Bücher der Reihe Elements in World Englishes

Currently, the most influential sociolinguistic model for the evolution of 'Post-Colonial Englishes' is the Dynamic Model. In this Element, I outline how Construction Grammar, the most prominent cognitive syntactic theory, can provide a cognitive foundation for the assumptions made by the Dynamic Model.

A posthumanist approach problematizes the separateness and centrality of humans in understanding the world around us. Posthumanism does not deny the role of humans but questions the assumption that it is human activity and agency that should be given pride of place in any analysis of social activity. This carries important and interesting implications for the study of World Englishes, some of which are explored in this Element. Sections 3 and 4, respectively, explore posthumanism in relation to two specific topics in World Englishes, creativity and language policy. These topics have been chosen because they allow us to see the contributions that posthumanism can make to a micro-level (creativity) as well as macro-level (language policy) topic.