It has been said there are more Chinese learning English than there are Americans. We all have a sense that the first decades of the third millennium, including the effects of the global financial recession, signal dramatic changes to the shape of the world to come. China's emergence as a superpower is one of the few certainties in this rapidly changing world. What is less well realised is the critical role which China's decisions about English will play in the world's communication profile. This unique volume explores this question looking at the debates on identity, cultural values and communication practices. Taking a wide-ranging view and uniquely blending both Chinese and Western perspectives the volume explores the critically important cultural consequences of mass English learning in today's world.


Joseph Lo Bianco is Professor of Language and Literacy Education and Associate Dean (Global Relations) at the Graduate School of Education, University of Melbourne. He is author of Australiaâ€(TM)s first comprehensive language policy, the National Policy on Languages, 1987. In 2007 he produced a Special Issue of the journal Language Policy entitled The Emergence of Chinese. Jane Orton is an Honorary Senior Fellow in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Melbourne, where she has researched, taught and supervised for many years in the area of international English, language teaching and culture, and nonverbal communication. Gao Yihong is a professor in the English Department, School of Foreign Languages, Peking University, and Director of The Association of Chinese Sociolinguistics. Her major research interest lies in the social psychology and social context of language learning.