© Oxford University Press 2007
The discourses of appropriation: a response to Karmani (2005)
Faculté des Sciences de l’Education, Rabat, Morocco
Business and Professional English Center, Casablanca, Morocco
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Abstract |
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Sohail Karmani's paper (2005) entitled ‘English, "terror" and Islam’ made a compelling case against the role of English in the demonization of Islam and the perpetuation of western hegemony, and he made an equally strong case for more explicit awareness of the ideologies underlying ELT practices. Although I find myself in general agreement with Karmani's position, I think his paper left a lot of issues unexplored. So, the objective of this paper is to examine some important implications of the relatively undertheorized issue of how the global spread of English is received and acted upon. Drawing on what I call ‘the power potential’ inherent in any language, I argue that, instead of considering English and its putative hegemonic discourses as an inhibitive and imposed encumbrance, we need to take into account how the language is constantly and unpredictably appropriated and creatively reshaped and expropriated to give voice to emerging agencies and subjectivities. In conclusion, I suggest that appropriation, far from being drenched in a confrontational idiom, is a move towards new sites of collaboration and contestation, towards much wider human possibilities.
Accepted for publication 1 November 2006.
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  S.-A. Mirhosseini English and a World of Diversities: Confrontation, Appropriation, Awareness Applied Linguistics, June 1, 2008; 29(2): 312 - 317. [Full Text] [PDF]
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