Varieties of English remain one of the focuses in the world’s linguistic space. The global spread of English began specifically from England, first extending to other native settlements such as New Zealand, Australia, and Canada, through adventure and later to non‑native‑speaking territories through colonisation. These actions birthed the native varieties and non‑native varieties, respectively, leading to diverse tongues of the language, with diverse functions. Leaving its original linguistic space and finding itself in linguistically diverse space, English is prone to alteration and alternative roles in different settings. As English attained global status, it became a dominant force in worldwide linguistic interactions, facilitating communication across diverse contexts. This has stimulated the development of multiple substrate‑influenced English varieties with specialised roles, a core dimension of world Englishes examined in this book, English across Borders.

English across Borders, compared to other studies in the field of linguistics, is a novel and innovative study, where Bohmann investigates the multifaceted linguistic landscape that is created when immigrants from English‑speaking West African countries settle in Germany, an internally monolinguistic state, with remarkably high English proficiency, even though ‘English is only a foreign language’ there. Bohmann’s experiences with immigrants’ interaction as he played basketball with them as a volunteer worker at the refugee camp had a significant effect on his investigation of the topic. The book examines the linguistic realities of recent migrants to Germany following the 2015 European refugee crisis and particularly focuses on English usage and function. Thus, much of the book focuses on the role of English in the linguistic repertoires displayed by anglophone African migrants in Southwestern Germany.

The author focuses on West African English; however, he does not do a comprehensive literature review of the variety. This is a perceptible gap in the author’s work since he fails to provide a rationale for dedicating a section to West African English while limiting a detailed discussion to only two countries. Nevertheless, Bohmann notes that West African English is a variety of English that is influenced by indigenous languages and other native Englishes such as Scottish English, American English and Irish English, among others. The author discusses the history of Nigerian and Gambian Englishes in detail and draws a line between them, indicating that Gambian English is particularly influenced by Pidgin, Creole, and indigenous languages. While the phonologies of Nigerian, Ghanaian, Cameroonian, and Sierra Leonean English are well analyzed, Gambian English phonology is significantly under‑researched (see Gut Reference Gut, Filppula, Klemola and Sharma2017, 497, cited in Bohmann Reference Bohmann2025, 70). Bohmann begins Chapter 2 with a discussion of world Englishes in more complex and multilingual settings. Discussing the world Englishes models, the author maintains that all the world Englishes models have one thing in common, that is, the Englishes. The Englishes intend to interpret the global reality where English is not a monolithic phenomenon but is an entity with numerous varieties. Bohmann points out that these models accede to methods and systems from dialectology, which focuses on describing the distinct features of each variety rather than assuming a single global standard for all its users. The author’s discussion of world Englishes models includes Strevens’ World Map of English, which divides world Englishes into two standards, British and American English, under which other speakers of English are grouped. The author notes that the model has faced criticisms of being overly simplistic and inadequately reflects the reality of the phenomenon, since American English spreads across most social domains including those that are supposed to be speaking British English.

The author’s in‑depth discussion of the world Englishes model comprises Kachru’s three concentric circle model, including its strengths and weaknesses. Comparatively, Bohmann finds Strevens’ model to be of a more rigid categorisation than Kachru’s. The author comprehensively explores Schneider’s dynamic model as part of the world Englishes models. Bohmann discusses the five progressive stages of the dynamic model in detail, referring to the nativisation phase as not just a step in the process but the fundamental mechanism that directly leads to the creation of new, distinct varieties of English around the world. The author captures the dynamic model’s ability to create a relationship between world Englishes, historical linguistics, and sociolinguistics as the strength of the model. Bohmann, however, conclusively remarks that the dynamic model scientifically lacks some predictability and specification, especially for a study that is related to world Englishes and migration. The author skillfully synthesizes all relevant concepts and literature, connecting them seamlessly to the central arguments of this work.

Bohmann initially considered framing and situating the research within the concept of superdiversity theoretically. He regards superdiversity as a theory which suitably works for contact and cohabitation. Bohmann, however, drops superdiversity theory after looking at linguistic anthropology, particularly the works of Agha (Reference Agha2007) and Gal and Irvine (Reference Gal and Irvine2019). These authors’ individual research works lead to a reflexive approach that examines speakers’ perception of different forms of language, draws boundaries and constructs social meaning using language. Moreover, the author finds the concept of transient multilingual constellations significant. The concept of transient multilingual communities explains social constructions where people from varied sociocultural linguistic backgrounds casually meet for a common activity.

The strength of this book lies in its comprehensive methodological approach. As a case study of substrate English varieties, the research employs qualitative analysis of local language practices and draws on ethnographic data from immigrants’ interactions in multilingual settings. The methodological approach comes naturally from the author’s volunteer work at ‘Bildung für alle’ (BFA), a teaching project for refugees. This evolved into a complete ethnographic fieldwork in 2017, with participant observation and interviews forming the core data collection instruments.

Even though West‑African English (Gambian and Nigerian, most specifically Gambian) was the author’s focus, he elicited additional data from other West-African nationals and includes ‘West African Englishes on the Move’ to augment the scope of the study. The author specifically used participant observation, with interviews of asylum immigrants as primary data.

In the analysis, the author went beyond descriptive data by drawing from, his understanding of the immigrants’ interaction at the asylum as a common ground. Also, Bohmann’s experience from interactions with immigrants, which he blended with the ethnographic data added depth to the analysis. The analysis is structured around three fundamental concepts;place, people, and communication, and each of these concepts is examined in devoted chapters that blend complex theoretical and empirical insights.

What is fascinating here is the author’s investigation of how participants negotiate identity creation in the face of ‘good’ and ‘bad refugee’ labels, and how they actively engage various linguistic resources, including German, Pidgin, and different styles of English use, to assert their rights in the linguistic space of experts. Most interestingly, Bohmann combines a top‑down and bottom‑up theory‑driven and data‑driven strategies to find recurring ideas with common features in his work. The analysis of collective communications and the enregisterment of Pidgin [as Bohmann puts it] provides valuable insights into how immigrants create and advance strategies to overcome challenges in their communications. This book makes a crucial contribution to sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology, and migration studies, as it showcases how time and space (‘homeland’ and ‘new setting’, and ‘now’ and ‘then’, respectively) influence the role and use of language in diverse settings.

Furthermore, the book’s contribution lies in examining the role of English in identity creation, questioning the stability of speaker identity and defining varieties of English based on speakers’ current needs in specific social settings. It creates opportunities for researchers to consider the difference between descriptive labels for varieties and defining terms for registers, asserting that this distinction makes understanding of contemporary global English use vital.

Through a scientific and well-composed method, the author discovers and highlights how subjects assign roles to the languages they are exposed to including German, the host language, and local languages that are commonly spoken by the participants. The sociolinguistic data Bohmann collected provided robust empirical evidence to substantiate the key phenomena presented in his study.

Chapter 7 is particularly interesting because it reveals how subjects tactically use their linguistic resources, especially German, as a social connection, while they use ‘Pidgin’ as their preferred tool of interaction. With these linguistic resources, participants navigate interactions and accomplish the desired social equilibrium, particularly in contexts that encompass German and English. Another interesting discovery that the author has made is the strategy he terms aspirational German (a method of re‑structuring German differently from the type of language it is known to be, specifically to include indexicality) used by participants. Bohmann relates the finding in Chapter 8 to open debates in world Englishes research. The chapter specifically examines space, place, and communication by showing how this book challenges world Englishes’ theories, traditions, and foundations through the recommendation of local‑to‑global social‑semiotic view of place. Obtaining insights from reflexive methodologies, the study advocates refining identity theory and outlining a new research agenda to advance the field.

English across Borders makes a significant contribution to the study of globalization, mobility and linguistic diversity by synthesizing theoretical hypotheses with robust empirical data, thereby establishing a common intellectual ground for scholars across multiple disciplines. The book examines how scholars within world Englishes approach the concept of identity and then critiques the field for its lack of a strong scientific theory to systematically study this phenomenon. The author further indicates that identity does not remain in equilibration over time, and its characteristics are not the same across different groups of speakers. The author’s description of identity as a ‘currency’ to ‘purchase’ power and prestige by speakers is insightful. Bohmann’s final remarks include a prediction of a messier or a beyond‑repair English in the future. Seemingly marginal speakers examined in this study are not exceptions, but rather, exemplary models of the new linguistic order. Bohmann, therefore, contends that any vigorous theory considered adequate to this reality must be built upon the core concepts of reflexivity, ideology, and meta‑pragmatics.