Reflections on the Rhetorics on the (Re-)Location of English

Abstract

For a growing number of people around the world, the ability to speak English has become an important skill and an integral part of their lives, similar to the ability to use a computer. This, in turn, means that English is unquestionably no longer exclusively associated with the identities of nations traditionally referred to as ‘Anglophone’ – this is part of what I call the relocation of English. In this paper I first illustrate this notion, suggesting that the English language could be reconceptualised so that the links with its ‘ancestral home’ may be completely severed, and the language may cease to be associated to a foreign Other and become fully part of the linguistic repertoire of the Self. In the second part I discuss some pedagogical implications of this idea.

Keywords:

• relocation
• linguistic repertoire
• hybridity
• language ownership
• TESOL