Making world English : literature, late empire, and English language teaching, 1919-39 / Michael G. Malouf.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Malouf, Michael G., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English language--Globalization.

English language.

English language--Political aspects.

English language--Study and teaching--Foreign speakers.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (297 pages)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

London, England : Bloomsbury Academic, [2022]

Summary:

"Uncovering the role of literature, late imperialism, and the rise of new models of internationalism as integral to the invention of Global English, this book focuses on three key figures from the "Vocabulary Control Movement" - C.K. Ogden, Harold Palmer, and Michael West - who competed for market share for their respective language teaching systems - Basic English, the Palmer Method, and the New Method - through battles over word lists and teaching methods in the 1920s and 30s. Drawing on archives from the Carnegie Corporation and considering language teaching in eight global sites, this book analyzes how a series of conferences in New York and London resolved their conflicts and produced a consolidated, international standard form of English. As a postcolonial approach to the development of the field of English Language Teaching, it reveals how these language debates were proxy battles over an idealized global subject: an urban, secular, consumer moving seamlessly between the tribal and global, speaking both mother tongues and an international lingua franca, Global English. Featuring analysis of the primary texts of each of the three key figures in this book as well as close readings of their readers, which featured adaptations of well-known literary texts from writers like Poe, Dickens, Wordsworth, Milton and Wells, it recovers a neglected history of English as it was redefined as an international language through anti-colonial resistance in the peripheries and transatlantic power struggles in the metropole during the interwar period."-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Introduction: Debating English

Part One: Managing English. Chapter One: Pioneers and Heretics ; Chapter Two: Vocabulary Control and Colonialism ; Chapter Three: Literary Simplification and the Global Subject

Part Two: Making English. Chapter Four: Basic's Critics and World English ; Chapter Five: The Carnegie Conference and Its Discontents

Conclusion

Bibliography.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9781350243873

1350243876

9781350243866

1350243868

OCLC:

1290021624