WA Distinguished Professors' Lectures Series features internationally renowned scholars visiting the Faculty of English to share their research and professional expertise with WA faculty and students. The Faculty of English welcomes everyone to a lecture Revisiting culture and language: Crossing borders and national identity by Prof. Adrian Holliday from Canterbury Christ Church University. The lecture will take place on January 31, 2019, at 6:30 p.m. in room 109A, Collegium Novum.
Professor Adrian Holliday
Thursday, January 31, 6:30 p.m.
109A Collegium Novum
‘I already have a culture. I don’t need yours.’ ‘We are not who you think we are.’ ‘English is owned by everyone.’ The first was said by an ‘international student’ studying in Britain, the second by a student of English who was accused of not being critical. The third is what many scholars tell us about English and culture. Scholars also tell us that we can no longer speak of solid national cultures that make us essentially different to each other and that ‘native speaker’ is a neo-racist concept. In an academic climate where many established concepts are being challenged, I shall consider the important question of on what basis we can talk of cultural and linguistic identity. I shall look at this question within the dynamic context of small culture formation on the go.
Adrian Holliday is Professor of Applied Linguistics & Intercultural Education at Canterbury Christ Church University, where he supervises doctoral research in the critical sociology of language and intercultural education. His publications deal with the cultural politics of international English language education, the Western ideologies which inhibit our understanding of non-Western cultural realities, the cultural politics of so-labelled ’native-’ vs. ‘non-native speaker’ teachers, and qualitative research methodology. His is also co-director of the PhD in Education. He spent the early part of his career as a teacher and then curriculum advisor in Iran, Syria and Egypt, and was Head of The Graduate School at CCCU between 2003 and 2018. His most recent book is Understanding intercultural communication: negotiating a grammar of culture, 2nd edition, Routledge, and forthcoming is Decentering narratives of culture: negotiating blocks and threads, with Sara Amadasi, Routledge. His website is at adrianholliday.com.
