Thread by @laorenchanna

What I love about the pan-Asian solidarity of the #nnevvy meme: it posits the existence of an updated lens for English use in Asia, even where English is a colonial legacy. It moves away from linguistic imperialism and towards subaltern linguistics: appropriation and empowerment.

#Taiwan #Thailand #HongKong #Vietnam #Philippines #India #Malaysia etc teamed up with #nnevvy English to take on #China trolls. That it was English isn’t neutral and wasn’t pre-ordained but the source of linguistic imperialism in Asia is increasingly Mandarin, not English.

That there were “mistakes” but nobody cared (as they shouldn’t) shows that subaltern linguistic empowerment is about parole - language in performance. Not language as a system.

#English teachers in #Asia, look at #nnevvy and see THAT is your goal. Not (just) Vern tenses and vocab lists but being part of the wave that moves a language from an oppressor to an agent of empowerment.

*verb

“So my job isn’t to train impressionable youths in RP and English culture so they’ll go to Oxbridge, but to help ensure they can express themselves to ppl in other countries who don’t share a common language? Even just memes?”

Yes, Chad, it is. Join the wave.