China and English

Globalisation and the Dilemmas of Identity

Edited by Prof. Joseph Lo Bianco, Jane Orton, Prof. Gao Yihong

Publication date:

26 November 2009

Publisher

Multilingual Matters

Dimensions:

210x148mm
6x8"

ISBN-13: 9781847692290

It has been said there are more Chinese learning English than there are Americans. We all have a sense that the first decades of the third millennium, including the effects of the global financial recession, signal dramatic changes to the shape of the world to come. China’s emergence as a superpower is one of the few certainties in this rapidly changing world. What is less well realised is the critical role which China’s decisions about English will play in the world’s communication profile. This unique volume explores this question looking at the debates on identity, cultural values and communication practices. Taking a wide-ranging view and uniquely blending both Chinese and Western perspectives the volume explores the critically important cultural consequences of mass English learning in today’s world.

What is remarkable in this volume is not only the ways in which the discourses of this dichotomy resonate in the early twenty-first century, but also the ways in which new discourses, new problems and new opportunities emerge in the present. The editors are to be congratulated on this book, which offers an insightful blend of theory and empirical research. The fascinating and wide-ranging account of the status and functions of English in China today provided by Lo Bianco, Orton and Gao in China and English is essential reading for everyone interested in English in the Chinese context and in the wide range of educational and intercultural issues associated with the continuing story of English in China.