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.

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:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)