4 The King’s English and the Mother Tongue
-
Carrol Clarkson
Abstract
This chapter addresses topical concerns about English as a dominant language in world literature. As a way of focusing the discussion, it pays close attention to the prefatory material of a selection of monolingual English dictionaries, which offer insights about English and its transnational encounters, contacts, and conflicts with other languages and cultures. What threat does English as a world language pose to freedom of expression and to the diversity of human thought? What potential is there for a distinctive literature of resistance and transformation when this literature is written in English, in a former British colony? The chapter explores these questions by revisiting debates from the 1960s about African literature, and then moves on to consider ways in which a few contemporary novels and critical texts in the field of world literature use the dictionary as a theme, or as a formal literary-critical device for thinking through questions such as the relation between language, identity, and political transition.
Abstract
This chapter addresses topical concerns about English as a dominant language in world literature. As a way of focusing the discussion, it pays close attention to the prefatory material of a selection of monolingual English dictionaries, which offer insights about English and its transnational encounters, contacts, and conflicts with other languages and cultures. What threat does English as a world language pose to freedom of expression and to the diversity of human thought? What potential is there for a distinctive literature of resistance and transformation when this literature is written in English, in a former British colony? The chapter explores these questions by revisiting debates from the 1960s about African literature, and then moves on to consider ways in which a few contemporary novels and critical texts in the field of world literature use the dictionary as a theme, or as a formal literary-critical device for thinking through questions such as the relation between language, identity, and political transition.
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Editors’ Preface V
- Contents VII
- 0 Introduction 1
-
Part I: Historical Approaches – Genealogies of World Literatures
- 1 The Beginnings of the Concept (Goethe, Marx, Said) – Readings from a Postcolonial Perspective 15
- 2 Re-Reading Classical Approaches from a Postcolonial Perspective: Pascale Casanova, Franco Moretti, David Damrosch 31
- 3 Macaulay’s Magic Hat: The Colonial Education System and the Canon of World Literature 41
- 4 The King’s English and the Mother Tongue 53
- 5 Rethinking English Studies 67
-
Part II: Concepts and Methods of Anglophone World Literatures
- 6 Global Literature, World Literature and Worlding Literature: Some Conceptual Differences 85
- 7 Barbarians: Cosmopolitanism Beyond the Center-Periphery Model 103
- 8 Anglophone World Literatures and World Ecologies (Environmental Humanities) 119
- 9 Anglophone World Literatures and Transcultural Memory 133
- 10 Anglophone World Literatures and Translation 149
- 11 Comparative Literature 161
- 12 Genres of Anglophone World Literatures 175
- 13 Decolonizing World Literature through Orality 193
- 14 Intermediality and Remediation 209
-
Part III: Sociological Approaches – Distribution, Reception and Translation of Anglophone World Literature
- 15 Marketing Anglophone World Literatures 229
- 16 Canons and Canonicity in Anglophone Literature 245
- 17 Teaching Anglophone World Literature 263
- 18 Anglophone World Literatures, the Internet and the Digital Humanities 275
-
Part IV: Literary Worlds – Locations and Orientations
- 19 Britain 291
- 20 Ireland 313
- 21 USA 333
- 22 Canada 355
- 23 The Oceans 375
- 24 The Caribbean 395
- 25 Southern Africa 415
- 26 West Africa 433
- 27 East Africa 451
- 28 South Asia 471
- 29 Southeast Asia (Hong Kong and Singapore) 489
- 30 Australia 511
- 31 New Zealand Literature and the World 531
- Name Index 549
- Subject Index 567
- List of Contributors 579
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Editors’ Preface V
- Contents VII
- 0 Introduction 1
-
Part I: Historical Approaches – Genealogies of World Literatures
- 1 The Beginnings of the Concept (Goethe, Marx, Said) – Readings from a Postcolonial Perspective 15
- 2 Re-Reading Classical Approaches from a Postcolonial Perspective: Pascale Casanova, Franco Moretti, David Damrosch 31
- 3 Macaulay’s Magic Hat: The Colonial Education System and the Canon of World Literature 41
- 4 The King’s English and the Mother Tongue 53
- 5 Rethinking English Studies 67
-
Part II: Concepts and Methods of Anglophone World Literatures
- 6 Global Literature, World Literature and Worlding Literature: Some Conceptual Differences 85
- 7 Barbarians: Cosmopolitanism Beyond the Center-Periphery Model 103
- 8 Anglophone World Literatures and World Ecologies (Environmental Humanities) 119
- 9 Anglophone World Literatures and Transcultural Memory 133
- 10 Anglophone World Literatures and Translation 149
- 11 Comparative Literature 161
- 12 Genres of Anglophone World Literatures 175
- 13 Decolonizing World Literature through Orality 193
- 14 Intermediality and Remediation 209
-
Part III: Sociological Approaches – Distribution, Reception and Translation of Anglophone World Literature
- 15 Marketing Anglophone World Literatures 229
- 16 Canons and Canonicity in Anglophone Literature 245
- 17 Teaching Anglophone World Literature 263
- 18 Anglophone World Literatures, the Internet and the Digital Humanities 275
-
Part IV: Literary Worlds – Locations and Orientations
- 19 Britain 291
- 20 Ireland 313
- 21 USA 333
- 22 Canada 355
- 23 The Oceans 375
- 24 The Caribbean 395
- 25 Southern Africa 415
- 26 West Africa 433
- 27 East Africa 451
- 28 South Asia 471
- 29 Southeast Asia (Hong Kong and Singapore) 489
- 30 Australia 511
- 31 New Zealand Literature and the World 531
- Name Index 549
- Subject Index 567
- List of Contributors 579
