The Eighth International Literacy & Education Research Network Conference on

SPETSES, GREECE
4-8 July 2001

Keynote & Plenary Speakers

Bessie Dendrinos
Professor of Sociology of Language and Foreign Language Education,
Department of English Language and Literature,
National and Kapodistrian University of Athens

The Marketisation of Counterdiscourses of English as a Global(ising) Language

Abstract

A-political views of English as a "lingua franca" obsure the hegemonic role of a language which facilitates the globalisation of discursive practices and increasingly silences the living heteroglossia within and across communities. Certain counterdiscourses of English as a global and globalising language (EGL) scarcely function as forms of resistance since they operate as products of promotional culture, of marketisation and commodification processes in post-industrial societies. Other counterdiscourses, born from 'marginal' groups, are rarely legitimated enough so as to become central in the debates about first and additional language education or about critical literacy.

This paper sets out first of all to explore the nature of the discourses and counterdiscourses of EGL, and attempt to locate the space or field(s) where they appear. Consequently certain pertinent questions will be raised about how these (counter)discourses serve conditions of globalisation in language programmes and language-based education.

Biographical note:

Bessie Dendrinos is Professor of Sociology of Language and Foreign Language Education at the Department of Language and Linguistics, Faculty of English Studies, School of Philosophy, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. Involved with socially accountable applied linguistics, since the early 90s she has been working in the area of critical discourse analysis. While some of her publications deal with gendered discourse, the language of bureaucracy in Greece, and the linguistic construction of (supra)national identity in present-day Europe, her main concern has been to critique the cultural politics of English as a 'global' language, and to investigate discourses of foreign language pedagogy and education planning in the European Union. Currently interested in interlinguistic and intercultural literacies for European citizenry, she has also been concerned with new orientations in first and second language education. Linked to these concerns is her work as editor-in-chief of a new electronic journal published through the Centre for the Greek Language: Glossikos Ipologistis ­ a journal (in Greek) about language and language education, accessed through www.komvos.edu.gr. Her books include The EFL Textbook and Ideology (1992) and The Politics of ELT (2001). She has published numerous papers and articles, which have appeared in English, Greek, Spanish and Portuguese.  

Presentation Type:
Plenary Session

Country:
Greece