Local Voices in Global English:
The Authenticity and Legitimation of Non-Standard Ways of Speaking

Tom BARTLETT
(University of Northern Virginia)
Elizabeth J. ERLING
(Freie Universität Berlin)

ABSTRACT: This paper is an attempt to reconcile two pedagogical positions on genre: those who favour the direct teaching of L2 genres and those who view this as a means of globalisation and acculturation. Drawing on Bourdieu’s notions of legitimacy, symbolic capital and the linguistic marketplace, we reanalyse fieldwork from two distinct cultural contexts: Bartlett’s (2003) research on the use of English as the lingua franca of development in Guyana and Erling’s (2004) qualitative analysis of English use by university students in Germany. Conflating the findings from these two contexts, we suggest that an appropriate way to incorporate the global with the local is to promote an approach to teaching that sees the manipulation of register as a creative and strategic social practice oriented towards an abstract generic structure within a specific historical context.