Abstract:
Drawing analogies with issues of localization in hip-hop, this chapter argues that processes of localization are more complex than a notion of languages or cultures spreading and taking on local forms; rather, we have to understand ways in which they are already local. Recent debates over the inapplicability of a World Englishes (WE) framework to current conditions of globalization, or concerns that a focus on English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) presents a new form of homogenization, miss the point that what we need to react not only to new conditions of postmodernity but also to the postmodern imperative to rethink language.
