ABSTRACT
The transformation of English in postcolonial contexts-from a colonial id iom to various indigenous ones-was inevitable for it to represent faithfully the ethos of its cultural context of use, and to enable speakers of English in multilingual contexts to use it as an additional resource for linguistic, sociolinguistic, and literary creativity (Baumgardner, 1996; Bhatt, 2001a; Canagarajah, 1999;Kachru, 1982, 1983, 1986; Rahman, 1999). This process of transformation, worldwide, has resulted in the emergence of many new Englishes, each peculiar to its own locality and its own culture. Indian Eng lish2 is one instance of the transformation-recording, reflecting, and creat ing various complexes of sociocultural nuances indigenous to local contexts of use (Bhatt, 1995, 2001a, 2001b, 2002a, 2002b; Kachru, 1983, 1986). The codification of these Englishes, however, has been challenged, and continues
to be challenged, by the venerable experts who keep manufacturing dis courses that sustain the established orthodoxies of English language learn ing, teaching, and use (Bhatt, 2002a). The legitimation of “new” Englishes, and their credibility in postcolonial contexts of use, have been assimilated into the oldest of antinomies: Self-Other, North-South, West-East, C enterPeriphery, and Global-Local. This is, of course, the dialectic by which the globally powerful have always m anaged the local in history.
