| The Idea of English in Japan: Ideology and the Evolution of a Global Language Contributor(s): Seargeant, Philip (Author) |
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ISBN: 184769201X ISBN-13: 9781847692016 Publisher: Multilingual Matters Limited OUR PRICE: $33.20 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: August 2009 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Language Arts & Disciplines | Linguistics - Sociolinguistics |
| Dewey: 428.007 |
| LCCN: 2009026139 |
| Series: Critical Language and Literacy Studies |
| Physical Information: (0.55 lbs) 208 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: This book examines the ways in which English is conceptualised as a global language in Japan, and considers how the resultant language ideologies - drawn in part from universal discourses; in part from context-specific trends in social history - inform the relationships that people in Japan have towards the language. The book analyses the specific nature of the language's symbolic meaning in Japan, and how this meaning is expressed and negotiated in society. It also discusses how the ideologies of English that exist in Japan might have implications for the more general concept of 'English as a global language'. To this end it considers the question of what constitutes a 'global' language, and how, if at all, a balance can be struck between the universal and the historically-contingent when it comes to formulating a theory of English within the world. |
Contributor Bio(s): Seargeant, Philip: - Philip Seargeant is Senior Lecturer in Applied Linguistics in the Centre for Language and Communication, The Open University. He is author of The Idea of English in Japan (Multilingual Matters, 2009) and Exploring World Englishes (Routledge), and editor of English in Japan in the Era of Globalization (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011) and English in the World: History, Diversity, Change (Routledge, 2012, with Joan Swann). |