Prof Bernard Nchindila
Past English literary scholarship on the nexus between colonial languages and literacy has been framed as the violent control and subjugation of the physical colonies. Stock is taken of that rich scholarship, but this lecture focuses on the recent linguistic status of English as a colonial tongue. Despite the fact that it was the channel of imperial literacy practices in the former colonies, English is now the world’s most spoken language, reframing a “colony” to include population territories that were not physically colonised by Britain. Lessons are offered for the future contours of the scholarship on linguistic digital affordances, assessments, language and literacy instruction.
