ABSTRACT
An important aspect of the global spread of English is how the English language is resignified across different social and cultural contexts in which it is appropriated. This process of resignification is crucial to our understanding of global English, for the way in which English acquires new meaning by being taken up in speakers’ local linguistic practice has important consequences for how English comes to be used in local identity construction. This, in turn, has significant implications for fundamental questions we must ask in developing our critique of global English—whether English can be transformed into the language of local cultural expression, whether we are able to subvert the oppressive inequalities that are linked with the hegemony of English, and if so, how?
