Contact and impact: Englishisation (Part II)

Lexicalization

The lexis of a language is open to the greatest intrusion from a language in contact.

                Loanwords: the registers of science, technology, fashion, television, cinema and advertising have a particularly high frequency of such items.

                Loan shifts: two types: extension of a lexical item from English, e.g. transport is translated into a Tamil pokkuvarattu “going and coming”, and lexis-bound translation in which the aim is to establish lexical equivalence, e.g. illegal license is translated as donga laysensū and common man is translated as sri samanya “Mr common”.

                Hybridisation: at least one component is from English, e.g. tikit ghar for “ticket office”.

                Parallel lexical sets: the use of parallel lexical sets which have roughly the same denotation meaning is an interesting example of the structure of the multilinguals’ verbal repertoire, e.g.:

                Sanskritisation                 Persianisation                  Englishisation                   Gloss

               

                Dayā karnā                         rahan karnā                       piti karnā                            “to pity”

                Ghrinā karnā                     naphrat karnā                   hate karnā                         “to hate”

                Pratikshā karnā                intizar karnā                      wait karnā                          “to wait”

                Pyār karnā                          muhabat karnā                love karnā                          “to love”

English provides an additional lexical item for which there already is a native lexical item. In many South Asian languages, the borrowed word from English is perceived as “neutral” in many interactional contexts, or its use implies a certain status, class or level of education. The native words have caste, class or regional connotations. This is not true of an English word, and, in that sense, then, English has “neutrality”. Using English words or phrases where correct translation equivalents are available in an Indian language is common in educated informal speech.

Grammar

At the grammatical level, Englishisation is mode-dependant and register-dependant. “Mode-dependant mean restricted in terms of spoken or written mode. The “register-dependent” features have high frequency in a specific register. The following are illustrative of the Englishisation at the grammatical level:

                Impersonal constructions, this construction is no longer register-specific, and is now used in the colloquial style in Hindi-Urdu, for example kahā gayā hai “it is said”

                Passive construction, some modifications in the passive are attributed to English, particularly the passive with the NP agent. In Hindu-Urdu a construction with overt manifestations of the agent has a high frequency in formal registers

                Word order, the SVO construction in Hindi-Hurdu is used for stylistic effect, as opposed to the traditional SOV. The following constructions are also attributed to the influence of English:

                               Indirect speech, in such constructions there is a vak-shifting of a pronoun as in:

                               Bil ne kahā ki vo khā rahā hai, “Bill said that he is eating” (here maī (I) shifts to

                               Vo (he))

                               Post-head modifier “jo” (who) as in:

                               Vo larka jo āyā thā čalā gayā, “That boy who came has left”

                               Parenthetical clause, attributed to contact with Persian and English. Has

                               Pragmatic implications which indicate reaction to a situation.

The “mixers” and “mixing”

The “mixers” are South Asian bilinguals who “mix” a South Asian language and English. Mixing with English is found in both spoken and written modes of South Asian languages. The motivations for the use of code-mixing with English include the following:

               

                Register-identification: particularly the registers of science and technology. This is particularly true since the registers of local languages are as yet not quite stable and institutionalized.

                Style-identification: Englishisation of style is a marker of education, modernity and westernization.

                Elucidation and interpretation: in using specialized vocabulary or technical concepts after using the term in the local language. It is like providing a “translation equivalent”.

Social value represents the interlocutor’s attitude towards a person who has linguistic flexibility in English, since the use of English is considered an indicator of status, modernization, mobility and “outward-looking” attitude. Englishisation has contributed to the development of several stylistic and discoursal strategies. We have nativised English discourse, and we have Englishised discourse in South Asian languages. In nativised English the speech acts, strategies of persuasion, request, apology and command, are South Asian, while the lexicalization is English; it is in this sense that English has a local cultural identity. South Asian languages have adopted certain strategies, of thanking, introducing, etc., which show the influence of English speck patterns.

The written mode of South Asian languages has also been Englishised; the whole system of punctuation marks has been adopted. In most South Asian languages, e.g. Hindi, the punctuation marks were traditionally restricted to two vertical lines “II” termed virām, for marking the end of a paragraph, and one vertical line “I” termed ardha virām, for a full stop. This has been replaced by a full set of English punctuation marks. The practice of breaking a text into paragraphs has also been introduced.