English and Identity in China
Jane Orton and Joe Lo Bianco
Although initially an economic phenomenon, today globalisation is characterised by issues of culture exchange, education and population mobility. Communication is the essential lubricant of globalisation, and this has brought about the rise of languages of exceptional power and spread. Such languages confer substantial advantages to both new learners and established users, but they also often provoke ambivalent reactions from both.
Cluster members Joe Lo Bianco and Jane Orton in collaboration with Professor Gao Yihong of the English Department of Peking University, have been addressing one sharp edge of this encounter: the identity consequences of China's English boom. Symposia papers from three conferences over the past two years presented by the co-researchers, some of their postgraduates, and three other Chinese colleagues are now being turned into a book.