Why English?: Confronting the Hydra

by Pauline Bunce (Editor), Robert Phillipson (Editor), Vaughan Rapatahana (Editor), Ruanni Tupas (Editor)

Overview

This book explores the ways and means by which English threatens the vitality and diversity of other languages and cultures in the modern world. Using the metaphor of the Hydra monster from ancient Greek mythology, it explores the use and misuse of English in a wide range of contexts, revealing how the dominance of English is being confronted and counteracted around the globe. The authors explore the language policy challenges for governments and education systems at all levels, and show how changing the role of English can lead to greater success in education for a larger proportion of children. Through personal accounts, poems, essays and case studies, the book calls for greater efforts to ensure the maintenance of the world’s linguistic and cultural diversity.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781783095841
Publisher:	Channel View Publications
Publication date:	06/10/2016
Series:	Linguistic Diversity and Language Rights , #13
Pages:	312
Product dimensions:	6.15(w) x 9.20(h) x 0.85(d)

About the Author

Pauline Bunce is an Australian teacher who has worked in Brunei Darussalam, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Sri Lanka. Her doctoral research examined the reading challenges posed by an alphabetic script for Chinese learners of English in Hong Kong.

Robert Phillipson is an Emeritus Professor at Copenhagen Business School, Denmark and was awarded the UNESCO Linguapax Prize in 2010. He has published extensively on language learning, linguistic imperialism, linguistic human rights, multilingual education and language policy.

Vaughan Rapatahana is from New Zealand and has taught in a number of international locations. He has been published extensively in a variety of genres and his PhD was in Existential Literary Criticism.

Ruanni Tupas teaches at the National Institute of Education, Singapore and was the Linguistic Society of the Philippines’ 2009 Andrew Gonzalez Distinguished Professorial Chair holder. 

Table of Contents

Contributors;
Tove Skutnabb-Kangas: Series Editor’s Foreword;
Pauline Bunce, Robert Phillipson, Vaughan Rapatahana and Ruanni Tupas: Introduction

I:  Hydra At Large

1. Alamin Mazrui: The English Language in a Global Context: Between Expansion and Resistance

2. Robert Phillipson: Promoting English: Hydras Old and New

3. Ruanni Tupas: English, Neocolonialism and Forgetting

4. Hywel Coleman: The English Language as Naga in Indonesia

5. Mehdi Boussebaa: Offshore Call Centre Work is Breeding a New Colonialism

II:  Hydra Mythology

6. Ryuko Kubota and Tomoyo Okuda: Confronting Language Myths, Linguicism and Racism in English Language Teaching in Japan

7. Hilary Smith: Mr Jones: Mi Laik Askim Yu Samting

8. Phiona Stanley: Must the (Western) Hydra be Blond(e)? Performing Cultural ‘Authenticity’ in Intercultural Education

9. Pauline Bunce: Voluntary Overseas English Language Teaching: A Myopic, Altruistic Hydra

10. Ari Páll Kristinsson: English Language as ‘Fatal Gadget’ in Iceland

11. Bill Templer: The English Hydra as Invader on the Post-Communist ‘New Periphery’ in Bulgaria

12. Pauline Bunce: The English Alphabet: Alpha-Best or Alpha-Beast?

13. Tammy Ho Lai-Ming: ‘Languages’

III: Confronting The Hydra

14. Lindsey Collen and the Ledikasyon Pu Travayer Team: Mauritian Kreol Confronts English and French Hydras

15. Kathleen Heugh, Blasius Agha-ah Chiatoh and Godfrey Sentumbwe: ‘Hydra Languages’ and Exclusion versus Local Languages and Community Participation in three African Countries

16. Zubeida Mustafa: The Destruction of Nadia’s Dream: The English Language Tyrant in Pakistan’s Education System

17. A. Giridhar Rao: The (Illusory) Promise of English in India

IV: Resistance and Cohabitation with The Hydra

18. Aja Y. Martinez: A Personal Reflection on Chican@ Language and Identity in the US-Mexico Borderlands: The English Language Hydra as Past and Present Imperialism

19. Christof Demont-Heinrich: The Struggle to Raise Bilingual Kids in the Belly of the English Hydra Beast: The United States of America

20. Julian Edge: TEFL and International Politics: A Personal Narrative

21. Miklós Kontra: Hungary: A Sham Fight-Back Against the Domination of English

22. Mobo Gao & Vaughan Rapatahana: The English Language as a Trojan Horse within the People’s Republic of China

23. Clarissa Menezes Jordão: TEFL as Hydra: Rescuing Brazilian Teacher Educators from ‘Privilege’

24. Vaughan Rapatahana: ‘Writing back (to the centre)’

Afterword: Ahmed Kabel

Editorial Reviews

This edited collection presents rich and complex discourses n how the multi-headed English Hydra dominates and becomes hegemonic [...] This is a must-read book for educators who want to develop a critical perspective about English languages education including the fact that English is interconnected to diverse fields where mostly they marginalize, exclude or dominate people, EFL teachers or local languages in the outer and expanding circle countries.

The Journal of Asia TEFL, Vol. 17, No. 2, Summer 2020 - Ribut Wahyudi

This volume would be a great text for both educators and students to explore the multiple ways and means English has impacted on indigenous language loss.

TESOLANZ Journal, Volume 24, 2016 - Patrick Coleman

In stark contrast to the many books that celebrate uncritically the global spread of English, this thought-provoking volume explores and reflects on some of the more problematic aspects of this phenomenon. It does so innovatively in a variety of written styles and from a wide range of international perspectives. It will be of interest to the specialist and the general reader alike.

John Gray

This book demonstrates how a seductive ideology of English is built, by whom and for whose benefit. It also shows how a policy of using English alone in the school curriculum costs communities in multiple ways. The volume should create awareness among people, educators and policy makers about how to eliminate this enormous cost. This collection promotes a pedagogy that will add English to the language repertoire of people without them losing anything.

E. Annamalai

The contributors to this volume expose the Orwellian overtones that mask the linguistic imperialism that is being peddled in terms of growth, development, partnership, volunteerism, and aid. The many examples of innovation and success stories they offer give hope that resistance is not futile after all. This volume is for anyone who cares about ethically sound and socially relevant pathways to (English) language education.

B. Kumaravadivelu

The varied styles, voices, and experiences of these authors across six continents show both the breadth of the ELT Hydra’s reach and the power of local peoples to resist its seemingly inevitable spread. I look forward to a third book in the series.

AlterNative 2017, Vol. 13(2) 131–135 - Traci L. Jordan

Why English? Confronting the Hydra is a book with powerful messages and arguments that those involved in the English language teaching profession and educational policy-makers globally should be aware of. It is likely to stir their emotions as well as leading them to reflect.

ELT Journal, September 2018 - John Knagg

The authors would doubtlessly view any irritation at the stridently polemical tone of this book as exactly what one would expect from the Financial Times, a prominent participant in the anglophone ascendancy. So we should say at once that Why English? has much to recommend it. With schools and universities in Latin America, continental Europe and Asia rushing to embrace English, it is appropriate to ask whether they are going about it in the right way and for the right reasons. A number of authors of this collection have taught English and have classroom experience of what is and isn’t working.

Financial Times, September 2016 - Michael Skapinker

As anyone at all familiar with the academic discourse in the teaching of the English language will immediately understand, this is the latest endeavour by people who have not accepted the hegemony of English without question: rather, they have chosen to make people conscious that English has become a hydra, in the sense that it is weakening the other languages of the world...Indeed, writers, like Robert Phillipson and Tove Skutnabb-Kangas, have been raising key questions about this hegemony for a long time. 

Newsline Magazine, September 2017 - Tariq Rahman

In highlighting the dangers of linguistic imperialism associated with English and other dominant languages in this volume, the contributors draw our attention to the insidious effects of monster languages and their destructive power. Such a spotlighting of issues surrounding language endangerment in diverse parts of the world and calls for multilingual education by various contributors to this volume are vitally important in an increasingly globalized world. 

Current Issues in Language Planning, 2017 - Peter I. De Costa

A book that must be read by each and every educator in Pakistan.

Dawn, November 11th, 2016 - Zubeida Mustafa

At a time when the merits of globalisation are being questioned, this volume presents a wideranging and thought-provoking set of articles questioning the received wisdom of such widespread acceptance of the merits of English and reasons for choosing to embrace English in the first place.

Training Language and Culture, Vol 1, Issue 2, May 2017 - Robert Williams

Why does ‘everyone’ want English everywhere irrespective of its social, cultural and cognitive cost? This book answers this question by showing how a seductive ideology of English is built, by whom and for whose benefit. It also shows how a policy of using English alone in the school curriculum costs communities in multiple ways.The answers should create awareness among people, educators and policy makers about how to eliminate this enormous cost. This collection promotes a pedagogy that will add English to the language repertoire of people without them losing anything.

Annamalai