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English as a postcolonial tool

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 January 2004

EUGENE CHEN EOYANG
EUGENE CHEN EOYANG
Affiliation:
Professor of Comparative Literature and of East Asian Languages and Cultures at Indiana University and the Chair Professor of English at Lingnan University, Hong Kong
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Abstract

English as the global (if not the universal) language reflects a hegemony of the past as well as of the present: both a continuation of the British Empire (and thus demonized as a former colonial language) and, as the preferred language of international business and capitalist development throughout the world, resented as a powerful neo-colonial language. Yet, as this study seeks to show, English is capable of acting against its own imperialisms, to undermine its own hegemony.

Type
Original Article
Information
English Today , Volume 19 , Issue 4 , October 2003 , pp. 23 - 29
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2003

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