Transmedia Storytelling, Translocal Productions: Audiovisual Strategies of Globalization in Australia

One of the fundamental problems underlying the English as a global language vs. local languages debate is that they
often adhere to the dichotomous ‘global vs. local’ vision of transnational communication, treating them as
incommensurable discourses and often reviving the spectre of cultural authenticity. Yet global movies, such as Baz
Luhrmann’s Australia, use the potential of transmedia and transcultural strategies to reach a global audience. T he
production of such movies exploits the growing realization within the media industries that what is variously called
«transmedia, multiplatform, or enhanced storytelling» represents the future of entertainment and its economic
growth (Jenkins 2003; 2006). On the other side, in order to enter the daily lives of its global audience, the film
production decided to exploit the power of another social good: Australian culture. T hus, as the critical applied
linguistics scholar, Alistair Pennycook, notes, the literature on English as a global language has often failed to
investigate whether English as a global language may be defined as a «translocal» language, a language of fluidity that
moves across, while becoming embedded in, the materiality of localities and social relations. T he analysis of
interlingual translations of post-colonial English language varieties, but also of their intralingual translation into
global English, will provide some significant «insights» on how the materiality of globalization shapes translocal
social knowledge, creates translocal audiences and contributes to the creation of a supervernacular language.
Following this line of thought, the aim of the article is to claim a central space for Audiovisual Translation studies
in the study of English as a global language.