Considering English and Literature through Global Lenses: Striking a Balance between Unity and Diversity in Linguistics and Literary Studies

According to the BBC, the 2000 New Year’s Eve celebrations represented a "unique global experience […] marked by all denominations and all classes and creeds of people across the planet" (BBC News online 01/01/2000). A similar all-encompassing spirit seems to have inspired two areas of research that developed in English linguistics and literary criticism at the turn of the millennium: English as a Lingua Franca in linguistics and world literature in literary studies. Broadly speaking, "English as a Lingua Franca" (ELF) refers to the English predominantly used by non-native interactants in international settings; it thus "suggests the idea of community as opposed to alienness" and "emphasizes that people have something in common rather than their differences" (Jenkins 2000:11). "World literature", for its part, amounts to considering literature as "a planetary system" (Moretti 2000:54) rather than a series of discrete traditions. Interestingly, the budding fields of ELF and world literature elicited strong responses at the dawn of the 21st century, chiefly from commentators belonging to the more firmly established postcolonial schools of thought in each discipline. Scholars working in the domains of "world Englishes" (WE) and postcolonial literary criticism had indeed so far focused on conceptualising distinct varieties of English and traditions of Anglophone literatures that mostly emanated from territories once owned by the British Empire. This undertaking had aimed to declare the independence of Anglophone speakers and writers living outside of Britain (or of non-British descent) from the hold of native English and English literature. Many postcolonialists therefore feared that new monolithic labels, broadened scopes of investigation, and searches for common denominators would undercut the legacy of pluralism that had characterised the linguistic and literary productions emerging mainly from former British colonies. Eighteen years later, I propose in this paper to critically and chronologically examine selected major publications in ELF and WE research, besides world and postcolonial literary criticism, to understand the evolving tension between scholars’ calls for "postcolonial distinctiveness" or, conversely, "global unity". This analysis will shed light on the contentious issues at stake in reconciling "diversity" and "common ground" in contemporary linguistics and literary studies.