Sociolinguistics

Paper Summary:

This paper examines two articles, both purporting to deal with the issues of the globalization of English. It looks at how Alastair Pennycook, author of "Images of the Self: Our Marvellous Tongue", has a much more benevolent attitude toward the globalization of English than does Edwin Thumboo, whose scholarly article, "Closed and Open Attitudes to Globalised English: notes on issues", was published in 2003.

From the Paper:

"Pennycook contends that the tremendous reach of English gave rise to an increase in the study of the language (1998). It seems a fatuous contention. Naturally, anything that is widely spread will be encountered by more people and likely studied by them. But he had a reason; he was leading up to his extensive, if sometimes rambling, discussion of the ways in which the culture of the English and the cultures their language encountered carried influence back and forth. Indeed, he goes to far as to posit that the studies of English that had become so prevalent were not engendered by the English themselves, but rather have their origins in the colonial context rather than in what is often assumed to be their provenance in Britain itself (1998 p. 131)."

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