Translingual Practices and English as an Additional Language: A Conversation with Professor Suresh Canagarajah

Abstract

Suresh Canagarajah is Edwin Erle Sparks Professor and Director of the Migration Studies Project, Departments of Applied Linguistics and English, Pennsylvania State University, USA. Having a BA with a major in English from the University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka, and a PhD in Applied Linguistics from the University of Texas at Austin, USA, Professor Canagarajah's personal history and lived experiences attest to his outstanding achievements. In his pioneering work, Resisting Linguistic Imperialism in English Teaching (Oxford University Press, 1999) and Translingual Practice: Global Englishes and Cosmopolitan Relations (Routledge, 2013), he has introduced a new way of looking at the use of English within a global context. Such work has exerted a great impact in the field of English language teaching or applied linguistics at large.