This book looks at language in unexpected places. Through a series of personal and narrative accounts, it explores aspects of travel, mobility and locality to ask how languages, cultures and people turn up in unexpected places. What renders the unexpected so and how might we challenge our lines of expectation?

Alastair Pennycook is Emeritus Professor (formerly Distinguished Professor) of Language, Society and Education at UTS. He is also a Research Professor at the Centre for Multilingualism in Society across the Lifespan at the University of Oslo, and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. He is known for his work in three main areas: critical approaches to the global spread of English and English language teaching, critical applied linguistics, and sociolinguistic studies of multilingualism, diversity, popular culture and mobility. His most recent book (with Sinfree Makoni) is Innovations and challenges in applied linguistics from the Global South (Routledge).