Buying into English : language and investment in the new capitalist world / Catherine Prendergast.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Prendergast, Catherine, 1968- author.

Series:

Pittsburgh series in composition, literacy, and culture.

Pittsburgh series in composition, literacy, and culture

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English language--Slovakia.

English language.

English language--Economic aspects--Slovakia.

Intercultural communication--Slovakia.

Intercultural communication.

English language--Globalization.

Language and culture--Slovakia.

Language and culture.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (193 pages) : illustrations.

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Pittsburgh : University of Pittsburgh Press, [2008]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Many developing countries have little choice but to "buy into English" as a path to ideological and material betterment. Based on extensive fieldwork in Slovakia, Prendergast assembles a rich ethnographic study that records the thoughts, aspirations, and concerns of Slovak nationals, language instructors, journalists, and textbook authors who contend with the increasing importance of English to their rapidly evolving world. She reveals how the use of English in everyday life has becomes suffused with the terms of the knowledge and information economy, where language is manipulated for power and profit. Buying into English presents an astute analysis of the factors that have made English so prominent and yet so elusive, and a deconstruction of the myth of guaranteed viability for new states and economies through English.

Contents:

Introduction : the first language of capitalism

Lingua non grata : English during communism

Other worlds in other words

"We live and learn"

Real life in English

The golden cage.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780822971184

0822971186

OCLC:

887803531