford University Press 2012

Towards developmental world Englishes

KINGSLEY BOLTON1, DAVID GRADDOL, CHRISTIANE MEIERKORD

© 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

World Englishes. Volume 30, Issue 4, pages 459–480, December 2011

ABSTRACT: Over the last three decades scholars promoting the world Englishes paradigm (WE) have worked towards establishing a more positive attitude towards international varieties of English. However, despite the best intentions of Western linguists working in this field, there is an obvious imbalance between the developed and developing world in many contexts of English language education. Educators and teachers in many Outer Circle and Expanding Circle contexts face difficulties in terms of conditions, facilities, and resources very different from those of Western institutions. Academics in developing societies have parallel difficulties in publishing research, both in journals and in books with international publishers, while local options for publishing are often restricted. This paper suggests a number of ways in which linguists and other scholars might begin to engage with a range of issues related to ‘developmental world Englishes’

World Englishes and postcolonialism: Reading Kachru and Said

1. IAN MAI CHI LOK

© 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

World Englishes. Volume 31, Issue 4, pages 419–433, December 2012

ABSTRACT: Prompted by a recurrent question from students, this paper examines perspectives from world Englishes and postcolonial studies in relation to one another. Focusing on two critical thinkers, Braj B. Kachru and Edward W. Said, each section highlights relevant themes and ideas from selected works of each scholar and discusses points of convergence and divergence between the various positions. One argument here is that while ‘Englishes’ are conceived as relatively static categories constricted to specific geopolitical boundaries, such Englishes are at the same time used by individuals whose cultural consciousness and experience are dynamic. Insight such as this, drawn from a juxtaposed study of the work of Braj B. Kachru and Edward Said, can inspire the world Englishes project. At a broader level, it is suggested that a more comprehensive understanding of language and culture may be reached by approaching world Englishes and postcolonial studies in counterpoint.

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