Drawing on Pennycook's frameworks for understanding the global role of English, we discuss the paradoxes of English language usage in what Canagarajah terms "periphery communities" internationally. This analysis is complemented by Canagarajah's work on a "politics of location", which provides powerful insights into a periphery…

Children of the poor are at greater educational risk than the children of the wealthy, but to what extent, if any, are these risks the result of undetected linguistic considerations? This chapter reviews long-standing issues that influence students' academic and social experiences in school as well as more contemporary debates that respond to…

Explores problems involved in defining Black South African English, such as whether it is a new variety of English or a dialect and relating to whose English it is: the English of those learners who have encountered only a smattering of English in informal contexts or the variety of English acquired during formal schooling. (Author/VWL)

Considers challenges to and prospects for English in South Africa at the turn of the century. Argues that as a result of its social history and its status as a global language, English has a secure place in South Africa. (Author/VWL)

Argues that linguists have ignored diversity within the northern Khoesan (NK) group of languages of Southern Africa and this has had serious repercussions both for speakers of these languages and for linguistic theory. The variation that appears within NK has been ignored in part because a single variety has been misunderstood as being the !Kung…

Examines the constraints on the realization of "/t/" in New Zealander English. On the basis of an examination of the speech of two similar speakers from that country, a series of allophonic rules is provided. The article shows that the distribution of allophones for these speakers is not the same as for other speakers who have been…