English moves

As the world’s “hyper-central” language, English operates within asymmetrical structures of power while enabling processes of hybridization, adaptation, and contestation. Rather than a bounded, homogeneous system, English is a (trans)portable resource that circulates across linguistic, cultural, literary and medial contexts. Assembling insights from sociolinguistics, literary and cultural studies as well as translation research, this opening contribution to the special issue “(Trans)portability: English in the World” explores tensions between monolingual ideologies and multilingual practices, global dominance and local negotiation, English as both a vehicle of hegemony and a malleable resource shaped by its users. Across literary, translational, educational and broader cultural contexts, English emerges as a structuring force and as site of resistance. While the special issue offers a variety of case studies exploring English in motion across modern contexts, this introduction engages with English as a set of dynamic processes that invite identification, create structures of exclusion and provoke resistance.