Response to Anna Kristina Hultgren’s Global English: from “Tyrannosaurus Rex” to “Red Herring”

Abstract

In this response to Anna Kristina Hultgren’s paper, ‘Global English: From “Tyrannosaurus Rex” to “Red Herring”’, I begin by aligning myself with the general thrust of Hultgren’s argument, namely that if Applied Linguists really want to help combat social injustice in the world, they will have to abandon the notion that language must be at the centre of all social analysis, realising that this focus is never going to be enough to ensure the achievement of their goal. In addition, they will need to engage with Marxist political economy in greater depth than they perhaps have done in the past. I then devote some space to clarifications of key terminology such as political economy, materialism and class, before moving back to the key idea I mean to convey, namely that a focus on language is not going to make much of a contribution to making world a better place when the real problem is the ongoing march of capitalism and the increasing inequality and the damage to the environment that it engenders.