Introduction to the Special Issue on English Worldwide and Linguistic Justice

Abstract

Three decades after Kachru's characterization of English as a source of both “agony and ecstasy,” debates about its global spread remain ambivalent. Despite significant advances in world Englishes scholarship, celebratory and critical stances toward English continue to coexist, sharpened by the political polarization of our times, and renewed concerns with democracy and inequality. This special issue revisits Kachru's enduring question regarding the adequacy of our theoretical and methodological tools by fostering sustained dialogue between sociolinguistics and political philosophy. Moving beyond abstract accounts of English as a neutral global lingua franca, the contributions offer empirically grounded and context‐sensitive analyses of how different Englishes are valued, regulated, and experienced across transnational and translingual settings. The articles demonstrate the analytical and normative benefits of approaches from different disciplines, advancing more nuanced understandings of English worldwide and its implications for linguistic justice in both theory and practice.