English Linguistic Imperialism from Below

In this most sensitively written volume Leya Mathew lays bare the enmeshed environment in which English in India is caught. Anchored deep in the lives of those on the margins, the books uncovers the various contradictions that policies, human actions, pedagogies, and theories pose to any and all engagements around English; in steady and courageous tones, the book highlights all that we in our various applied linguistics worlds need to pay deep attention to.

* Vaidehi Ramanathan, University of California, Davis, USA *
How is it that English linguistic imperialism is created anew amidst decolonizing educational reforms in the Global South? Taking us to Kerala, India, Mathew provides an eye-opening, disturbing and profoundly critical ethnographic look at this question from her perspective as researcher and practitioner. It is a poignant story of how non-elite mothers' bottom-up aspirations for their children to have English-medium education contradictorily founder in the child-friendly English language teaching pedagogical reforms of critical educators and well-intentioned policymakers. * Nancy H. Hornberger, Professor Emerita, University of Pennsylvania, USA *

As a reader who learned to speak in English at a young age, and, importantly, as someone who has never taught young English language learners, I was inspired by Mathew’s careful study of English language education in practice in homes and in classrooms and, particularly, the author’s analysis of how educators come to rely on rote pedagogies and the purposes these pedagogies might serve.

-- Swati Puri, Harvard University, USA, Harvard Educational Review Vol. 93 No. 2, 2023

There remains a colonial tendency to relegate scholarship on/from India (as well as other ‘Global South’ locations) to ‘regional’ accounts of localized phenomena rather than holding the capacity to contribute a wider theoretical contribution (Pennycook and Makoni 2020). To this, Mathew’s book is a powerful rebuttal. At once deeply embedded in the local, and yet simultaneously applicable far beyond India’s borders, English Imperialism from Below is a crucial text for any reader interested in the nuanced and complex nature of language, aspiration, marginalization, and social mobility.

-- Katy Highet, University of the West of Scotland, UK, Applied Linguistics, 2023

[This book] encourages educators to reflect on the complexities of linguistic imperialism and its implications for language teaching practices. Unlike conventional perspectives that emphasize the economic and political advantages of language acquisition, Mathew’s emphasis on the agency of non-elites redirects attention to often neglected gender-related challenges in education and social consequences. Equally important, Mathew demands context-specific analysis in understanding the global spread of English.

* Lily Thukral, Shirayuri University, Japan, GALE 2024 Vol.