Hilton Head, S.C. is known wide and far as a resort and retirement community for the well-to-do. What is less well known is that fifty years ago, Hilton Head was inhabited primarily by African-American farmers and fishermen who spoke a language that mixed English with African words known as Gullah. Although spoken for 300 years, Gullah has been considered a corrupted form of English not only by whites, by also by native Gullah speakers. "When I was a youngster," one native speaker said, "Gullah had such a stigma. So everybody was trying to speak standard English."

For native speakers of vernacular languages, whether and how to appropriate English is no small question. In a postmodern world where education has lost its innocence, teaching English has become a controversial activity. The question is this: Is teaching English to native speakers empowering or imperialistic? The same question, of course, has often been raised with respect to the Great Commission.

In a remarkable and award-winning book entitled Resisting Linguistic Imperialism in English Language Teaching, Suresh Canagarajah discusses the process of cultural and linguistic encounter. Canagarajah is from the war-torn Tamil-speaking northern region of Sri Lanka where he taught English for ten years. "Millions of people in post-colonial communities," he writes, "find themselves torn between the claims of Western values and their indigenous cultures, between English and the vernacular."

This conflict is often cast as an either/or choice: Either the native speaker simply adopts English for its advantages, thereby "betraying" the vernacular, or rejects English entirely in order to remain true to indigenous tradition. The problem with this choice, Canagarajah writes, is that it is overly deterministic--it assumes people are passive and unable to exercise resistance in creative and constructive ways. Unfortunately, he adds, such deterministic assumptions about power and human persons have been very influential in the fields of linguistics, discourse analysis, and education. Such assumptions often consider the teaching of English to constitute a Trojan horse that disguises imperialist values designed to perpetuate dependence.

The good news is that there are more promising ways of understanding linguistic encounter. According to Canagarajah, whose goal is to "take the discussion of post-colonial English beyond the stereotypical positions (for or against English; for or against the vernacular)," native speakers may in fact transcend the conflict by creatively using English in ways that serve local needs while resisting linguistic imperialism. This response is made possible by different assumptions--namely, that human persons are not only vulnerable to oppression but also capable of exercising resistance, and that language can be not only repressive, but also liberating.

Canagarajah's resistance perspective, alluded to in the title of his book, is the view that "each language is sufficiently heterogeneous for marginalized groups to make it serve their own purposes. It provides for the possibility that, in everyday life, the powerless in post-colonial communities may find ways to negotiate, alter, and oppose political structures, and reconstruct their languages, cultures, and identities to their advantage. The intention is not to reject English, but to reconstitute it in more inclusive, ethical, and democratic terms, and so bring about the creative resolutions to their linguistic conflicts." Simply put, this is the perspective of real hope over against naive optimism or deterministic pessimism.

Canagarajah's scholarship is rooted in his identity as a Sri Lankan, and as a Christian. "At a time when multiculturalism and diversity are fashionable movements," he writes, most scholars in the field of discourse analysis remain Westerners, which "prevents their well-intentioned books from representing adequately the interests and aspirations of (native) communities." In describing cultural encounter with the language of liberation, Canagarajah is practicing what he preaches--i.e., he is appropriating the discourse of the discipline and using it to demonstrate that human persons are not only constituted by language, but are sufficiently free and creative as to benefit from rather than fear the cultural encounter. Indeed, the whole drama of Scripture is a redemption story of a people who are constituted by a message that can be translated into any tongue.

Although the entanglement of Christianity with colonialism and the teaching of English is complex, Christianity commonly preserves and empowers native cultures against the homogenizing tendencies of Western culture precisely because Christianity values vernacular languages. Take Gullah for example. Because Gullah was not previously a written language, the recent translation of "De Nyew Testament" provides newfound hope that the native language and culture will be preserved, including African-American ownership of land.

The example of the Gullah New Testament is no exception. Gambian historian Lamin Sanneh has documented the same phenomenon of translation preserving local culture throughout Africa. In Africa, Sanneh writes, "The vernacular Scriptures and the wider cultural and linguistic enterprise on which translation rested provided the means and occasion for arousing a sense of national pride." This dynamic, Sanneh concludes, "undercuts the alleged connection often drawn between missions and colonialism." So much for the Great Commission being imperialistic.

At a time when the weight of world Christianity has shifted south, and Asia, Africa, and Latin America are sending missionaries to Europe and North America, it is appropriate that we are hosting both Sanneh, an African, and Canagarajah, a Sri Lankan. Sanneh will speak on globalization Saturday, April 1st, and then preach on Post-Western Christianity at Sage Chapel the next morning. Canagarajah, who also serves as an advisor to InterVarsity in the New York City area, will provide our annual Upstate NY InterVarsity Faculty conference entitled Babel to Pentecost: Language and the Pluralization of Knowledge on Saturday, April 8th. Details and a link to registration for the April 8th conference are below.

Also below you will find information on other upcoming events, an update on our fundraising, and the latest news about the Chesterton House board. Thank you for your interest and support. We hope to see you soon.

Please contact Karl Johnson, kej3@cornell.edu, if you are interested in joining this monthly reading & discussion group. More info: http://www.chestertonhouse.org/ausable.html

As we approach the end of the fiscal year on March 31st, we are grateful to our many generous supporters who make the work and ministry of Chesterton House possible. With the help of a matching grant and a number of other generous gifts, we raised approximately $100,000 this past year. Please note that the matching gift opportunity remains in effect through 2006. More information on the matching grant and how you can support the Chesterton House ministry is available here: http://www.chestertonhouse.org/funding.html

We have been privileged to have great commitment and continuity on the Chesterton House board. This month we recognize the service and contribution of Christian Anible, Rev. Dave Jones, and Dr. Jim Stouffer, all of whom are completing their board terms. Christian, Dave, and Jim have all been an important to laying the foundation of the Chesterton House ministry. We wish them the very best and look forward to their continued involvement in in the ministry in other capacities.

Joining the board this month are Camille Wilson and Dr. Kathleen Vogel. Camille is a Cornell alumna and a former staff member with Campus Crusade for Christ at their world headquarters in Orlando, FL. She recently began graduate studies at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary for a counseling degree in Marriage and Family Therapy. Kathleen is an assistant professor with a joint appointment in Science and Technology Studies and the Peace Studies Program. Her interests and expertise include biosecurity and nonproliferation issues. We are very pleased and privileged to have Camille and Kathleen contributing their time and talents to Chesterton House.