ABSTRACT

English seems to be everywhere in the world today, as omnipresent as money. Just as the US dollar has been the Latin, as it were, of world currency, so English has been the lingua franca of a ceaselessly globalising market economy. This is as true in the vastly diverse linguistic landscapes of Southeast Asia as it is in the irreducibly plural cultures of the United States. How did the hegemony of English come about? What are the specific histories and political imperatives that have installed English at the head of a global linguistic hierarchy while situating vernacular languages below it? What effects does this linguistic hierarchy have in the reproduction oKef social relations within such nations as the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and the United States? And what are the limits of translating English into money, especially when confronted with everyday creolised speech in such forms as slang and literature?

摘要

如今，英语似乎无处不在，就像金钱一样无处不在。正如美元一直是世界货币的拉丁语一样，英语也一直是不断全球化的市场经济中的通用语。在东南亚多种多样的语言环境中，就像在美国不可避免的多元文化中一样。英语霸权是如何产生的？在将全球语言体系置于其下方时，将英语置于全球语言体系的首位的具体历史和政治命令是什么？在菲律宾，新加坡，泰国和美国等国家中，这种语言等级制度对再生产的社会关系有什么影响？将英语翻译成金钱的局限性是什么，