Sonia Morán Panero

As English continues to spread as a global language, it is often talked about as a make-or-break resource for people all over the world. While adding English to one’s linguistic repertoire can provide symbolic and material opportunities, access to such affordances is often mediated by strong judgements on how it should be used. These powerful ideas can position ‘non-native’ users of English in situations of linguistic inequality, especially when their linguistic practices do not fit recognised varieties, standards, or teaching models. This book critically explores how scholars, experts and lay speakers construct conceptualisations of English as a global lingua franca, with a particular focus on discursive practices emerging from the Spanish-speaking world. It draws from ELF perspectives, still scarce in these settings, to investigate what English means to these speakers and how they make meaning through its use. The empirical data presented analyses how speakers in Chile, Mexico and Spain construct multiple and often contested interpretative repertoires to talk about English and diverse ways of speaking it. It highlights the semiotic and linguistic effects of such ideas and the contextual variability with which users mobilise contrasting ideological positions from moment to moment. As speakers’ ontological fluidity contrasts sharply with the monolithic linguistic representations they report to encounter in their English language education, the book appeals to teachers as well as academics and users. It encourages us all to actively examine the performative power of ideas about language and variation, and to use the critical awareness to tackle enduring forms of sociolinguistic injustice.

Routledge English Language Introductions cover core areas of language study and are one-stop resources for students. Assuming no prior knowledge, books in the series offer an accessible overview of the subject, with activities, study questions, sample analyses, and commentaries.Global Englishes, Fourth Edition has been fully revised and updated and provides an introduction to the subject that is both accessible and comprehensive.Key features of this best-selling textbook include:• coverage of the major historical, linguistic, and sociopolitical developments in the English language from the start of the seventeenth century to the present day;• exploration of the current debates in Global Englishes, relating to its uses as a post-colonial language in Asia and Africa, a mother tongue in the US, UK, and Antipodes, and lingua franca across the globe, with a strong emphasis on China;• new material on Latin America, English as a lingua franca, and English medium instruction;• a range of texts, data, and examples drawn from emails, tweets, and newspapers;• readings from key scholars including Alastair Pennycook, Henry Widdowson, and Lesley Milroy;• updated online support material providing additional materials that are closely linked to each unit of the book.Global Englishes, Fourth Edition provides a dynamic and engaging introduction to this fascinating topic and is essential reading for all students studying global Englishes more broadly, English as a Lingua Franca specifically, and the factors involved in the spread of English in the world today.

Routledge English Language Introductions cover core areas of language study and are one-stop resources for students. Assuming no prior knowledge, books in the series offer an accessible overview of the subject, with activities, study questions, sample analyses, and commentaries.Global Englishes, Fourth Edition has been fully revised and updated and provides an introduction to the subject that is both accessible and comprehensive.Key features of this best-selling textbook include:• coverage of the major historical, linguistic, and sociopolitical developments in the English language from the start of the seventeenth century to the present day;• exploration of the current debates in Global Englishes, relating to its uses as a post-colonial language in Asia and Africa, a mother tongue in the US, UK, and Antipodes, and lingua franca across the globe, with a strong emphasis on China;• new material on Latin America, English as a lingua franca, and English medium instruction;• a range of texts, data, and examples drawn from emails, tweets, and newspapers;• readings from key scholars including Alastair Pennycook, Henry Widdowson, and Lesley Milroy;• updated online support material providing additional materials that are closely linked to each unit of the book.Global Englishes, Fourth Edition provides a dynamic and engaging introduction to this fascinating topic and is essential reading for all students studying global Englishes more broadly, English as a Lingua Franca specifically, and the factors involved in the spread of English in the world today.