The cosmopolitanism and localization of American English in the Philippines
This paper sets out to explore the notion of cosmopolitanism with reference to the transportation and localization of the English language in the Philippines. This process began with the US occupation of the Philippine Islands in 1898, which continued until the aftermath of World War Two in 1946. During this time, the English language became dominant in a range of High domains in Philippine society, notably government, law, education, and communications. At the same time, the English language also became localized in terms of features of pronunciation, grammar, and lexis, and the discussion of ‘Philippine English’ as a localized variety occurs in education reports as early as 1925. In the postcolonial Philippines of today, the juxtaposition of cosmopolitanism and localization can be seen in the range of varietal differentiation throughout society. The cosmopolitan dynamic is most visible with the acrolectal variety of Philippine English, which approximates to standardized American English. This stands in contrast to localized mesolectal and basilectal varieties, which deploy a fascinating range of cultural and linguistic strategies in creative counterpoint to the mundane norm of the standardized variety.
References:
Bautista, M. L. S., & Bolton, K. (Eds.). (2008). Philippine English: Linguistic and literary perspectives. Hong Kong University Press.
Dobrić, N., Korenjak, M., Ruppel, A., Procházka, S., Reinke, K., Wildsmith-Cromarty, R. & Pato, E. (2025). Sanskrit, Arabic, Latin, and now English – A case of a special kind of a lingua franca use and status. Journal of Historical Sociolinguistics. In press.
Gonzalez, A. (2008a). The transplantation of American English in Philippine soil. In H. Momma & M. Matto (Eds.), A companion to the history of the English language (pp. 313-322). Wiley.
Kachru, B.B. 1997. English as an Asian language. In Maria Lourdes S. Bautista (Ed.), English is an Asian language: The Philippine context (pp. 1-23). Macquarie, NSW, Australia: The Macquarie Library Pty Ltd.
Martin, I.P. (2020). Philippine English. In K. Bolton, W. Botha, & A. Kirkpatrick (Eds.), The handbook of Asian Englishes (pp. 479-500). Wiley Blackwell.
Martin, I. P. (2012). Diffusion and directions: English language policy in the Philippines. In E. Low and Azirah Hashim (see Azirah)(Eds.), English in Southeast Asia. Features, policy and language in use (pp. 189-205). John Benjamins.
Philippines, Board of Educational Survey. (1925). A survey of the educational system of the Philippine Islands. Bureau of Printing.
English and multilingualism: Discourses and practices in Swedish universities
Questions surrounding the status and roles of English in European countries have resurged in light of recent political developments. This talk focuses on Sweden, a Nordic country where the use of English dates back to the nineteenth century (O’Dell, 1997). In a sociolinguistic landscape with approximately 200 languages (Institute for Language and Folklore 2019), English is used as a standard language, as a lingua franca, and as part of linguistic practices involving Swedish and other languages (e.g. Kuteeva, 2023). Today, exposure to, and active use of English start before school education begins. Paradoxically, English in Sweden simultaneously constitutes common property and marks distinction, which makes it possible to conceptualize it as part of both vernacular practices and elite multilingualism (Heller, 2002; Jaspers and Verschueren, 2011).
Drawing on empirical analyses of data collected over the last decade in Swedish universities, my talk zooms in on different dimensions of language – normative, socio-ideological, and interactional (Kuteeva, 2023) – and illustrates how these are experienced and discursively constructed by academic leadership, faculty and students involved in English-medium education. I will show how the use of English as a lingua franca is not always neutral, how some linguistic resources and practices are valued more than others, and how English-medium education can be discursively constructed by universities as a proxy for distinction.
References:
Heller, M. 2002. Éléments D’une Sociolinguistique Critique. Paris: Éditions Didier.
Institute for Language and Folklore (2025). Språken i Sverige [Languages in Sweden]. Retrieved from https://www.isof.se/flersprakighet/lar-dig-mer-om-flersprakighet/spraken-i-sverige
Jaspers, J., & Verschueren, M. (2011). Multilingual structures and agencies. Journal of Pragmatics, 43, 1157–1160.
Kuteeva, M. (2023). Tension-filled English at the multilingual university: A Bakhtinian perspective. Multilingual Matters.
O’Dell, T. 1997. Culture Unbound. Americanization and Everyday Life in Sweden. Lund: Nordic Academic Press.
From The Travels of Peter Mundy (1608-1667) to The Friendship Store (1970s onwards): how has English in China been evolving in the geopolitically changing world?
English in China has been evolving, from a pidgin (i.e., Chinese Pidgin English as a contact language), a foreign language (or the “devil’s tongue”), and a variety of English (e.g., China English and/or Chinese English) to an international language, a lingua franca or a lingua cosmopolitana (i.e., world citizen’s language). In this presentation, I take a narrative transmedia approach, based on my own research on “Chinese English” since 2000, and the reading of two non-fiction travel literature works, including The Travels of Peter Mundy in Europe and Asia, 1606-1667 (Temple, 1914) and The Friendship Store: A Memoir of 1970s China (Kirkpatrick, 2024), to unpack the evolution of English in China from its earliest humble beginnings to the current critical discourse surrounding Chinese English. The increasing presence of Chinese English in contemporary China across domains of education, commerce, technology, popular culture and the virtual world reflects not only China’s participation in global flows of knowledge, capital and communication but also the shifting contours of international power.
The ways in which English has been appropriated, nativized, and contested in China and beyond highlight the complex interplay and the “continuing interface between the world’s largest two language cultures” (Bolton, 2003, p. xv), i.e., Chinese and English. English in China operates simultaneously as a tool of global integration, a site of cultural negotiation, and a symbol of China’s repositioning in the new world order. Dissecting English in China using selected travel literature works as data from both etic and emic perspectives, I argue that the use of Chinese English functions as a linguistic and sociocultural barometer of the nation’s geopolitical rise and China’s evolving relationship with the world.
References:
Bolton, K. (2003). Chinese Englishes: A Sociolinguistic History. Cambrige University Press.
Kirkpatrick, A. (2024). The Friendship Store: A Memoir of 1970s China. Earnshaw Books Ltd.
Temple, R. C. (Ed.). (1914). The Travels of Peter Mundy, In Europe and Asia, 1608-1667: Vol. II Travels in Asia, 1628-1634. Cambridge University Press.
TBA
Exploring the language of digital tribes
A digital tribe can be understood as a virtual community of practice: a group of individuals who share common interests and use online platforms to express their attitudes towards these interests. Unlike traditional communities or ‘urban tribes’, these groups are not defined by extralinguistic markers such as attire, behavior, or physical meeting points. Instead, their cohesiveness relies primarily on linguistic forms and attitudes, which serve as key strategies for expressing degrees of membership and commitment. Hence, our focus is on how language represents and reinforces online social groups. While the terms computer-mediated communication and netspeak are widely used, we propose the term digitalect (< digital[tribe] + -lect), referring to the distinct form of language employed by specific digital tribes.
This talk explores the sociolinguistic features of digitalects in English, grounded in the idea that group identity stems from individual identity, which in turn is shaped by processes of linguistic routinization and innovation. Drawing on corpus-based data from online forums in English, we examine whether linguistic behavior correlates with particular digitalects. For example, do fandoms favor blends? Do cults rely on metaphorization? Or do Trump-supporter forums employ distinct forms of X-phemisms? Specifically, we analyze word-formation patterns, semantic extension, lexical density, neologisms, and morphological creativity.
Our findings are expected to show that, in a world of shifting realities and ontologies, speakers are compelled to reconceptualize their experiences and expand the linguistic means to express them. Crucially, this process depends on both the digitalect and the sociological characteristics of the tribe. From an anthropological perspective, membership in a digital speech community entails adopting both individual and collective identities: the former
enables expression of the self, while the latter fosters its accommodation and belonging. Identifying linguistic regularities—such as word typologies and word-formation patterns—not only sheds light on digitalects but also deepens our understanding of how language shapes who we are (digitally).
