本书是对世界英语变体的元学科研究，主要从该学科的科学性出发，从研究构架、研究方法和研究对象等层面探讨了其研究范式的建立问题。作者的主要观点是：世界英语变体研究应该加强语言领域的研究，研究对象应该深入到篇章层面；研究方法应该借鉴比较修辞学等应用语言学学科的统计和实证方法。该书的创新之处之一在于论证了“发展圈”英语的规范（norms）在语篇层面更多地依赖于本地语的语篇模式。

Preface

0 Introduction

 0.1 Statement of the Problem

 0.2 Theoretical Underpinnings

 0.3 Literature Review

 0.4 Preview of the Book

1 Contrastive Rhetoric

 1.1 Conlrastive Rhetoric: Where Culture Meets Rhetoric

 1.2 Major Approaches in CR Research

 1.3 L2 Discourse: Where Chinese Encounter

 Aristotle

2 World Englishes

 2.1 The Global Spread of English: A Mixed Blessing

 2.2 World Englishes Studies

 2.3 Major Approaches in WEs Research

3 World Englishes as a Discipline

 3.1 Academic Status of World Englishes

 3.2 Science or 'Properly Constructed Academic Discipline'

 3.3 Kuhn's Concept of Paradigm

 3.4 Matsuda's Internal Metadisciplinary Inquiry

 3.5 Implications from CR

4 World Englishes: A Discoursal Perspective

 4.1 The Linguistic Tradition of Sentence Grammar

 4.2 The Sacred Cow of Sentence Grammar in WEs ”

 4.3 Case Study I: English as a Chinese Language

5 World Englishes: A Linguistic Typology

 5.1 Modeling World Englishes

 5.2 A Linguistic Typology of World Englishes

 5.3 ESL and EFL, Or L2?

 5.4 Interlanguage assumption

 5.5 Case Study II: Is English an Asian Language？

6 World Englishes: Methodological Considerations

 6.1 Quantitative and Qualitative Paradigms

 6.2 Methodological Tradition in Writing Research

 6.3 Methodological Tradition in CR Research

 6.4 Traditional WEs Methodology

 6.5 Mixed Methods in WEs Research

 6.6 Chinese Writing Abstracts in English

7 Conclusions and Further Research

Bibliography