English and the Discourses of Colonialism (The Politics of Language) - Hardcover

Pennycook, Alastair

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0415178479 ISBN 13: 9780415178471

Publisher: Routledge, 1998

Synopsis

English and the Discourses of Colonialism opens with the British departure from Hong Kong marking the end of British colonialism. Yet Alastair Pennycook argues that this dramatic exit masks the crucial issue that the traces left by colonialism run deep.
This challenging and provocative book looks particularly at English, English language teaching, and colonialism. It reveals how the practice of colonialism permeated the cultures and discourses of both the colonial and colonized nations, the effects of which are still evident today. Pennycook explores the extent to which English is, as commonly assumed, a language of neutrality and global communication, and to what extent it is, by contrast, a language laden with meanings and still weighed down with colonial discourses that have come to adhere to it.
Travel writing, newspaper articles and popular books on English, are all referred to, as well as personal experiences and interviews with learners of English in India, Malaysia, China and Australia. Pennycook concludes by appealing to postcolonial writing, to create a politics of opposition and dislodge the discourses of colonialism from English.

About this title

About the Author:

Alastair Pennycook is Senior Lecturer in Linguistics at the University of Melbourne. He is the author of the 1995 BAAL award-winner, The Cultural Politics of English as an International Language (1994).

Review:

'A clear and well-documented analysis of discourses of colonialism, especially British colonialisman important contribution to the literature which has recently emerged on the politics of ELT.' - Norman Fairclough, Lancaster University

'This is a complex book, containing areas that will appeal to a variety of readers.' - Language in Society

'...elegantly and provocatively written..It is a timely and thoughtful book written with historical sensitivity and above all, an appreciation of the need to place the question of post colonialism...Pennycook had produced an acute, entertaining and often surprising book.' - Rumina Sethi.

About this edition

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0415178479
• ISBN 13: 9780415178471
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256