The Handbook of Asian Englishes

The Handbook of Asian Englishes provides wide-ranging coverage of the historical and cultural context, contemporary dynamics, and linguistic features of English in use throughout the Asian region. This first-of-its-kind volume offers a wide-ranging exploration of the English language throughout nations in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and East Asia. Contributions by a team of internationally recognized linguists and scholars of Asian Englishes and Asian languages survey existing works and review new and emerging areas of research in the field.

Edited by renowned scholars in the field and structured in four parts, this Handbook explores the status and functions of English in the educational institutions, legal systems, media, popular cultures, and religions of diverse Asian societies. In addition to examining nation-specific topics, this comprehensive volume presents articles exploring pan-Asian issues such as English in Asian schools and universities, English and language policies in the Asian region, and the statistics of English across Asia. Up-to-date research addresses the impact of English as an Asian lingua franca, globalization and Asian Englishes, the dynamics of multilingualism, and more.

Serving as an important contribution to fields such as contact linguistics, World Englishes, sociolinguistics, and Asian language studies, The Handbook of Asian Englishes is an invaluable reference resource for undergraduate and graduate students, researchers, and instructors across these areas.

Kingsley Bolton is Professor Emeritus at Stockholm University, Sweden, and Honorary Professor at the Social Sciences Research Centre at The University of Hong Kong. He has published widely on English linguistics and the sociolinguistics of the Asian region. He is Co-Editor of the journal World Englishes and Executive Director of the International Association for World Englishes.

Werner Botha is Senior Lecturer at Flinders University, Australia. His current research focuses on language variation, educational linguistics, and the sociolinguistics of English in higher education in Singapore, South Africa, and China. He is Assistant Editor of the Wiley journal World Englishes.

Andy Kirkpatrick is Professor in Linguistics at Griffith University, Australia, and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. He is author of World Englishes: Implications for ELT and International Communication (2007) and Is English an Asian Language? (2020).