30.3600, Review: Applied Linguistics: Leitner, Hashim, Wolf (2019)
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LINGUIST List: Vol-30-3600. Tue Sep 24 2019. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.
Subject: 30.3600, Review: Applied Linguistics: Leitner, Hashim, Wolf (2019)
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Date: Tue, 24 Sep 2019 11:37:30
From: Joshua Paiz [jpaiz at email.gwu.edu]
Subject: Communicating with Asia
Discuss this message:
http://linguistlist.org/pubs/reviews/get-review.cfm?subid=36528077
Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/30/30-1592.html
EDITOR: Gerhard Leitner
EDITOR: Azirah Hashim
EDITOR: Hans-Georg Wolf
TITLE: Communicating with Asia
SUBTITLE: The Future of English as a Global Language
PUBLISHER: Cambridge University Press
YEAR: 2019
REVIEWER: Joshua M Paiz, George Washington University
SUMMARY
‘Communicating with Asia’ is an edited collection that seeks to outline the
current state of and future possibilities for the English language on the
Asian continent, while also acknowledging the multilingual realities of the
Asian region. This has led Leitner, Hashim, and Wolf to collect a diverse
range of contributions from twenty-six authors from across the planet. The
contributors represent a range of professional and theoretical orientations to
their collective project—ranging from cognitive sociolinguistics to English as
a lingua franca (ELF). This leads to a polyvocal, multifocal text that
attempts to address contexts from central Asia to Oceania; from the classroom
to the coffee house. And, it clocks in at over 350 pages. To bring order to
the chorus of voices, perspectives, and aims, the editors have organized the
book into three major sections that examine regional Englishes (section 1),
local languages (section 2), and how the rest of the world can come to better
understand different Asian contexts (section 3). Due to space limitations,
this review will focus on providing a look at each section of the book before
making any final recommendations.
The first section of the book, and the largest, focuses on the use of English
across Asia, ranging from national contexts like Pakistan and India in the
West to Japan and the Philippines in the East. A considerable focus is given
to the state of English in Singapore and Malaysia, with five of the nine
chapters focusing on one, or both, of these contexts. Oddly missing is any
examination of the state of English in China, Taiwan, or Hong Kong. Chapter 1
examines the evolution of English in Pakistan from the language of the
colonial oppressor to the sometimes problematic high-prestige variety that it
is today. Chapter 2, by Nobuyuki Hino, discusses current English language
teaching and learning on the archipelago, calling attention to its foundations
in grammar-translation and how it is ill-equipped to meet modern needs.
Chapter 4 looks at emerging prosodic features in Indian English, linking
differences to English’s long contact with local languages. And in Chapter 7,
Danilo T. Dayag looks at syntactic structure and preposition placement in
Philippine English. Chapter 3, 5, 6, and 8-9 all explore English in Singapore,
Malaysia or both. The studies variously look at differences between
Singaporean and Malaysian Englishes (Chapter 3); where language norms are
coming from for Singaporean English (Chapters 5 and 8); how contact with other
regionally dominant languages (i.e., Arabic) have influenced local varieties
of English in Malaysia (Chapter 6); and how local varieties of English evolve
as they move from classroom to daily use languages (Chapter 9).
Section two shifts the focus to some of the other major national and regional
languages on the Asian continent. This refocusing of the text serves to help
it achieve two important goals: (1) to acknowledge the multilingual realities
of many Asian nations; and, (2) to better address the book’s theme of
communicating with Asia. Chapter 10, by Bhatia and Ritchie takes a look at the
Indian subcontinent and the multilingual realities that are faced by Indians
both at home and abroad in sizeable diasporic populations. In Chapter 11, the
focus shifts to South East Asia and an examination of official languages in
Malaysia and Indonesia and how explicit language policy is affecting the
evolution of languages in these two countries. Chapters 12 and 13 interrogate
the situation faced by Chinese, laying the groundwork for the possibility of
world Chineses, with Chapter 12 investigating Chinese on the Mainland, while
Chapter 13 looks at how Chinese has evolved in Malaysia in a high contact
setting. Central Asia and Russian are the targets of inquiry in the final two
chapters of this section. Chapter 14, by Roxana Elena Doncu, looks at the
changing role of Russian eastern locales, very distant, and often
linguistically and culturally distinct from Moscow. Meanwhile, Chapter 15
looks at the occasionally competing roles of Russian and Kazakh in one former
Soviet republic.
The final section of the book attempts to offer more grounded, concrete
examinations with an eye towards practical applications. In Chapter 16, Wolf
and Chan look at how the lemma ‘ghost’ in Hong Kong English has taken on new
meanings in a modern, often less-spiritual world. Gerhard Stilz, on the other
hand, looks at how Asian literatures—especially contact literatures—can serve
as an important conduit through which to communicate with and about Asian
nations. In the penultimate chapter, Andy Kirkpatrick offers a look at how
English has come to play an important, if not outsized, role in higher
education in ASEAN nations as a regional and global lingua franca. The final
chapter looks at how a traditionally-defined Western nation, Australia, works
to engage more fully with its Asian neighbors and what this could mean for
language learning on the island nation.
EVALUATION
‘Communicating with Asia’ is an edited volume with a rather ambitious goal.
Namely, the book aims to discuss the current state of English and local
languages in Asia with an eye towards better understanding and engaging with
an increasingly important continent. While I may question how effectively this
book met that goal, I have no doubt that this is a robust edited
collection—representing a wide array of contexts, theoretical underpinnings,
and research methods. In striving for such a diversity of voices in their
text, the editors have created a book that reflects the diversity of the Asian
content and that provides the reader with a rather sweeping view of the
linguistic situation of the region.
One of the strengths of this collection that I appreciate is the rich
diversity it reflects in national and linguistic contexts as represented by
both the targets of research and the contributors. The twenty-five authors and
three editors represent eight different national contexts—ranging from the
Philippines and Pakistan to Germany and Australia. This range of voices allows
the text to avoid an overly Western-bias and to create important space for
under- and unrepresented voices in the discipline. For example, Zoya Proshina
of the Mikhail Lomonosov Moscow State University offers an accessible overview
of the evolving use of the Russian language in one of the larger former Soviet
republics, Kazakhstan. This is a national context about which I see very
little reported unless it is looking at the state of English in the central
Asian nation. Moreover, the book makes space for research on non-English
languages in Asia and their role in the world communicating with Asia. The
inclusion of this perspective helps the book to better address issues of
linguistic inequality. However, the way in which it does so at times feels
unbalanced or disconnected from the majority of chapters that focus more
squarely on English.
Moreover, this book collects research from scholars of diverse professional
backgrounds, which greatly adds to its overall strength. Taj Bhatia and Andy
Kirkpatrick, for example, are well-known names in world Englishes circles,
while Wang Xiaomei is an emerging voice in Malaysian Mandarin and variationist
sociolinguistics. Additionally, this book lists contributors at both early and
later stages in their careers. This brings both the voices of experience and
the voices of innovation together in a single volume and shows the editors’
dedication to contributing to disciplinary knowledge and the continued
professionalization of early-career scholars.
Finally, the book’s 19 chapters utilize an array of research methods to carry
out the intellectual labor contained herein. There is a sizable portion of the
studies that utilize corpus-based methods, but we also see historical studies
and sociolinguistic profiles based on multiple data sources. This
methodological flexibility allows the editors of the book to compile a volume
that shows a multi-vector approach to understanding and grappling with the
target of inquiry—communicating with and about Asia in a century that will be
marked by the continent’s increased presence and importance on the global
stage.
My final evaluation of the book is that while it is sometimes uneven in how it
addresses its main theme, communicating with and about Asian contexts, it is a
robust collection of papers that can greatly inform Asia-focused researchers
and linguistic knowledge. Moreover, it can serve as a model of good research
for individuals working in different sub-fields of applied linguistics—from
ELF to world Englishes to language policy and planning. I would say, that if
this is where your core research interest lies, this is a book that certainly
should have a home on your bookshelf.
ABOUT THE REVIEWER
Dr. Joshua M. Paiz is a teaching assistant professor in the EAP program at
George Washington University. His primary research focus is on LGBTQ+ issues
in English language teaching. His work has appeared in such outlets as TESOL
Journal, the Journal of Language and Sexuality, the Journal of Language,
Identity, and Education, etc.
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