World Englishes or situated practice of English? Investigating the use of English in education in Bangladesh

Abstract Summary

Abstract :

The past few decades have “established” world Englishes (WE) as a concept to talk about local varieties of English, attesting to their differences from Inner Circle English. WE has championed the plurality and diversity of English, making critical advocacy for equality and justice in its learning, use and ownership. Despite the increased recognition of the new paradigm and its contribution to our understanding of the sociolinguistic reality of English in a globalised world, it has also attracted some criticisms. From a translingual perspective, WE has been criticised as being underpinned by monolingual views, as, arguably, it may be seen to focus on English only. Then, from language as a situated practice, WE has been critiqued for prioritising forms of language over its use for communicational and interactional purposes. While such criticisms are defendable, this presentation would argue that it is possible to marry these various perspectives to examine the complexity, hybridity and multimodality of language use. As an illustration, I will examine English use in education in Bangladesh, an Inner Circle context. The Bangladeshi education system relies almost entirely on locally produced English language textbooks and other resources for teaching the national curriculum. Therefore, these textual resources are important sites for examining local practices of English. Based on the examination of English textbooks, websites and educational publications in English, this presentation will attempt to theorize grounded views of English use. It will be pointed out that the local use of English is invariably complex which reflects monolingual as well as translingual views. Although there is an implicit desire that local use of English should reflect metropolitan standards, localisation of forms and usages of English seems to be an unavoidable reality.