English In Postrevolutionary Iran: From Indigenization To Internationalization (New Perspectives On Language And Education, 29),Used

Review English in PostRevolutionary Iran is a very thoughtful, provocative and intelligent book on the inevitable tension between the globalization and the domestication of the English language in postrevolutionary Iran, and how the two forces, in fact, constitute two sides of the same hegemonic coin. Bold and compelling in argument and richly eloquent in style, it succeeds in raising profound questions about Iran in the 21st century: a discursive trope, a predicament whose social and political order continues to unfold in bewildering ways. Borjian helps us understand some of the complex interrelations between language and politicaleconomy, and the transformative dialectics underlying the story of English in Iran since 1979. Alamin Mazrui, Rutgers University, USAMaryam Borjian's pathbreaking study of English language teaching in the Islamic Republic of Iran carefully demonstrates the paradoxical growth of English, the language of Khomeini's 'Great Satan', alongside the increasing political and diplomatic isolation of the Islamic Republic of Iran and despite the revolution's initial impulse to indigenization. There can be no clearer indication of the desire of the Iranian people and civil society to belong to the global culture and community despite continued government ambivalence in educational policy and its outright hostility to the transfer of foreign ideas. Said Amir Arjomand, State University of New York, USA Product Description This book unravels the story of English, the language of 'the enemies', in postrevolutionary Iran. Drawing on diverse qualitative and quantitative fieldwork data, it examines the nation's English at the two levels of policy and practice to determine the politics, causes, and agents of the two diverging trends of indigenization/localization and internationalization/AngloAmericanization within Iran's English education. Situating English in the nation's broader social, political, economic, and historical contexts, the volume explores the intersection of the nation's English education with variables such as power, economy, policy, ideology, and information technology over the past three decades. The multidisciplinary insights of the book will be of value to scholars of global English, education policies and reforms and language policy as well as those who are specifically concerned with education in Iran. About the Author Maryam Borjian is an Associate Professor of Sociolinguistics in the Department of African, Middle Eastern and South Asian Languages and Literatures at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, USA. She is the author ofEnglish in PostRevolutionary Iran(2013, Multilingual Matters) andeditor ofLanguage and Globalization: An Autoethnographic Approach(2017, Routledge). Excerpt. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. English in PostRevolutionary IranBy Maryam BorjianMultilingual MattersCopyright 2013 Maryam BorjianAll rights reserved.ISBN: 9781847699084ContentsForeword: English Fissions in Iran, Preface, Introduction, Part 1: Theoretical and Historical Perspectives, 1 The Politics of Educational Transfers: Process, Causes and Agents, 2 The History of English in Iran (18361979), Part 2: English in PostRevolutionary Iran (1979Present), 3 The Revolutionary Period (19791988), 4 The Period of Reconstruction and Privatization (19891997), 5 The Period of Global Outlook (19972005), 6 Returning to Revolutionary Roots (2005Present), 7 Forces From Above, Forces From Below, Appendix, References, Index, CHAPTER 1The Politics of Educational Transfers: Process, Causes and AgentsLanguage planning involves a constant negotiation of the interests of different social groups and of the changing priorities of a community. Rather than treating them as a problem for policy formation, we should think of tensions as opening up more complex orientations to language in education.Suresh Canagarajah, 2005b: 194This chapter examines the poli