the april 2005 issue, et82, was hardly out when i began to think i'd been premature in what i wrote in its comment. i noted there that the issue ‘had the smallest number of contributions ever listed: seven titles in all, whereas traditionally there have been ten or more’. the reason of course was the length of several of the articles: closer to ‘papers’ in standard academic journals (yet none the worse for it, readability being as safe as ever).

The April 2005 issue, ET82, was hardly out when I began to think I'd been premature in what I wrote in its Comment. I noted there that the issue ‘had the smallest number of contributions ever listed: seven titles in all, whereas traditionally there have been ten or more’. The reason of course was the length of several of the articles: closer to ‘papers’ in standard academic journals (yet none the worse for it, readability being as safe as ever).

In recent times ET has received many articles on English in China, and published as many as feasible, but the sheer volume has led to a strangely serious question: How many such articles can we publish without ET becoming English in China Today? Inevitably, therefore, we have been publishing only some of the publishable submissions received. It is therefore ironic to bring out the cover article for this issue, whose subject matter looks Chinese but is about something happening to English outside China. The article is not about English in China or Chinese in a world dominated by English, but describes the work of a Chinese artist in effect playing Sinocentric games with the global language.

Sometimes, less can be more. In ET's twenty years of publication, this issue has the smallest number of contributions ever listed: seven titles in all, whereas traditionally there have been ten or more. It also has the usual number of pages (sixty-four), which means that some or all of the articles are way beyond our long-established norm. Yet at some point this had to happen.

THE WORLD-RENOWNED Oxford lexicographer Robert William Burchfield is a hero of mine who, to my great good fortune, became first a colleague then a friend, as he also was to ET.

2005 marks the 50th anniversary of the original publication of J. R. R. Tolkien's celebrated novel The Lord of the Rings. Voted both ‘the book of the century’ in a poll conducted by the UK book retailer Waterstones in 1997 and ‘The UK's best loved book’ in a BBC survey carried out in 2003, TLOTR was adapted to the screen in 2001 by the previously little-known director Peter Jackson and released in three parts between 2001 and 2003 to widespread popular acclaim. But does the film version of The Lord of the Rings betray both the letter and the spirit of Tolkien's novel?

Like so many other innovations, the idea of one common language for all mankind appeared for the first time, in European thought, during the Renaissance. It has been estimated that since then nearly ‘seven hundred such artificial languages’ have been tried. Undoubtedly, this had to do with the collapse of Latin as the common language of education, soon to be replaced by the various, rising national languages. Europe's great expansion overseas, in this epoch, also created the need for a unified vehicle of communication.

In many ways, the world, and not just Europe, is now facing a similar challenge. While English has become the Latin of the contemporary world, such a position, one can say in the light of historical experience, has always been precarious. Whether English will be unanimously accepted as the one unifying, international language of the globe, whether it will share this role with one or more other languages, or whether an artificial language will be adopted for that purpose is the question that sooner or later we will all be facing.

recent developments in malaysia have brought forth many issues vis-à-vis language planning, notably including the return to english as a medium of instruction. the present review addresses current linguistic issues and their implications for malay as the national official language, bringing together linguistics, sociology, education, psychology, communication, geography, history, politics, finance and management, in a nation which is not only multilingual but also multiethnic, multi-religious and multicultural. to make the matter more complex still, the immigrant population is almost as large as the so-called indigenous ‘majority’.

Do we need fairer names for speakers of English? A discussion of current popular early 3rd-millennium definitions attached to the phrase native speaker (meaning ‘someone born and raised speaking correct English’), including an examination of global changes which suggest that a profoundly changed and changing world requires radically new linguistic terms.

The aim of this review is five-fold: (1) to consider one both as an indefinite pronoun meaning ‘someone’ or ‘a person’ and as a self-inclusive pronoun; (2) to investigate the possessives and reflexives used with one; (3) to pinpoint in time the arrival of one's and oneself; (4) to show differences between British and American use; and (5) to look at parallels to self-inclusive one in English and other languages.

the year 2005 marks the 50th anniversary of the original publication of j. r. r. tolkien's celebrated novel the lord of the rings. voted both ‘the book of the century’ in a poll conducted by the uk book retailer waterstones in 1997 and ‘the uk's best-loved book’ in a bbc survey carried out in 2003, tlotr was adapted to the screen in in 2001 by the previously little-known director peter jackson and released in three parts between 2001 and 2003 to widespread popular acclaim. the present is the second of three linked discussions of tolkien's work and the media through which it has been channelled. the first appeared as ‘why the film version of the lord of the rings betrays tolkien's novel,’ in et83 (21:3). the third and closing article will appear in et85 (22:1).

Radical departures in English in the work of a Chinese calligrapher. Challenging conventional assumptions regarding the use of language, Xu Bing's calligraphic artworks of the early 1990s address the English-speaking world from a space deep within the bedrock of Chinese culture. Ironically extending and querying the continued relevance of the Chinese calligraphic tradition in a post-Mao, post-modern, trans-cultural era, Xu's New English Calligraphy cloaks English words in Chinese form. Exploring the communicative functions of language, these works examine the relation between linguistic intent and subsequent understanding or misunderstanding.

[The text of a plenary paper presented as Distinguished Speaker at the conference Globalization and World Englishes: Identity and Creativity, convened by the International Association of World Englishes (IAWE) at Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York, USA, 16–18 July 2004.]

I MUST START with two disclaimers: First, my name is not James E. Alatis. It is Demetrious Efstathiou Alatis. In the early days of the 20th century, when many Greeks emigrated to the United States, the immigration authorities were troubled with the polysyllabic Greek names. They proceeded therefore to shorten them or otherwise change them to fit the American assimilationist mold. This was done either by transliteration, phonetic respelling, translation, or shortening: that is to say, initial, medial, or final clipping. The Greeks, of course, had a word for each of these processes: procope, syncope, and apocope. Thus, Papatriandaphilopoulos, became Papas or Poulos or Triandaphilos or Triandos or even just Tree. I knew a man whose name was Constantinous Papatriandaphilopoulos who had his name changed to Gus Rose. My own name, Demetrious, was shortened to Dim, and the closest thing to Dim was Jim. Most Demetriouses in those days became Jims.

this paper examines the concept of globalization in relation to terrorism, and argues that the ‘imposition’ of the english language on the world, africa, and in particular nigeria (through the media, information technology, and other means of propaganda, and under the guise of globalization) is a form of linguistic terrorism. it consequently views globalization as another name for imperialism and domination by the west, and argues that the continued use of english in all spheres of life will make the nigerian state stagnant, if not indeed retrogressive, rendering growth and development elusive. as a step in the direction of a cure, it therefore advocates renewed interest in the adoption of an indigenous national language for nigeria.

In recent years, there has been a heated discussion as to the quality of English education in mainland China. The central argument has been that, although children begin to learn English at the age of ten, and continue the study throughout their education, when they communicate with English native speakers they have difficulties both in understanding and in making themselves understood. English native speakers may also have difficulty understanding them, for reasons that include direct translation from Chinese into English, especially as regards everyday Chinese administrative and technical terms. This paper analyses this problem in terms of both vocabulary acquisition and translation.

An update on the world's newest lexicographical services. The computer and the Internet have become indispensable to the lives of educated people. As a result, ways of obtaining information have greatly changed. The readership of the printed media appears to have been gradually decreasing, something that may also happen with dictionaries. It has for example been noted that three mediums for dictionaries — paper, electronic gadgets, and the Internet — are now about equally popular with students. Gone therefore are the days when paper dictionaries dominated the reference world. For example, more than 70% of students interviewed at Hong Kong Polytechnic University claim that they use e-dictionaries more often than the traditional bulky paper products: among them, the most ‘bookmarked’ is the online version of the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary. Online dictionaries are now therefore the main force in word reference.

this study examines some lexical residues of british colonialism in a language spoken in the western province of cameroon, west africa. the language is w$\tilde{e}$, a dialect within the indigenous language gh[open o]màlà, which is spoken in four villages in the western province of cameroon: bahouan, baham, bayangam and bandjoun. the paper also seeks to answer the question: why are there so many english lexical items in this dialect, changed almost beyond recognition, reminiscent of the presence of the british themselves in cameroon, although this part of the country was formerly under french rule.

English/Spanish contact in Puerto Rico.

ONE OUTCOME of language contact is lexical borrowing. Borrowing in Puerto Rico (for political, economic, and social reasons) is evident in the influence English has had on Spanish, especially in lexical terms. This paper explores the impact of American English on the lexicon of Puerto Rican Spanish, specifically on vocabulary relating to food. Data were collected through participant observation in selected fast food restaurants from different regions in P.R. An analysis of the corpus provides the basis for five categories useful in understanding the influence of English on Spanish in this domain. The study indicates that English borrowings have had a tremendous influence on the Puerto Rican lexicon, and predicts that, even though Spanish will continue to be the dominant Puerto Rican language, it will continue to change under the influence of English.

The pronunciation of names in times of conflict. Whenever people have wanted to express disrespect for a person or group — their indifference or disdain or outright hatred — they have traditionally selected a suitably offensive noun or phrase for the purpose. It is a practice that has persisted since time immemorial, and such name-calling is still a cultural feature that we pick up in our early school days. Typically, this sort of juvenile name-calling is an expression of personal animosity, and examples heard in England today include the traditional Teacher's pet! and Tell-tale! or the more recent Fatso! However, in recent years a general reaction against inter-racial name-calling has meant that such terms as Chink, nigger, yid and wog are no longer acceptable in polite discourse.

The text is the editor's introduction to The New Cambridge Paragraph Bible to be published in 2004.

THOUGH it is the most important book in the religious life and the culture of the English-speaking world, the King James Bible or Authorised Version of 1611 has never been perfectly printed. This is not to say either that it is badly printed or that absolute perfection can be achieved, but that the text and its presentation can be improved. First, what we now read as the King James Bible contains numerous deliberate and some accidental changes to the text, and these can be revised to make it more faithful to the King James translators' own decisions as to how it should read. Second, the presentation of the text – spelling, punctuation and formatting – interferes with the clarity with which it speaks to the minds and souls of present-day readers. Unnecessary background noise gets in the way. To use another image, there is dust and dirt on the old master, the paint is darkened and cracked: we can still see that the picture is a great one, but not how great it is. This article continues to explore the criteria used behind the publication of this new work.