Northern perspectives on language and society in India

2020 ◽  
pp. 25-45
Author(s):  
Sonal Kulkarni-Joshi ◽  
S. Imtiaz Hasnain
Keyword(s):  
South Asia ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Speech Community ◽  
Language Family ◽  
Language Practices ◽  
Research And Practice ◽  
British Colonial

This chapter describes Northern attempts to fathom the relation between language and society in India / south Asia and Northern representations of it. We examine the nature of two such interventions: British colonial scholarship and American scholarship in the early years of Indian independence. We demonstrate that the methods and tools (including philology and ethnology) used by both these institutions to approach language and society relied on assumptions of homogeneity and unitarianism. We critique conceptual categories such as language, language family, dialect, vernacular, mother tongue, and speech community, which emerged from these interventions, and suggest that these were at variance with the indigenous social and language practices in India. In conclusion, we gauge the long-lasting impact of northern scholarship on present-day sociolinguistic research and practice in India.

scholarly journals Turkish Children in Germany Learning Grammatical Categories in Turkish as a Mother Tongue

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 47-57
Author(s):  
Хрісто Кючуков ◽  
Баріш Гірай
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Language Development ◽  
Nursery School ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Intercultural Education ◽  
Childhood Development ◽  
Eine Analyse ◽  
Turkish Children ◽  
Grammatical Categories

The paper presents and discusses findings from a recent empirical study involving 40 Turkish children aged between 4 and 6 years attending two kindergartens in Berlin in the districts of Wedding and Neukölln. They were tested for their knowledge and comprehension of different grammatical categories in Turkish. Children from Wedding were found to be much better in their knowledge of the grammatical categories in their mother tongue. The differences are statistically significant F (1, 32) = 6. 6258, p = 0. 01488 (p< 0.05). The children from the kindergarten in Neukölln demonstrated lower results in Turkish grammar comprehension and thus their achieved literacy in L1. References Bagdoshvili, S. (2010) Turkish Migrants in Germany. Unpublished MA Thesis. Tbilisi: Institute of European Studies. Barac, R., Bialystok, E. (2012) Bilingual effects on cognitive and linguistic development: role of language, cultural background, and education. Child Development, 83(2), 413-422. Çakir, M. (2002) The use of Turkish as the mother tongue in multicultural settings in Germany. Anadolu University Journal of Social Sciences, 2(1), 39-58 Cummins, J. (2001). Bilingual children’s mother tongue: Why is it important for education? Rights and responsibilities of educators of bilingual-bicultural children. In: Making a Difference in the Lives of Bilingual-Bicultural Learners, (pp. 15-20). L.D. Soto, ed. New York: Peter Lang. Cummins, J. (2016) Intercultural education and academic achievement: a fraimwork for school based policies in multilingual schools. Intercultural Education, 26(6), 455-468. Haug, S. et al. (2009) Muslimisches Leben in Deutschland. Nurnberg. Horrocks, D. and Kolinsky, E. (1996) Turkish Culture in German Society Today. Oxford: Berghahn Books. Johnston, J. (2015) Factors that influence language development. In: Encyclopedia of Early childhood development [online], Tremblay, R. E., Boivin, M., Peters R. De V., (eds.). Retrieved from: http://www.child-encyclopedia.com/language-development-and-literacy/according-experts/factors-influence-language-development. Schmitz, Anke and Olfert Helena (2013): Minderheitssprachen im deutschen Schulwesen – Eine Analyse der Implementierung allochthoner und autochthoner Sprachen. Zeitschrift für Fremdsprachenforschung, 24(2), 203-227. Skutnabb-Kangas (2005) Skutnabb-Kangas, Tove (2005). Linguistic Genocide. In: Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity, 3 Volumes, (pp. 653-654). Shelton, D. (ed.). New York: Macmillan Reference, USA. Treffers-Daller J., Sumru Özsoy, A., Roeland van Houtet, R. (2007) (In)Complete acquisition of Turkish among Turkish German bilinguals in Germany and Turkey: An analysis of complex embeddings in narratives. The International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 10(3), 248-276. Yazıcı, Z. (1999). Almanya ve Turkiye’de Anaokuluna Devam Eden 60-76 Aylar Arasındaki Turk Cocuklarının Dil Geli’imi ile Okuma Olgunlugˇu Arasındakiıliskinin Incelenmesi [Investigation of connections between language development and reading readiness ofTurkish nursery school children aged 60-76 months in Germany and Turkey]. Ph.D. thesis, Gazi University. Yazıcı, Z., İlter, B., & Glover, P. (2010). How bilingual is bilingual? Mother-tongue proficiency and learning through a second language. International Journal of Early Years Education, 18(3), 259-268.

Dictionaries as Translations

2019 ◽  
pp. 25-44
Author(s):  
Margaret Williamson
Keyword(s):  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Greek Text ◽  
Speech Community ◽  
Ancient Greek

Any reading of a Greek text is an act of translation. However, it is heavily mediated by those previous dialogues represented by the tools of scholarship, which may be regarded as a kind of secondary speech community for a language no longer spoken. Foremost among these tools for an Anglophone scholar has been Liddell and Scott’s Greek-English Lexicon. The conversation in which one engages in consulting its glosses is at the very least three-way, involving not only ancient Greek and one’s own ‘mother tongue’, but also the English of Liddell and Scott. This chapter seeks to bring into sharper focus the vocabulary of the first edition’s glosses—a task rendered urgent not only by the passage of time but also by the fact that the editors had an axe to grind in selecting it.

scholarly journals The Vitality of Kabiye in Togo

2009 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 53-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Komlan Essowe Essizewa
Keyword(s):  
Language Contact ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Speech Community

In Togo, speakers of Kabiye have been in contact with the speakers of Ewe for several decades due to migration. As a result of this language contact, many members of the Kabiye speech community have become bilingual in Kabiye and Ewe. There have been a number of claims that Kabiye “est une langue en péril” (Aritiba 1993: 11). These claims have been based mainly on the observation of Kabiye speakers in Lomé and other major cities, where younger speakers seem to be losing their mother tongue to the benefit of Ewe. However, the extent of the loss of Kabiye is not well known because no extensive sociolinguistic study has been carried out among Kabiye speakers in these areas, and more specifically, in major Kabiye-speaking areas. The current study which has been carried out in Kara, the major Kabiye-speaking city and Awidina, a Kabiye village of the prefecture of Kara, fills the gap. The paper examines Kabiye speakers' reports of patterns of language use in these areas of the Kabiye community.

scholarly journals Maker Literacies and Maker Citizenship in the MakEY (Makerspaces in the Early Years) Project

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jackie Marsh ◽  
Hans Arnseth ◽  
Kristiina Kumpulainen
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Civic Engagement ◽  
Early Years ◽  
International Project ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Digital Literacies ◽  
Research And Practice ◽  
Potential Relationship ◽  
The Uk

In this paper, the potential relationship between creative citizenship and what may be termed ‘maker literacies’ is examined in the light of emergent findings from an international project on the use of makerspaces in early childhood, “MakEY” (see http://makeyproject.eu). The paper outlines the concept of creative citizenship and considers the notion of maker literacies before moving on to examine how maker literacies might be developed in early-years curricula in ways that foster civic engagement. Three vignettes are offered of makerspaces in early-years settings and a museum in Finland, Norway, and the UK. The activities outlined in the vignettes might be conceived of as ‘maker citizenship’, a concept which draws together understandings of making, digital literacies, and citizenship. The paper considers the implications of this analysis for future research and practice.

scholarly journals Mother Tongue as an Asset in Developing l2 Reading Comprehension Skill Among Iranian EFL Learners

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 44
Author(s):  
Farzaneh Iranmanesh ◽  
Mohammad Golshan
Keyword(s):  
Reading Comprehension ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Language Teachers ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Control Group ◽  
L2 Reading ◽  
Efl Learners ◽  
Comprehension Skill ◽  
Motivation And Confidence ◽  
L2 Reading Comprehension

This study attempted to explore the effect of teachers switching to l1 on developing l2 reading comprehension among learners and to justify the assumption that their switching to l1 can be purposeful, following pedagogical goals. To this respect two groups of students majoring at English teaching were selected from intact classes ,one as the control group, the other as the experimental receiving l2-only and l2 plus l1switching instruction respectively for their reading comprehension course with the same teacher under equal condition (highly attempted).The result showed that non/low proficient l2 readers who rely more on translation in the process of comprehending English texts made more advantage of the teacher’s implementing strategy and developed more than other participants. That is; apart from various reading strategies utilized by EFl learners, teachers’ code switching as a compensation strategy to clarify the complex unknown (assumed for the learners) syntactic/semantic structures plays a prominent role in facilitating the struggling task of comprehension among learners. It also justified the premise that insisting on l2-only instruction in reading comprehension is not facilitating but frustrating and time consuming. However, systematic switching to l1 can be developmental and timesaving through making positive effect on comprehension, motivation and confidence. Hence this study can provide language teachers with pedagogical implications for non-proficient l2 readers particularly at the early years of learning process.

Visually Mapping the “Nation”: Swadeshi Politics in Nationalist India, 1920–1930

2003 ◽  
Vol 62 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa N. Trivedi
Keyword(s):  
South Asia ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Home Rule ◽  
Goods Movement ◽  
Self Sufficiency ◽  
Cloth Production ◽  
New Form

In the early years of mass nationalism in colonial South Asia, Mohandas Gandhi inaugurated a swadeshi (indigenous goods) movement, which aimed to achieve swaraj, or “home rule,” by establishing India's economic self-sufficiency from Britain. Invoking an earlier movement of the same name, Gandhi created a new form of swadeshi politics that encouraged the production and exclusive consumption of hand-spun, hand-woven cloth called khadi. The campaign to popularize this movement took many forms, including the organization of exhibitions that demonstrated cloth production and sold khadi goods. On the occasion of one such exhibition in 1927, Gandhi explained the significance of exhibitions for the movement:[The exhibition] is designed to be really a study for those who want to understand what this khadi movement stands for, and what it has been able to do. It is not a mere ocular demonstration to be dismissed out of our minds immediately. … It is not a cinema. It is actually a nursery where a student, a lover of humanity, a lover of his own country may come and see things for himself.(“The Exhibition,” Young India, 14 July 1927)

An appraisal of the mother tongue for early child education in Nigeria

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 201-220
Author(s):  
Babatunji Hezekiah Adepoju
Keyword(s):  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
English Language ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Target Language ◽  
School Age Children ◽  
Government Schools ◽  
Nigerian Child ◽  
Child Education ◽  
The Rich

Abstract This article provides an overview of the use of the mother tongue (MT) in child education in the Nigerian context. We explicate previous government efforts at focusing on the native language as a means of improving learning in the early years, particularly in training the Nigerian child. We also address the obstacles to government's attempts at de-emphasising the place of English in the Nigerian polity. Without doubt, the English language is regarded by the citizenry as the language of now and the future. The belief is that school-age children and their parents are more comfortable with English than any other language. The policy of the adoption of an indigenous language as the instruction medium in the lower primary school is at variance with parents' desire to make their children speak English as the first language (L1). Our recommendation is that uniformity of policy implementation will reduce conflicts as the schools of the rich/elites and non-fee-paying government schools are made to employ the same medium to instruct the pupils. The above claims are supported by preliminary findings from observations, data from the administered questionnaire and interviews conducted to determine people's attitude towards the use of English and/or indigenous languages in the education of the child. Following Krashen's theory of Second Language Acquisition (SLA), which highlights the significance of exposure to and interaction in the target language, we conclude that, if English language remains the medium of instruction in the classroom, Nigeria and other African nations with similar linguistic complexities will be saved from further confusion and inconsistencies in educational policies, even as the MT will still function in other aspects of national life.

Dispossession, Un-freedom, Precarity

2021 ◽  
Vol 120 (1) ◽  
pp. 209-219
Author(s):  
Sabyasachi Basu Ray Chaudhury
Keyword(s):  
South Asia ◽  
Indian Subcontinent ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
The Other ◽  
The People ◽  
British Colonial ◽  
Citizenship Laws ◽  
Laws And Regulations

The partition of the Indian subcontinent forced millions of people to flee to the other side of the borders, freshly demarcated by the British colonial rulers just on the eve of their departure from South Asia. Almost a decade-long migration of people could not, however, settle the boundaries and lives of the people once and for all. The postcolonial rulers retained many of the draconian laws of the late colonial period, like the Foreigners’ Act in India, and laced them with new laws and regulations, thus leading to greater dispossession of people of homes, generating widespread situations of un-freedom, and creating countless refugees and stateless persons, mostly forced to survive in sites of precarious life, without any right to have rights. The concern of this contribution is this politics of dispossession in postcolonial South Asia and its relation with citizenship laws of the region.

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