This is a blog created by students of the Universidade de São Paulo for a Language and Culture course. We have chosen to talk about Indian English as a variety of English largely spoken. We hope you enjoy the blog and comment on our entries!

Getting started...

There are many materials made available via internet which enable us to have a better understanding of English in India as a variety and as a "tool". We have here attempted to create a space where you will find academic papers on the matter, as well as videos from comedians; British Council conferences as well as Bollywood blockbusters; articles from India and other English-speaking countries as well as forums discussing different topics related to this variety.

Where East Looks West - Chapter: English in India

KURZON, Dennis. “English in India”. In: Where East looks West: Success in English in Goa and on the Konkan Coast. Cromwell Press Ltd, 2004.
http://books.google.com.br/books?hl=pt-BR&lr=&id=p5iK3CmIW6EC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=related:ZMdMox0v65kJ:scholar.google.com/&ots=VucdzNl3qi&sig=ePaxMICc16XngiKIlXwJuRYAV78#v=onepage&q=&f=false

The chapter “English in India” discusses the institutionalization of language policies both to preserve the use of Hindi and to favor the teaching of English in India. As a means to reach this goal, the Indian Parliament decided upon a three-language formula according to which students should learn (1) their mother tongue or regional language, (2) the official language of the Union and (3) a foreign language (English).

However, given Indians’ gradative will to speak/learn the English language Hindi is at risk of being dropped from the curriculum.
2 comments:

Article: English Language, Indian Culture and Globalization

In this article, Dr. H.P. Shukla, Professor of English Kumaun University, presents an overview of the English dominance over Indian’s domains. Departing from a brief commentary on the history of the English language in India, the author critically pinpoints how the impostition of English as a unique language happened to serve Englishmen’s purpose to profit from the exploitation of the Indian territory.

In view of the Indians’ assimilation of the English culture as to match the needs of belonging to a globalized world, Shukla proposes that the formers should neither abandon their traditions nor discard the Western trends. Rather, the author suggests a synthesis of both attitudes for he is concerned with the role of language in the configuration of Indian identity yet in a context in which one cannot escape the Western impositions, specially via the English language.
No comments:

English for Progress




Promoted by the British Council, “English for Progress: Third Policy Dialogue” is a conference that has taken place in Delhi, from the 18th to the 20th of November, 2009. It aimed to highlight the status and issues in English language education in India and Sri Lanka.
No comments:

Video conferences – interviews:

a) Nandam Nilekani (Indian entrepreneur and businessman)
b) Julian Parry (British)
c) Maya Menon
The three interviewees discuss the role of the English language in India. On the one hand, we have Nandam Nilekani’s and Julian Parry’s positive view on the teaching of English in the Indian territory. Both of them consider the English language to be an effective means to make communication possible between people who do not speak the same language. Not to mention their concern with the urgence to learn English in a globalized world. Parry, in particular, assumes that individuals can use the English language to break barriers. Hence, rather than representing a threat to the English culture, the English language turns out to serve well the purpose of integrating people of different cultures.

Maya Menon, on the other hand, brings to discussion the impositions of the English language as to substitute children’s mother tongue. The interviewee states that children should be taught the mother tongue of their families before they learn English since cultural roots are constitutive of one’s identity.
No comments:

In the News

This website brings a wide list of Indian newspapers and magazines online. Something interesting to be stressed is that a big part of the pages compiled here are either written in English or with translation lines under each heading in the site.
The Decan Chronicle consists of a daily newspaper published in some states of Indi. In this link,  an instruction given by the state government of Andhra Pradesh is reported to all the English Medium schools after an incident involving the use of an Indian language in the district of Kadapa. The insertion of the state’s official song in these schools as a rule was considered a hasty decision by some commentators.
This news refers to a concern some linguists have with language death in India. According to it, some mother tongues are “being wiped out” once Indians are not conversant with them. There is also the mention of language planning, an initiative of some linguists towards the preservation of these languages.
http://www.deccanchronicle.com/poll/should-hindi-be-made-compulsory-schools-150
Tense language attitudes can be seen in this news. There is a poll on the top of the page referring to the Hindi language. This is a language that was derived from industâni, an ancient lingua franca, and nowadays is predominantly spoken in India as a second language. Although some people think this language teaching should be compulsory once Hindi is deeply connected to the nation union, the same number of commentators say that they are against it, giving more value to a language that has economic and global impact, which would be English.
http://www.deccanchronicle.com/bengaluru/zaban-sambhal-ke-hindi-jitters-city-597
Also referring to Hindi, experts comment on the difficulties some Bengaluru students face when choosing to study this language in school. They intend to explain why the course is abandoned or not even taken into account by many students, although most of them are not unfamiliar to the language given the contact with Bollywood films and music.
http://www.deccanchronicle.com/tabloids/full-josh-963
Some very interesting slangs are showed and exemplified in this text. However, the opinion of the professor at the bottom of the page exemplifies a negative attitude towards this change in language made by the Indian speakers, or the “youngsters”, as they are called by the author of the article.
No comments:

No longer a backside language, 'Indlish' gets its own dictionary


Since English has been spoken in India for centuries, the Indian English has overcome several changes. In the light of that, The Penguin Corporation decided upon the creation of a dictionary of Indlish.
No comments:

Forums

a) Who’s learning Indian English?

In this forum there is a long discussion about the teaching of Indian English in the USA. Tension arises as one of the participants states that there is no use studying such a language for it is not the ruling standard. The debate goes on and also raises the issue whether Indian English can be considered a dialect of English.


b) Difficult time in understanding Indian Accents
No comments:

Making sense of Indian English: A Guide to Indian English

A piece of news in the British BBC website on the launching of a book about the Indian English written by a British man who was sent to India as a British soldier during World War II, but even after the end of the war he stayed on and lived there for more than half a century. He says his original idea was to help people who were travelling or moving to India to understand and get around more easily. This is one of his suggestions of important things to know: 
"For starters, I think travelers should learn the word "chalo" which means "go". 
"This comes in handy every time beggars harass foreigners for "bakshish" or alms," says Hankin.  
Check out the rest @: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3103075.stm
No comments:

Inglês no Mundo: Índia

http://denilsodelima.blogspot.com/2009/05/ingles-no-mundo-india.html
Brazilian website dedicated to the English language in general, it shows a very didactic and humorous article about the Indian English: the grammar, the pronunciation and even some vocabulary typical of this variety. The Simpsons and Caminho das Índias (a Brazilian soap opera) are some of the topics mentioned in the article.
No comments:

Indian English in Call Centers: Do`s and Dont`s or Do`s and Do Not`s...

a) This file contains a series of “do’s and dont’s” on how to make better use of the English language, by contrasting two varieties of English: the Indian and the American. It is interesting to notice that in this contrast, the Indian variety is viewed as “wrong” and only the American point of view is considered “correct” i.e Use “busy” instead of “engaged” e.g. The line is busy, not engaged. However, the usage of “engaged” is not “wrong”, it is actually the British way of saying “busy” in certain situations.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/20150545/Indian-Lang-vs-American-Lang-English


b) As call centers are a common thing in India, here you will find a session of a book dedicated to people who work in these departments. This session specifically shows the phonetic sounds of the American English through words that an agent is likely to use in a call center, also contrasting it to the Indian English phonetics.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/6964653/English-for-Call-Centers
No comments:

Indlish expressions

A few Indlish expressions:
No comments:

Characteristics of Indian English

· Phonetic aspects

· Description of Indian English

Here the author describes the morphological, phonological, syntactic and lexical characteristics of Indian English which make it unique. It includes jokes made with Indian English in section 9.
No comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)