City University of Hong Kong Dep
Department of Chinese, Translation and Linguistics
Research Seminar
A Native Speaker’s Reading Odyssey:
It starts with world Englishes
Presented by
Professor James F. D’Angelo
Department of World Englishes, Chukyo University, Japan
Date: 1 March 2007, Thursday
Time: 4:00pm - 5:30pm
Venue: B7603 (Lift 3, 7/F, Blue Zone),Academic Building,CityU
Abstract
In this paper, I will select some pivotal ‘jibes and tacks’ from the reading I have done over the past five years, demonstrating how the spark of creating the first Department of World Englishes has led me on an adventure of literature and film. Beginning with a concentration on the seminal works of world Englishes, I have looked backward into basic Linguistics and Sociolinguistics, and then forward into connected issues outside the realm of linguistics, such as critical thinking/theory, British colonial History, Educational Theory, Global Political Theory, world Literatures in English, Philosophy, History materials for native speaker adolescents, and Cultural Literacy. While Odysseus is not yet home, I will demonstrate that this course of reading has a consistent direction, and continues to give me a fuller understanding of what it mean to be an educated person, preparing our students for the challenge of today’s global society.
Speaker
James D’Angelo, is currently Associate Professor in the Department of World Englishes at Chukyo University in Nagoya, Japan. He is an editor of the journal Asian Englishes and has published in the journal World Englishes. His main interest lies in work related to defining and helping to develop students’ Educated Japanese English. Starting from the viewpoint that speakers of educated English display mastery of an educated lexicon, he has become interested in interdisciplinary studies and broader questions of what it means to be ‘well-educated’, and what would be required to bring Kachruvian ‘expanding circle’ students to that level of English. This study has inevitably led to interest in Language Policy and Curriculum Development.
