All languages encode aspects of culture and every culture has its own specificities to be proud of and to be transmitted. The papers in this book explore aspects of this relationship between language and culture, considering issues related to the processes of internationalization and localization of the English language. The volume is divided into two sections, complementing each other; the first one (Localizing English) focuses on the significance of ethnic knowledge, local culture, and tradition wherever English is used. The second one (Internationalizing English) deals with the degrees and patterns of internationalization of English deriving from its contact with diverse cultures and its adaptation to different professional settings and communicative purposes.
Contents: Roberta Facchinetti/David Crystal/Barbara Seidlhofer: Introduction - David Crystal: The future of Englishes: going local - Jill Hallett: Code switching in diasporic Indian and Jewish English language media - Cristiana Chiarini: Israeli politeness in English: an intercultural perspective - Wannapa Trakulkasemsuk/Namtip Pingkarawat: A comparative analysis of English feature articles in magazines published in Thailand and Britain: Linguistic aspects - Franca Poppi: Investigating ELF group membership: A case study focusing on The Baltic Times - Mara Logaldo: 'Only the immigrants can speak the Queen's English these days' but all kids have a Jamaican accent: Overcompensation vs. urban slang in multiethnic London - Barbara Seidlhofer: Giving VOICE to English as a Lingua Franca - Marta Degani: The Pakeha myth of one New Zealand/Aotearoa: An exploration in the use of Maori loanwords in New Zealand English - Irina Khoutyz: The pragmatics of anglicisms in modern Russian discourse - Maria Cristina Gatti: A 'persuasive' upturn. Textual and semiotic variations in the intercultural recontextualisation of financial discourse - Elisabetta Adami: ELF and sign-making practices on YouTube: Between globalisation and specificities.
The Editors: Roberta Facchinetti is Professor of English Language and Linguistics at the University of Verona, Italy. Her research field and publications are mainly concerned with language description, textual analysis and pragmatics. This is done mostly by means of computerized corpora of both synchronic and diachronic English.
David Crystal is a writer, broadcaster, lecturer and editor. He is Honorary Professor of Linguistics at the University of Bangor, received an OBE in 1995 for his services to the study of the English language, and was made a Fellow of the British Academy in 2000. He has published extensively on English language and Linguistics.
Barbara Seidlhofer, Professor of English and Applied Linguistics at the University of Vienna, is the founding director of the Vienna-Oxford International Corpus of English (VOICE). She has published widely in international journals on English language, discourse analysis and language education.