ENGLISH IN POST 1947 LANGUAGE POLICIES

The end of the British Raj in the subcontinent during the 1940s was supposed to initiate the slow but sure demise of the English language in South Asia. That actually did not happen. The functional domains in which English is used have actually expanded rather than shrunk.

The controversy is basically about three issues: What should be the function of the English language at various stages of education? What should be the role of regional language, national language and English? And in some selected circles there is even discussion of what model of English should form part of the curriculum.

English became a vehicle for national unity, and for initiating a pan-Indian cultural and political awakening.

Present Situation

The Three Language Formula was proposed as a solution to language-ineducation policy. The formula proposes studying at least three languages in school years: the regional language, Hindi and English.

However, during the last three decades holes in the formula have begun to appear. The main problem in implementation was that not all the states of the Union accepted the formula with enthusiasm.

Attitudes about English

There have continued to be three distinct attitudes toward the role of English in South Asia. One attitude is that English has played an important role in South Asia, and that its continuation and diffusion contribute to keeping South Asian countries abreast of the scientific, technological and humanistic developments of the world. There is another attitude concerning the role of English in South Asia. In this view, English has no role in the language policies of South Asian countries. The third view rejects the enthusiasm of these two positions and has adopted a somewhat neutral position, neutral in the sense that its proponents would like to see English as one of the languages in the linguistic repertoire, as one of the foreign languages, but not in competition with local languages.

Current Issues

1      In the Outer Circle, English is essentially learnt in order to communicate with the native speakers of English.

2     English is learnt to understand and teach British and American cultural values.

3      The goals for acquisition of English are to adopt the exonormative models of English; that the varieties of English used in the Outer Circle are interlanguages and the goal of acquisition is to acquire native-like competence.

4      Native speakers of English, as teachers trainers, curriculum developers and academic administrators, provide serious input in the operation of theaching English in the Outer Circle.

5      Diversity, innovation and variation are necessarily indicators of the “decay” of English

6      English is learnt with an integrative motivation rather than an instrumental motivation, and the integrative motivation is more conducive to successful language learning.

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.

Models of English in South Asia

There is a difference between linguistic behavior and an idealized linguistic norm. Southern British English has been the norm presented to the South Asians through the BBC, a small percentage of the English administrators and some teachers. Educated South Asian English was the variety actually used in South Asia in the past and it continues to be used now.

A speaker of South Asian English approximating RP has always been marked as socially and educationally separate, and such speakers form a very small minority. During the past three decades a different picture has emerge. The attitudes towards exocentric models (e. g. British and American), and endocentric models (e. g. Indian) are changing.

The recent situation is that there is a realistic attitude towards the issue of a model; there is recognition of the endocentric educated varieties, and there is also a significant impact of American English. RP and the British Standard have increasingly gone out of use while remaining an academic reference. The discussion of the question of model, whether it should be exocentric or endocentric, still continues.

The Begginings

The beginning of the English language in India starts with the history of the British East Indian Company. The British East India Company was created in 1600, and later in 1707 it becomes British joint-stock company and megacorporation formed for pursuing trade with the East Indies but which ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent.

The East India Company traded mainly in cotton, silk, indigo dye, salt, saltpetre, tea and opium.

Shares of the company were owned by wealthy merchants and aristocrats, in other words, it was an example of an English joint-stock company. The government owned no shares and had only indirect control.

The Company eventually came to rule large areas of India with its own private armies, exercising military power and assuming administrative functions. Company rule in India effectively began in 1757 after the Battle of Plassey, and then India became the center of their activities. In the late seventeenth century, England had commercial rights of India and several key ports like Calcutta, Madras and Bombay.

There were many private fortunes. Some made ​​their home in Asia, founding European centers in India, Southeast Asia and China. In the seventeenth century many European travelers visited India. Through them became known in Europe the amazing history and culture of India.

The control of the Company British East India grew and the British finally becoming in the dominant Indian society. Many British people became extremely rich working for the East India Company and lived in India as genuine princes. Some of these nabobs, as they were called, built beautiful houses in Calcutta and elsewhere, designed by British architects and equipped with luxurious furniture from England, India and the other colonies. In Calcutta, the English celebrated meetings, parties and dances as if they were in Britain. Gradually coming to India their wives and families to share this form of English life.

During the 1830s, the governor of the company invalidated ostentatiously Indian traditions and introduced several missionaries to convert the Indians to Christianity. The Company built roads, railways and buildings, and expanded the British business, insisting on using English as the language for education and business. As a result, the rejection among Indians was gradually increasing.

Problems arose between the sepoys and Indian soldiers of the army of the Company. Aroused by a terrible famine, the Indian mutiny began in 1857. The sepoys took several cities, including the capital, Delhi, and killed British men, women and children. The mutiny was put down violently by British troops. Thereafter, the mistrust reigned between the two sides. The British began to live separately from the Indians, who kept to themselves. The British government took control of the East India Company in 1858 and closed it. India was perhaps the richest and most developed of all European colonies, but the British had to work hard to control.

The East India Company has had a long lasting impact on the Indian Subcontinent. Although dissolved following the rebellion of 1857, it stimulated the growth of the British Empire. Its armies after 1857 were to become the armies of British India and it played a key role in introducing English as an official language in India.

Andrés Fernández-Palacios Delgado