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3 - English in the Real World

Norms and the Ontology of English(es)

from Part II - English in/for L2 Learning and Teaching

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2019

By
Peter Harder
Edited by
Christopher J. Hall  and
Rachel Wicaksono
Christopher J. Hall
Affiliation:
York St John University
Rachel Wicaksono
Affiliation:
York St John University
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Summary

Ontological inquiry into the nature of language has been somewhat marginal since the “linguistic turn” in philosophy (cf. Rorty, 1967), i.e. for about seventy-five years. Although the shift of emphasis from the more concrete objects of investigation to their formal properties has since been reversed, this change in zeitgeist did not give rise to a new wave of ontological rethinking. That was perhaps mainly due to the impact of social constructionism, which was just as sceptical of ontology as logical positivism, albeit from a different perspective: Rather than looking for ‘hard’ properties of true reality in formal structure, social constructionists basically aimed at deconstructing all descriptions that claimed to represent true reality. This book is a welcome sign that things may be changing.

Keywords

language ontologylanguage normslanguage evolutionlanguage as usageEnglish as a lingua franca
Type
Chapter
Information
Ontologies of English
Conceptualising the Language for Learning, Teaching, and Assessment
 , pp. 39 - 58
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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