The English Language: Meaning, History and Culture

English is the most important language in the modern world - increasingly a global lingua franca. But to quote David Malouf (2003, 'Made in England', Bookman), language is not simply a means of communication; for most of us, it is also a machine for thinking, for feeling, and what can be thought and felt in one language is different from the next. A language is the history and experience of the men and women who made it . This project will investigate English as a historically-shaped universe of meaning and will explore English s cultural underpinnings and their implications for the modern world. The resulting publications can be expected to bring about a significant shift in the field of English studies worldwide.