Communicating with Asia: The Future of English as a Global Language

Communicating with Asia brings together an international team of leading researchers to discuss South, South-East, East and Central Asia, and explore Mandarin, Cantonese, Hindi-Urdu, Malay, and Russian as major languages. The volume locates English inside a number of national, regional or lingua franca contexts and illustrates the way it develops in such contact situations. Local dynamics affecting languages in contact and cultural links of languages are dealt with, such as educational-political issues and tensions between conflicting norms. In today's global world, where the continent is an increasing area of focus, it is vital to explore what it means to 'understand' Asian cultures through English and other languages. This important new study will be of interest to students and researchers working in the fields of regional studies, English as a global language, Asian languages and cultural studies.

Gerhard Leitner, Professor of English, has taught varieties of English and English as a global language in Berlin, and as visiting professor in Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, China, India and Italy.

Azirah Hashim is a Professor of English at the University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, where she is also Dean of the Humanities Research Cluster and Director of the Centre for ASEAN Regionalism.

Hans-Georg Wolf is Chair Professor for the Development and Variation of the English Language at Universität Potsdam, Germany.