The Rise of English: Global Politics and the Power of Language

Synopsis

Spoken by a quarter of the world's population, English is today's lingua franca--its common tongue. The language of business, popular media, and international politics, English has become commodified for its economic value and increasingly detached from any particular nation. This meteoric "rise of English" has many obvious benefits to communication. Tourists can travel abroad with greater ease. Political leaders can directly engage their counterparts. Researchers can collaborate with foreign colleagues. Business interests can flourish in the global economy. But the rise of English has very real downsides as well. In Europe, imperatives of political integration, job mobility, and university rankings compete with pride in national language and heritage as countries like France attempt to curb its spread. In India, South Africa, Morocco, Rwanda, and elsewhere, it has stratified society along lines of English proficiency, devalued commonly spoken languages, and generated tense legal conflicts. In Anglophone countries like the United States and England, English isolates us from the cultural and economic benefits of speaking other languages. With The Rise of English, Rosemary Salomone offers a commanding view of the unprecedented spread of English and the far-reaching effects it has on global and local politics, economics, media, education, and business. From the inner workings of the European Union to China's use of language as "soft power" in Africa, Salomone draws on a wealth of research to tell the complex story of English--and, ultimately, to argue for English not as a force for domination but as a core component of multilingualism and the transcendence of linguistic and cultural borders. ROSEMARY SALOMONE is the Kenneth Wang Professor of Law at St. John's University School of Law (USA). Trained as a linguist and a lawyer, she is an internationally recognized expert and commentator on language rights, education law and policy, and comparative equality. An elected member of the American Law Institute and fellow of the American Bar Foundation, she is a former faculty member of the Graduate School of Education at Harvard University, lecturer in Harvard's Institute for Educational Management, and trustee of the State University of New York. Her books include True American; Same, Different, Equal; Visions of Schooling; and Equal Education Under Law.

Copyright:

2022

Book Details

Book Quality:

Excellent

Book Size:

471 Pages

ISBN-13:

9780190625610

Publisher:

Oxford University Press, Incorporated

Date of Addition:

11/15/22

Copyrighted By:

Rosemary Salomone

Adult content:

No

Language:

English

Has Image Descriptions:

No

Categories:

History, Nonfiction, Language Arts, Politics and Government

Submitted By:

Terry Gorman

Proofread By:

Terry Gorman

Usage Restrictions:

This is a copyrighted book.