ABSTRACT
According to recent estimates, between 1.2 and 1.5 billion people, almost a quarter of the population of the world, can be counted as fluent or competent in the English language (Crystal, 1997). Whether as a first, second or foreign language, English plays a role in almost every urbanised region of the world. These are the bare facts of English as an international language, beneath which lie important issues of debate ranging across the various disciplines associated with the study of English. For some, the globalisation of English is in essence a continuation of Anglo-American imperialism within the cultural sphere; the English language is the Trojan horse of imperialism in the post-imperialist world. For others, English as an international language is a post-imperialist phenomenon sui generis, which promises to undermine the cultural authority of the old linguistic centres as the cultural products of new varieties of English come to enrich the language as a whole. A third position in the debate accepts the globalisation of English as a fact of the modern world and focuses on the need to reconceptualise and revise the ways in which we represent and study the English language for the post-imperialist world.
