Colonial/postcolonial critique: The challenge from world englishes

This chapter considers the role of a single prominent language, English, in the construction of (British) colonial discourse and postcolonial critique. Throughout this discussion, it is important to remember that both of these processes, the construction of colonial discourse and of postcolonial critique, can be found in various parts of the world at various times in human history. The systematic study of colonialism in a European, particularly British, context is the work that has established a secure analytic place for colonial discourse in the humanities. Such work has provided scholars and theorists with a tool for both critical epistemology and political action, as postcolonial critique has thrived within the western academy for several decades. World Englishes discourse undercuts the notions of culture and cultural boundedness the cornerstone of the critique of universal human values on which Edward Said’s Orientalism rests.