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Let me pull together this brief critique of our own work. Language by
which we now mean multilinguality is an essential part of an individual's
identity and in this respect kings and slaves stand at the same platform.
Or as Sapir (1921; 234) would put it, 'when it comes to linguistic form,
Plato walks with the Macedonian swineherd, Confucius with the head-hunting
savage of Assam'. Yet in human societies, language is consistently used
as a tool of exploitation. On the other hand, linguistic analysis is an
extremely abstract formal activity; it develops increasingly sophisticated
tools of structural analysis promoting a disjunction between the study of
language and society. |
We should be able to redefine the agenda of linguistics so that it focuses
on the human condition and the role language may play in repairing that
condition. In this project, purely quantitative and co relational studies
may not be of much help. We need to ask relevant questions, work in teams
and develop a theory that would be informed by the courage of our convictions.
We need to ask simple questions in a straightforward way. Let's not try
to complicate and mystify things even though it may look very attractive.
So far structure is concerned, all languages are equal; why then some languages
are more equal than others? There is enough food for everybody in this world;
why then millions of people across the earth starve and die of hunger? There
is no shortage of space and building material on the earth; why then millions
of people have no shelter to save themselves from heat, rain and cold? We
know that if we reduce just one per cent budget for defence we can provide
quality education (not just minimal literacy that is insulting to human
intelligence) to every human being; why then millions of people never get
to school? And all this happens when, particularly today, it is so easy
to talk to each other and share information and resources. Obviously language
is used very effectively to sustain a status quo or to allow changes that
will only further fortify the portals that excel in the management of hunger,
illiteracy and poverty. |
| I am not sure to what extent my colleagues, Indian or otherwise, would
accept this as a legitimate critique of their own work as well. In the area
of formal linguistics, there have indeed been some significant contributions
in recent years from the Indian scholars in phonology, morphology, syntax,
typology, computational linguistics, neurolinguistics, dialectology, lexicography
and sound change. |
This work has given us several striking insights into the structural properties
of Indian languages but on two counts I think they may constitute further
evidence for my critique. First, they tell us nothing about the relationship
between language and society; this is not even a criticism - these studies
do not just address that question. Secondly, to the best of my understanding,
with an exception here and there, they are largely derivative. |
There has of course been considerable amount of work done in India in
the area of sociolinguistics. In Gupta and Aggarwal (1998) and Gupta (2000)
for example you will find some interesting contributions. U.N. Singh and
Probal Dasgupta edited a whole series in 'Language and Development' during
1993-2001 consisting of a total of 8 volumes. The series raised basic questions
about language, culture, literature and identity in the context of development;
it tried to focus on theoretical and empirical issues in multilingual south
Asian countries. Khubchandani's (1997) work examines the contours of linguistic
and cultural plurality focusing on complementary distribution of languages,
role of minority languages and language modernization. Singh, Dasgupta and
Lele's (1995) work shows how the very people who live by linguistic and
social norms also participate in contesting them. Dasgupta's (1993), now
well-known, work on the otherness of English shows who really calls the
shots in celebrating the status of English in India. Verma (1998) takes
us to the sociological aspects of not only language standardization and
mother tongue retention among immigrant groups, but also to much less researched
areas of idiophones, sign language, language attrition and death. It should
be obvious that the heart of the sociolinguist is in the right place. This
parenthetically one must concede in the case of Labov, Fishman, Bernstein,
Le Page, Dell Hymes, Gumperz and Levinson also. There is deep sympathy for
the underprivileged and for the unstable non-middle class patterns of language
behaviour. There is also an awareness of multilinguality and differential
workload assigned to different languages. Above all there is an Indian voice,
loud and clear. According to Singh (1997:16), truth, freedom, and justice
are basic predicates of human existence and the joy of languaging is grounded
in those predicates. When we ignore this fact, we begin to talk of communication
breakdowns where the powerless is always at fault. And again, according
to Singh (2000:8), the multilingual context routinely presents situations
that allow the linguist to get a glimpse of what Kant called the constitutive,
and can help her go beyond the regulative, which is what gets enshrined
as competence and which invariably seems to distort the picture presented
by linguists who ground their theories of forms in monolinguality, sometimes
despite their own credentials. And yet to the best of my knowledge, we lack
solid sociolinguistic studies that would predicate the analysis of human
condition on the analysis of language as one of the major potential sites
for explicating oppressor-oppressed asymmetry. As we will see in a moment
in a large number of societal domains including hierarchical family discourse,
mass media, education, judiciary etc., language is often used as an additional
tool of exploitation. The democracy of human multilinguality cannot be divorced
from human suffering where language is constitutive of our existence. It
is perhaps time that we start addressing the Plato's problem and Orwell's
problem simultaneously, in the same project. |
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