Bloomsbury World Englishes by Mario Saraceni (review)

Reviewed by: Bloomsbury World Englishes by Mario Saraceni Grant Howie Bloomsbury World Englishes, general ed. Mario Saraceni, vol. i: Paradigms. Ed. by Britta SChneider and Theresa Heyd. London: Bloomsbury Academic. 2021. xii+301 pp. £155. ISBN 978–1–3500–6580–2. Bloomsbury World Englishes, general ed. Mario Saraceni, vol. ii: Ideologies. Ed. by Rani Rubdy and Ruanni Tupas. London: Bloomsbury Academic. 2021. viii+318 pp. £155. ISBN 978–1–3500–6584–0. Bloomsbury World Englishes, general ed. Mario Saraceni, vol. iii: Pedagogies. Ed. by Yasemin Bayyurt. London: Bloomsbury Academic. 2021. xvi+297 pp. £155. ISBN 978–1–3500–6588–8. As the discipline of the study of World Englishes (WE) matures and our understanding of the socio-political impact of the varieties of English transcends the previously prioritized link between variety and nation state (see e.g. L. E. Smith, 'English as an International Auxiliary Language', RELC Journal, 7.2(1976), 38–43), there is an increasing awareness of the need to restructure and reconceptualize our perception of World Englishes. A formal committee to develop the study of WE was established at a TESOL conference in Hawai'i in 1988 as a reaction to the growing appreciation of the differences in pragmatics, socio-phonological systems, and morphosyntactic relationships between regional varieties on a more global scale. Early conceptions of varieties relied on the more formalized boundaries of the nation state (Mario Saraceni, World Englishes: A Critical Analysis (London: Bloomsbury, 2015)), such as British English, American English, Australian English, Indian English, and often oversimplified the impact of more localized, regional, and in many cases postcolonial differences that were developing around the world. The World Englishes compendium sets out to provide a foundation for this reconceptualization through contemporary studies that take other sociolinguistic spaces as priority, rather than the concept of the nation state. Each of the three volumes—Paradigms, Ideologies, Pedagogies—contains seventeen articles, separated into four sections that focus on different aspects within their eponymous over-arching theme. The series attempts to open for debate new takes on traditional WE concerning the importance of English varieties on topics such as globalization and decolonization. Each collection opens with an Introduction, written by the editor(s), that identifies the key themes behind the volume's topic and explores the necessity of reframing future investigations into WE varieties. These are followed by overviews which introduce each article in relation to the four sections and explain how they fit into the main theme of the book. The first volume, Paradigms, explores the reconceptualization of methodological nationalism and how linguists are beginning to question some foundational concepts, such as the native speaker and language itself. The articles are framed such that they push beyond traditional territorial-based paradigms of WE and explore new case studies that apply a transnational and diasporic lens to their perspective. Some of the most thought-provoking chapters in Part ii challenge the standard WE perspective and look towards new, postnational framings. Jerry Won Lee and Suresh Canagarajah's article (pp. 99–111) critically compares WE and End Page 255 translingual studies, commenting on their similarities, such as how they share the desire to legitimize historically marginalized language practices around the globe, and suggesting ways in which the field of translingual studies needs to move away from being so English-centric as there are other languages in similar multilingual sociolinguistic environments that exhibit the diversity seen in Translingual Englishes (TEs). A further article by Jinhyun Cho (pp. 142–55) investigates the growing pressure of English on South Korean youth through neoliberal practice and English-language 'success' stories. It explores the rise of a new neoliberal 'person-hood' which promotes a self-motivated, entrepreneurial, and flexible worker while imposing a double standard on these young workers: the capitalistic, democratized society of Korea has led to widening social inequality and class-based barriers that have a direct impact on individual opportunities for development; however, these workers also believe that to put blame on one's background exhibits a lack of the moral fibre required to overcome adversity. A very interesting read. The second in the series, Ideologies...