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Tannen, D. 1990. You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation. New York: Morrow.
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A. Suresh Canagarajah: RESISTING LINGUISTIC IMPERIALISM IN
ENGLISH TEACHING. Oxford University Press 1999.
Robert Phillipson's book Linguistic Imperialism (1992) began an important
debate by postulating that there was a vast hegemonic intent (conscious or
not) by the ELT community. A. Suresh Canagarajah's book Resisting Linguistic
Imperialism in English Teaching (1999) continues this debate but from a very
dierent perspective. Canagarajah centres his eight-chapter book on the
following premises. First, since language is not value neutral, ESL mainstream
pedagogies (MP) (those developed in `centre' countries such as the USA and
Great Britain) cannot be applied in `periphery' countries (such as India and Sri
Lanka) because they `fail to accommodate the type of questions arising in the
periphery educational context' (p. 13). Second, students and teachers must
resist MP thus enabling them `to develop critical consciousness and resist
domination' (p. 31). And third, students and teachers must not only resist MP,
they must appropriate English to ®t their own local needs (p. 77).
Canagarajah claims that Phillipson's macroscopic theoretical perspective
failed to capture the reality of periphery classrooms. Canagarajah seeks to
correct this by using a micro-social approach. He uses an ethnographic
methodology to document and analyse how MP is ineective or at least
suspect in his native Sri Lanka. He provides classroom data, interviews,
analysis of `marginalia' (notes students have written in their textbooks),
materials analysis, and case studies of three student writers. All of these
highlight how the implementation of MP in this periphery country is
inappropriate.
Chapters 1 to 3 give a theoretical overview of critical pedagogy (CP) and
demonstrate how Sri Lanka is ripe for its implementation. CP is an
educational approach that recognizes that learning is not `a detached cognitive
activity' but rather a personal, political and cultural experience (p. 15).
According to Canagarajah, English language professionals (particularly in the
periphery) should approach their class from a CP perspective which allows
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students, as members of the community, to construct knowledge instead of
being passive recipients of a pre-packaged pedagogy.
Chapter 1 opens this theoretical section with a vignette about an English
class in Sri Lanka where the teacher bases her lesson on a text that describes
an ideal student life in Great Britain. This is juxtaposed with the violent
reality of Sri Lanka where students may or may not be able to attend class
due to civil war. The teacher in this vignette is painfully unaware of how her
choice of materials and teaching methods are inappropriate and deny any
chance for students to resist Western cultural imposition. To remedy this
situation, Canagarajah advises teachers to avoid a centre-based pedagogical
approach. He concludes these three introductory chapters by giving a
detailed history of English in Sri Lanka. Canagarajah notes that despite its
colonial heritage, there is a growing L1 monolingual elite in Sri Lanka that
rejects English.
Chapters 4 to 7 are perhaps the most enlightening. In these chapters,
Canagarajah describes how students and teachers resist cultural domination in
English classes. Students do so by scribbling in their text, focusing on discrete
grammar points and codeswitching; all of which serve to avoid and resist the
cultural values inherent in an MP approach. Sri Lankan English teachers also
resist Western colonial heritage, even though it might not always be on a
conscious level. Their resistance most often surfaces as inconsistencies
between their professed teaching philosophies and their classroom imple-
mentation. These include: professing that English is the sole medium of
instruction yet codeswitching with the vernacular; and claiming to teach
standard British/American English while using Sri Lankan English in the
classroom (p. 110).
The book concludes with Canagarajah oering his own solutions to ELT
linguistic imperialism in periphery settings. He maintains that while students
should be taught the contextual appropriateness of certain varieties (including
a standard variety), `they must also be taught that any dialect has to be
personally and communally appropriate in order to be meaningful and
relevant for its users . . . (thus) leading to the pluralization of standards and
democratization of access to English' (p. 181).
The strength of this book lies speci®cally in the picture it paints using the
data listed above. It provides an invaluable glimpse into student reactions to
English in this one periphery setting. Indeed, we see that students do want to
resist the imposition of cultural values that ELT often brings with it while still
wanting to learn English. The book also provides insight into the challenges
for English teachers as more students and governments begin to question the
validity of traditional ESL methods. Canagarajah provides some suggestions
for how students and teachers may begin to resist these traditional methods.
These suggestions go beyond simply developing communicative competence;
students and teachers must also re¯ect on the ways in which English is used
in their contexts and develop pedagogies accordingly. Canagarajah also
provides a response from an author of one of the so-called mainstream
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texts used in Sri Lanka (p. 100) that he criticizes for promoting Western
values. The inclusion of this debate is fascinating.
The book does have several shortcomings. More examples of the
ethnographic data would have added to the largely theoretical perspective.
In addition, Canagarajah says that he is doing an ethnography of one speci®c
ELT context, but he writes as if the results are applicable to any periphery
classroom (p. 79). The book's biggest weakness lies in the author's stance on
how students should overcome the cultural domination of the West. After
discussing at some length how students must appropriate English for
themselves, he makes the following statement: `Although students display
their strategies of linguistic appropriation in largely non-re¯ective ways, the
wider rami®cations of this option need to be theorized with the help of
periphery scholars who have given this matter some thought' (p. 182). Why
must scholars be the leaders in this linguistic appropriation? If Canagarajah
wishes to be faithful to his theoretical perspective, then he must allow
students to complete the work they have started with teachers acting as
facilitators rather than scholars theorizing.
Despite these shortcomings, the book provides a much needed glimpse into
a periphery ELT setting and can be an invaluable tool for ELT professionals
interested in periphery contexts. It will make educators aware of the
complexity of issues surrounding ELT as well as how the centre often hinders
what it claims to promote.
(Revised version received May 2000)
Reviewed by David Johnson
Kennesaw State University
Georgia, USA
Deborah Cameron: GOOD TO TALK? LIVING AND WORKING IN A
COMMUNICATION CULTURE. Sage 2000.
What a nice start! Why would anyone complain? The smiling female ¯ight
attendant looks me in the eye, wishes me good morning, addresses me as `sir',
and directs me deferentially to my seat. Her friendliness persists through the
long ¯ight: always a smile, never a cross word. Then there are lengthy
announcements: the steward's cheery oers, the pilot's reassuring drawl. The
words are not the speakers' own, though. These same phrases can be heard on
all the ¯ights run by this airline.
We have all grown used to this kind of behaviour from service providers.
We ®nd it pleasant, annoying, or ridiculous, depending on mood or
personality. On this occasion I found it mildly annoying. The announcements
