International English, International Literatures and Political
Principles
Dr. Christopher Brumfit
Centre for Language in Education
University of Southampton, UK
This plenary talk will attempt to make sense of the extensive current
discussion of the politics of English teaching. It will review the
changing position of English as a language of international communication,
and will ask what responses to current changes should be. This will
involve considering implications for learners of English, teachers of
English, accomplished non-native speakers and native speakers. The issue
of language rights and language death will be considered in relation to
problems with individual choice and alternative conceptions of rights.
Further, the tension between
literature (traditionally a highly international pursuit) and
language (often identified with national aspirations) will be
explored. It will be argued that the teaching of national and
regional literatures should be seen as dependent on a wider
conception of literature than a linguistic boundary can provide, and that
language is the property of all those who speak or write it. Both of these
positions require adjustment of many of the assumptions taken for granted
in conventional teaching.
At the same time, it will be argued that language use is not within the
control of major social or political institutions, and that a responsible
position for activists to take involves diminishing the ill effects of
changes that are inevitable. Thus determining which changes are
unavoidable and which can be resisted is a crucial task for all language
educators and language activists. An outline will be offered of how this
issue is being addressed and what more can be done.
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