Bilinguals’ creativity in South Asian English

Bilinguals’ creativity refers to creative uses of English in South Asia by bilingual and multilingual people. South Asia has a long tradition of creative uses of English in journalism, broadcasting, literary genres and advertising.

India is the third largest English book-producing country, and in book publishing it ranks eighth in the world. Among the languages in which book are published in India, the largest number of titles are in English.

In many important intra- and inter-regional domains of use, English continues to have currency. Even in an average-sized city, there is a newspaper in English and the local radio and/or television station allocates some time to English. This is particularly true in India.

In India, the English press has immense influence, disproportionate to its circulation. This influence continues to increase particularly noticeable since 1947.

In 1984, there were 21,784 newspapers in India, out of which 16·9 per cent (3,691) were English and 29·2 per cent (6,370) were in Hindi. The government of India publishes the highest number of periodicals in English, followed by Hindi. Out of thirty-one states and Union Territories in India, English newspapers appear in twenty-eight.

It is in South Asian English literature that the stylistic innovations and experimentation have been most creative. India has the largest, most vibrant, productive and articulate group of writers in English. There seems to be an acceptance of Indian English literature as “one of the voices in which India speaks” (Iyengar 1962: 3).

Attempts at creativity in English go back to the 1830s; Kashiprasad Ghosh’s Shair and other poems (1830) is considered the earliest South Asian attempt at writing poetry in English. Sochee Chunder Dutt was the first writer of fiction. He also consciously initiated the process of Indianisation of English by translating Indian expression to English.

In the beginning, it was the deeply nationalistic political writing in English which dominated. English was used as a linguistic tool in the freedom struggle; it was the language of an elite culture which cut across linguistic, cultural and religious boundaries. South Asian novelists not only nativised the language by extensive stylistic experimentation, but also acculturated English in terms of the South Asian context. Indian English literature is one of the twenty-two national literatures recognized by the National Academy of Letters.

The distinctiveness of South Asian English literatures in three points:

First, in linguistic terms, grammatically, lexically or collocationally, the text may not be very South Asianised. The nativisation may be rather in the historical and cultural presuppositions in the text.

Second, the organization of textual structure may not necessarily be the preferred structure associated with English and may involve a lexical shift: direct lexical transfer, hybridization, code-switching, etc.

Third, the rhetorical strategies are not consistent with those used in the native varieties of English. Similes and metaphors from local languages may result “unusual” collocations, combinations of lexical items, from the native speakers.