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World literature and global English
Giles, Paul
Giles, Paul
Author
Abstract
In the early part of the twenty-first century, English is the nearest thing the planet has to a global language. English has only about 360 million people for whom it is their first language, a relatively small number, but it has around two billion for whom it is a second language. In the context of Western cultural history, the idea of a global language is, of course, by no means a recent phenomenon. Alexander Beecroft has observed that Latin enjoyed a status as an intellectual lingua franca in Europe well into the seventeenth century, with a majority of the books produced by Oxford University Press between 1690 and 1710 being published in Latin. Operating on points of conjunction across different spatial and philosophical vectors, both world literature and global English offer the prospect of opening up circumscribed domains or enclosed states to the wider trajectory of the planet.
Keywords
Date
2023
Type
Book chapter
Journal
Book
The Routledge companion to world literature
Volume
Issue
Page Range
388-397
Article Number
ACU Department
Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences
Faculty of Education and Arts
Faculty of Education and Arts
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Open Access Status
License
All rights reserved
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Controlled