Summary
Contents
Subject index
`A very welcome and much-needed broadening of current theoretical perspectives' - Professor Norman Fairclough This book offers a major reappraisal of the role of language in the social world. Focusing on three main areas - the global spread of English; Standard English; and language and sexism - The Politics of English: examines World English in relation to international capitalism and colonialism; analyzes the ideological underpinnings of the debate about Standard English; and locates sexism in language as arising from social relations. Locating itself in the classical Marxist tradition, this book shows how language is both shaped by, and contributes to social life.
Introduction
Introduction
They declare they are only fighting against ‘phrases’.
They forget, however that they are in no way combating the real world when they are merely combating the phrases of this world.
Life is not determined by consciousness, but consciousness by life. (Karl Marx, The German Ideology)
There is little disagreement that language and politics are connected. Traditionalists may claim that language itself stands free-floating above politics but they consider attitudes to language as intensely political. These they see as dominated by a radical leftist current that has infected teachers, social workers and, worse still, university professors. At the other end, postmodernists, and others, see language as the nucleus of political life, steeped in power and defining people's role in the world. Why has language come to be ...
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