Sometimes the world directly impinges even on language journals. This notably happened to ET69 (18:1, Jan 02), the first issue after terrorists destroyed New York's Twin Towers. In that issue, I looked at some of the usage of this new kind of terrorism and those who have to deal with it, focusing first on the terror (notably at Ground Zero in New York), then on the words of George W. Bush, who was described by one journalist as ‘moving from the quiet language of grief to the rowdy colloquialisms of the Old West’, and finally to Islamic expressions both co-opted by al-Qaeda and used by Western writers.

Sometimes size really does matter, in issues relating to English as in other things. Sheer vastness and numbers inevitably draw our attention, especially at the present time, to linguistic and many other matters in China, and in this issue (as in others in recent times) we continue to pay close attention to both the vastness and the numbers. Certainly, in ET – as elsewhere in print and on screen – matters relating to such a rising world player are of key concern, and notably in ET76, we continue the debate on issues that are fundamental to the world's way of acknowledging linguistic dynamism, statistics, and (in effect) clout.

Not everyone interested in English needs to give much thought to Chinese. This statement is so true that it borders on the banal, and a similarly true and banal statement might be: Many people involved with Chinese don't need to give much thought to English.

Some observations on the possible indigenization of English in mainland China. China boasts the largest English-learning population in the world. ‘It seems there are more people learning to speak English in China than there are English speakers in the whole of the United States’. Over 200 million children, about 20% of the total in the world, are learning English in schools, and about 13 million young people at university. The Chinese government has decided to offer English as a compulsory course nationwide from the third year at primary school. While schools in rural areas are trying to find qualified English teachers, those in large cities like Beijing and Shanghai have begun to do so as soon as the children start school at the age of six.

A survey with large samples trying to find out whether there is a difference in the languages chosen in store signs in a larger city and those in a provincial town, gathering a ‘baseline’ sample in Great Britain in order to see whether shop-front advertising for native speakers of English also draws on foreign languages.

THE ALLIANCE between US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair during the recent Second Gulf War has appeared anomalous to many, because they belong to ideologically very different political parties. Blair, in particular, has been accused of having betrayed some of the left-wing ideas that, historically, have characterised the Labour Party. This article seeks to understand the extent to which, at least in linguistic terms, the ideas of Blair and Bush may not be as alike as one might be tempted to believe. Two small corpora of interviews and speeches were collected over a period of some six weeks, all relating to the war in Iraq. Analysis of the corpora reveals some notable differences between Blair and Bush and also shows that certain important – and more hidden – elements of discourse escape this type of investigation and need closer scrutiny.

THIS ARTICLE discusses present trends in the use of English in Finland, paying attention to the specific sociohistorical character of the country with its long history of Finnish-Swedish bilingualism. It has been argued that the other Nordic countries are developing from EFL to ESL countries; is Finland heading the same way? If so, at what stage is the process? We shall first give a brief overview of the theoretical background and of the historical development of the language situation in Finland. The present state of the use of English is outlined next, with the focus on education and on areas where the danger of domain loss is most imminent. At the end we discuss the ongoing changes in terms of the identity-forming function of language and the present diffusion in which the national language does not necessarily play a traditional role.

A seriously tongue-in-cheek essay on helping learners learn through doubting and challenging, and not through swallowing whole what they are told in the classroom or a book.

A discussion of the sociolinguistic risks faced by the People's Republic of China in rapidly opening up to Western influences in both economic and linguistic terms. The writers argue against what they consider a currently over-enthusiastic adoption of English in which ‘a Westernised China … might more aptly, if ruefully, be referred to as “Chingland”.’

An investigation into the current status of English teaching and learning in Macedonia. The focus of this study will be on the spread of English there, within the domain of foreign language education, and it is guided by the following research questions:

1. What is the most dominant foreign language taught and learned in R. Macedonia?

2. How is English teaching implemented in the Macedonian educational system?

3. What are some of the current resources for the teaching and learning of English?

In the article, I discuss the implementation of English in the public and private schools and universities, alongside instruction in such other languages as French, German, and Russian.

A report on the salient role of English in Japan's complex commercial signs. A 1989–1990 study by the National Language Research Institute found that loanwords comprise nearly 10% of Japanese language in current use, and most of these loanwords are from English. Loanword dictionary entries continue to grow: the latest katakana dictionary published by Sanseido (2000) contains 52,500 foreign word entries.

English as the global (if not the universal) language reflects a hegemony of the past as well as of the present: both a continuation of the British Empire (and thus demonized as a former colonial language) and, as the preferred language of international business and capitalist development throughout the world, resented as a powerful neo-colonial language. Yet, as this study seeks to show, English is capable of acting against its own imperialisms, to undermine its own hegemony.

Some innovative quotative usage among young people in London. In this article, Levey looks at its use in a south-eastern variety of English, specifically in narratives of personal experience by primary-school children in an outer London borough.

English has been established in India for well over two centuries, and is now both its major lingua franca and ‘window on the world’. Some Indianisms are however little known beyond South Asia and are liable to be regarded by native speakers of English as ‘deviant’ in various ways. Here, a project is described in which a set of distinctive and representative Indian English expressions was shown to a group of native English speakers who were asked to comment on them. The list includes both distinctive words (such as face-cut, freeship, and weightage) and distinctive senses of universally used words (such as chaste, see, and tempo). The responses are discussed and a summarizing conclusion presented.

For a distinctive variety of English to subsist and be acknowledged in Hong Kong, localization is not enough. Indigenization through general acceptance is also necessary, but will not easily be forthcoming, regardless of the claims and assertions of linguists in Hong Kong or elsewhere regarding the existence of a distinctive ‘Hong Kong English’. In addition, Hong Kong teachers of English will not accept or adopt distinctive local usages in their classrooms, regardless of the everyday use of such usages. The sociolinguistic situation is increasingly triglossic, in terms of the three languages Cantonese, Putonghua, and English, each of which has distinct functions in terms of Hong Kong, mainland China, and the world at large. A dominant ideology of linguistic purism impels people to seek outside standards with regard to both English and Putonghua, and to deny that there is a viable local variety of English, despite the length of time that the language has been used in Hong Kong.

Notes on the compilation of a classic dictionary of law. There are essentially five big questions for the writer of a modern law dictionary – and they're pretty much the same questions faced by lexicographers of old, from Rastell to Jacob to Bouvier to Black, and these are discussed.

It is told, that in the art of education he performed wonders; and a formidable list is given of the authors, Greek and Latin, that were read in Aldersgate-street, by youth between ten and fifteen or sixteen years of age. Those who tell or receive these stories should consider that nobody can be taught faster than he can learn. The speed of the horseman must be limited by the power of his horse. Every man that has ever undertaken to instruct others, can tell what slow advances he has been able to make, and how much patience it requires to recall vagrant inattention, to stimulate sluggish indifference, and to rectify absurd misapprehension.

Samuel Johnson, “John Milton”

The greatest man of letters in English continually reminds us in his essays and in Boswell's Life that we need to expect an awful lot of resistance to learning, and that he himself, Dr. Samuel Johnson (who had single-handedly composed a dictionary in seven years) lived full of “vagrant inattention” and “sluggish indifference” – though not of “absurd misapprehension”.

This article discusses the current role of English not only as a world but as an Asian language. Beginning with a consideration of the views of Graddol (1997) on the role of English in Asia, especially in relation to Chinese, it discusses the situation of English in the various parts of the continent: Central, West, South, and East, noting that the language plays a distinct role in each. It also notes the vast and increasing influence of the language despite the fewness of its native speakers in the world's largest continent, drawing attention to the disproportionate influence of three small indigenous communities of more or less native-speakers: the Anglo-Indians, the East Indians, and many Filipinos. It then considers a range of countries throughout the continent, concluding with comments on Singapore and East Asia, and the vast numbers of users of English in China and India alone.

A GREAT DEAL has been said and written about various approaches to the successful methodology for teaching English as a second language in China. Entire professional journals are devoted to the subject, such as Teaching English In China and Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press. But no matter how much is written, and no matter what teaching method is employed, the bottom line is that the average Chinese student learns to communicate orally in ‘Chinglish’: that is, in Mandarin sprinkled with English words and phrases or in English with a Mandarin-induced syntax.