English(es) in the World and the World in English(es): Policy, Pedagogy, and Practice
Course Description
This course explores how and why major historical, sociopolitical, and economic developments have led to the spread of English as a world language and the subsequent emergence of new global Englishes, while simultaneously refashioning existent local languages, and transforming communicative patterns in different parts of the world. Drawing on a wide range of real textual artifacts, data, and examples (such as email correspondence, social media exchanges, speech transcripts, newspaper clips, hip hop lyrics, shop signs, advertisements, etc.), we will examine the complexity of established and emerging Englishes in diverse geographical locations in North, South and Central America, the Caribbean, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. By pursuing comparative explorations of various Englishes, we will closely interrogate how these unique ways of using English shape and are shaped by locally specific influences of social, political, ideological and linguistic relations. Toward the end of the quarter, we will also examine how such issues connected to world Englishes help us to (re)conceptualize how we teach and learn English as a global language, and thereby to complicate issues related to Standard English norms and the native-English speaker (NES)/ nonnative-English speaker (NNES) dichotomy. In this sense, we will be deliberating over what constitutes best pedagogical and assessment practices that are practical for and responsive to the growing number of users and learners of English all over the world.