Reviewed by Michael Haugh, Griffith University
The focus of the second edition of Redesigning English is how innovation in verbal and visual aspects of the language has resulted in changes in the way English has been used in different genres over time. The contributors explore the interaction of English, identity, and politics as well as how the evolution of English has been affected by both technological developments and its status as an international lingua franca.
The book consists of seven chapters preceded by a brief introduction. In addition to the essay, each chapter includes activities and one or two readings. Four chapters are new to this edition (Chs. 1, 2, 5, and 6), three chapters that appeared in the first edition have been substantially revised (Chs. 3, 4, and 7), and two chapters from the first edition have been omitted (‘Market forces speak English’ and ‘English in cyberspace’).
The first two chapters focus on literature. Ch. 1, ‘What makes English into art?’, presents an analysis of how writers use stylistic features and linguistic variation to create literature, and Ch. 2, ‘A tongue, for sighting’, explores how English, due to its prominence internationally, has become a global resource in the creation of literature. Ch. 3, ‘Text, time and technology in news English’, examines changes in the structure of news articles in the print media. Ch. 4, ‘Visual English’, focuses on contemporary visual aspects of English. The theme of the multimodal nature of English language is continued in Ch. 5, ‘English manuscripts: The emergence of a visual identity’, in which the historical development of visual aspects (e.g. illustrations and orthography) of English is traced. How new technologies lead to changing practices is examined in Ch. 6, ‘English and new media’. Finally, Ch. 7, ‘Global English, global culture?’, presents an essay on the prospect of a global culture developing in conjunction with the rise of English as a global language.
Although this volume is aimed at students of English language and linguistics, it will also be a useful resource for all those interested in the ways in which the English language is used.