The idea of English in Japan
Subtitle: ideology and the evolution of a global language
By: Philip Seargeant.
Series: Critical language and literacy studies -- 3.
Publisher: Multilingual Matters
Published: 2009
Place of publication: Bristol, UK; Buffalo, NY
Language: eng
Number of pages: 188
ISBN-13: 9781847692023; 9781847692016; 9781847692030
Subjects: English language -- Study and teaching -- Japanese speakers; English philology -- Study and teaching -- Japan; Second language acquisition; English language -- Japan; English language -- Globalization
Description: "This book examines the ways in which English is conceptualised as a global language in Japan, and considers how the resultant language ideologies - drawn in part from universal discourses; in part from context-specific trends in social history - inform the relationships that people in Japan have towards the language." "The book analyses the specific nature of the language's symbolic meaning in Japan, and how this meaning is expressed and negotiated in society. It also discusses how the ideologies of English that exist in Japan might have implications for the more general concept of 'English as a global language'. To this end it considers the question of what constitutes a 'global' language, and how, if at all, a balance can be struck between the universal and the historically-contingent when it comes to formulating a theory of English within the world."--Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.