This module requires no knowledge of Linguistics or the History of English; it is designed for students of both English Literature and English Language who are interested in the cultural implications of the place occupied by English today as the lingua franca of the globalised world. Why might this matter? What are the cultural implications of one language occupying such a global role? How did English come to occupy such a position? Is the status English currently enjoys the consequence of Anglo-American power, or the result of the emergence of new powers? What is the relation between ‘English’ and ‘the English’, between language and culture? We will explore such issues by taking a historical approach to how English has been promoted as a national, imperial, international, and now global language. As we do this, we will develop a capacity to apply skills in critical analysis to a wide range of texts that, in one way or another, illustrate the ways in which English has been constructed, written about and theorised in the course of this expansion. Particular attention will be paid to ways in which English has been taught and learnt, within Britain, the British empire, and the globalised world. By understanding this history and by extending reading skills across a range of texts, you will increase your ability to engage with the cultural role of our language and its disciplines in the contemporary world.

• reflect critically on the cultural implications of the ways in which English has been described, theorised and taught and learnt;
• demonstrate critical understanding of some of the main stages, agencies, theories, and cultural issues involved in the historical construction of English in its national, imperial, international, and global contexts;
• understand the issues involved in contemporary developments of the role and status of English in the world;
• analyse the cultural dimensions of texts drawn from a variety of theoretical and practical genres involved in the construction of ‘English’ and the promotion of language-learning and teaching.

The module will be delivered through a weekly one-hour lecture and two-hour seminar. Lectures will introduce the topic, providing key information and identifying issues for further investigation and discussion. They will normally be supported by PowerPoint presentations, distributed at the lecture to assist note-taking. Texts for the lectures/seminars will be included in a Reader available from the first week of teaching. The Reader also contains suggested discussion points for each week. The texts gathered in the Reader provide a useful basic archive of materials for essays, supplemented by a list of further reading and by the students’ own research.

Seminars will be devoted to examining texts in detail and to exploring issues in small groups. Students will be expected to contribute to discussion by preparing the texts carefully in advance and making individual or group presentations. Separate reports of discussion will be produced weekly by two students in each seminar group by turn and distributed via Learning Central.

The first half of the semester will be devoted to the period from the Renaissance to the 19^th century, but each week contains readings that allow us to bring out specific issues relating to the present day. In this way, students will have access to sufficient information to enable them progressively to build up an independent critical understanding of the historical construction of the status and role of English in its various contexts along with an ability to interpret a variety of relevant texts in terms of the cultural implications of the ways we talk about language.

Especially in the latter part of the module, students will be encouraged to contribute their own materials, for example from current newspaper and magazine articles, websites, and from publicity materials and teaching materials related to the teaching and learning of English.

The module unites a wide variety of kinds of texts, literary, linguistic and educational, historical and contemporary, many of which are not usually read critically as sources of cultural meanings and values (such as dictionaries and essays about language teaching), and asks students to read these texts in ways other than they are primarily intended. In this way, the module draws on and extends acquired skills of critical analysis and applies them broadly to issues central to the cultural politics of their discipline and their language in the globalised world.

By taking a broadly chronological approach, the module also develops students’ capacity to understand contemporary phenomena in relation to their historical roots. They will learn how understanding history can enable us to de-naturalise the obvious and identify issues that may not otherwise be recognised. Learning to take an ‘outsider’ perspective on what is natural to us will be reinforced by the way in which the module pays particular attention to the teaching of English to speakers of other languages. In this way, students will gain further critical perspective on their own language, its heritage and cultural power.

Working together in small groups will develop skills of collaborative working; making presentations will develop oral and presentational skills; writing brief reports of the week’s discussion will enable you to practice the appropriate writing and collaborative skills. The assessment process will develop skills of analysis, planning, organisation, argumentation and expression.

The focus on the interface between language and culture involving the presence in the module of students with different experiences of English Language, English Literature or both will provide opportunities for the exchange and integration of knowledge, understanding and reading practices from each specialism to mutual benefit.

The module is assessed by two essays: a first exercise of 1,200 words, to be written by the end of week 5, and a longer piece, of 2,000 words, to be completed after the end of teaching. Both essays will address the set of learning outcomes, requiring answers that employ the close analysis of selected texts to illustrate the identification and discussion of pertinent theoretical issues. They will both include a dimension of historical comparison.

The first essay will be based on the analysis of material drawn from the 16^th to the 19^th centuries and its relevance to present-day issues. The second essay will build on that work to produce more theoretically and historically informed answers that engage directly with recent and contemporary material. While the analytic skills and critical reflection undertaken in the first assessment will feed into the second, students will be advised to choose a different topic in each case so as to avoid repetition of material. Nonetheless, the second essays are designed to ensure that the work done on the first essay will be of benefit.

For the second assessment, students will be given the opportunity to design their own question, with the approval of the module leader.

Both essays will count to the final assessment, with the second essay worth 70% of the final mark.

The module is assessed according to the Marking Criteria set out in the English Literature Course Guide. There are otherwise no academic or competence standards which limit the availability of adjustments or alternative assessments for students with disabilities.

The principal topics to be covered will be as follows, with an indication of the main period focus:

• The cultural politics of English as a global language

—   how we talk about ‘English’

—   narratives of the ‘spread’ of English

• The status and sovereignty of language (16/17C)

—   language and national sovereignty

—   language and literature

—   grammar and law

• Linguistic authority & literary culture (18C)

—   dictionaries and meanings

—   literature and non-literary sources

• Reading your language (18C/19C)

—   what does one learn when one learns to read?

—   literacy, women, and class

• English & culture (19C)

—   language as cultural meaning

—   nation and empire

• Empowerment through speaking English (19C/20C)

—   modern language teaching and international communication

—   living/ practical language

• The British Council & British Studies (20C)

—   the politics of communication and culture

• Globalisation and English as a Lingua Franca (20C/21C)

—   from ‘English as a Foreign Language’ to ‘English as a Lingua Franca’

—   the non-native speaker and the postcolonial subject

• Postcolonial issues: Whose English? (21C)

The main readings for this module are extracts from monographs and journal articles.A number of extracts are taken from dictionaries. Students should contact the module leader as early as possible if they will require readings in an alternative format.

There is also one video of a film and references to websites. The film is predominantly concerned with issues of speech and music. The dvd includes subtitles and, like many sites, the British Council website conforms to UK government guidelines. Other web material is not essential to the exercise.

—   David Crystal, English as a Global Language, 2^nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).

—   George Cukor (dir.), My Fair Lady (Warner Bros 1964).

—   Shashi Deshpande, ‘Dear Reader’, Indian Review of Books (16 Feb 2000-15 Mar 2000), 21-24.

—   Alastair Pennycook, The Cultural Politics of English as an International Language (Harlow, Essex: Longman, 1994).

—   Samuel Johnson, from the Preface to the Dictionary of the English Language, 4th ed. (London, 1773)

—   Christiane Meierkord, ‘“Language Stripped Bare” Or “Linguistic Masala”? Culture in Lingua Franca Conversation’, Lingua Franca Communication, ed. Karlfried Knapp and Christiane Meierkord (Frankfurt: Peter Lang), 109-133.

—   [John Newbery], Goody-Two-Shoes (London, 1766).

—   Robert Phillipson, ‘Lingua Franca or Lingua Frankensteinia? English in European Integration and Globalisation‘,World Englishes, 27. 2 (2008): 250-67.

—   John Sinclair, ‘Introduction’, Collins Cobuild English Language Dictionary (1987).

—   Edmund Spenser, from letter to Gabriel Harvey, October 1579.

—   Henry Sweet, ‘The Practical Study of Language’ (1884), in Collected Papers of Henry Sweet, ed. H. C. Wyld (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1913).

—   Richard Chenevix Trench, On the Study of Words & English Past and Present (London: J. M. Dent, n.d.).

—   H. G. Widdowson, ‘The Ownership of English’, TESOL Quarterly 28.2 (1994): 377-89.

Relevant extracts from these texts will be included, with others, in the Course Reader. A DVD of the film is available from the Library.

A list of recommended secondary reading will be distributed at the beginning of teaching.

Given the topicality of the material, the bibliography may be updated from year to year. Any material that is added before or in the course of teaching will be merely supplementary. Students will themselves be encouraged to introduce contemporary materials from the popular press or from current language teaching and learning materials which, subject to copyright arrangements, will be shared with the group. Links to such material will be posted on Learning Central.