“Things Fall Apart- A cultural study”

Siddharth G. Desai

Roll no. - 07

SEM - IV

Paper no.E-E-405-D

Year – 2012

Topic: “Things Fall Apart- A cultural study”

Submitted to Dr. Dilip Barad

Department of English,

Bhavnagar University.

Albert Chinualumoga Achebe is a well-known African writer whose “Things Fall Apart” is a famous novel in the African literature which in the African literature which talks about the Igbo people and their culture. This novel was first published in 1959. Any culture represents its people rituals, customs, and way of living etc. There are many cultures in this word. Various cultures have their different belief systems and rituals. The Igbo culture has also its various belief system and rituals.

            Thing fall apart is all about Igbo culture and its conflict with the Christian missionaries. The colonial people take the way of living of Igbo people as completely uncivilized. It is a matter of perspective or point of view. Here, the fault of the colonial people is that they have misinterpreted the Igbo people and their culture. They have failed to understand these people.

            Things Fall apart, which has been translated into fifty different languages, with more than 8 million copies in print worldwide, this celebrated to Greek tragedy for its straightforward, searing power, acute dynamics and potent sense of inevitability. Deemed “perhaps the most memorable account in English of an African culture and the impact upon it of white European encroachment, “Things Fall Apart” explores the traumatizing effects of British colonialism on a small Nigerian village at the turn of the nineteenth century. However, Achebe resists the temptation to portray his tribal past in romantic or sentimental terms; rather, he adopts a “realistic “approach in the hope of counting the stereotypical representations of indigenous Nigerians and other Africans made familiar to western- and indeed to many African- readers in such works as Joyce Cary’s “Mr. Johnson” (1939). Things Fall Apart played a major role in African self-understanding; it became “the first novel by an African writer to be included in the required syllabus for African secondary schools, not only in Nigeria but throughout the English – speaking parts of the African continent. Achebe’s first novel also explores what a might be called the “politics of point of view” and the problem of alterity or “Otherness” the difficulty, if not impossibility, of completely imagining one individual of culture in terms of another.”

“Depiction of the Poor-Rich conflict in Aravind Adiga’s‘The White Tiger’”

Siddharth G. Desai

Roll no. - 07

SEM - IV

Paper no.E-C-401

Year – 2012

Topic: “Depiction of the Poor-Rich conflict in Aravind Adiga’s‘The White Tiger’”

Submitted to Dr. Dilip Barad

Department of English,

Bhavnagar University.

The class-consciousness is an old concept that still exists in the Indian society. The situation of this class-consciousness is somewhat different than it was in the past days of India. Earlier, there were four classes in the Indian society which are as follows: Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya and Shudra. Brahmins were supposed to teach people in the society. Kshatriyas’work was to protect people from the danger. The role of Merchant was used to do by Vaishyas and at last the menial tasks were done by the Shudras. This division of classes is also known as Casteism. Casteism is a hazardous problem in India. People inn country like, India are still class-conscious in their life. Nowadays, there are three main classes that exist in Indian society. They are the Rich, the Middle-class and the Poor. The aforementioned last classes suffer a lot in their life than the Rich because they want the life that the Rich lives or have.

Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger depicts the Poor-Rich conflict which has been discussed widely as a major thematic concern. Moreover, this debut novel of Adiga has got the Man Booker Prize, which shows also the Master-slave relationship along with this Poor-Rich conflict. Adiga says,

“The servant-master system implies two things: one is that the servants are far poorer than the rich- a servant has no possibility of ever catching up to the master. And secondly, he has access to the master- the master’s money, the master’s physical person. Yet crime rates in India are very low. Even though the middle class- who often have three or four servants – are paranoid about crime, the reality is master getting killed by his servants is rare… You need two things [for crime to occur] - a divide and a conscious ideology of resentment. We don’t have resentment in India. The poor just assume that the rich are a fact of life… But I think we’re seeing what I believe is a class based resentment for the first time.”

(Sebastain, 229)

The aforementioned quotation talks about the servant-master condition in India. The poor’s desire to reach at the level of the master or we can say that very keen desire to become the master. The relationship of Balram Halwai and Mr. Ashok as a servant-master relationship represents the conflict between Poor and Rich in India. How a poor is exploited or sucked by the rich that is what Adiga has tried to show in The White Tiger. Along with this he has depicted the rebellious spirit of the poor against the master by showcasing the murderous act of Balram. A servant splits his master’s throat mercilessly for becoming the master. This vicious act of Balram arises the feelings of terror and fear.

Balram satirizes on the poor’s condition and way of living. He says,

“They remain slaves because they can’t see what is beautiful in this world.”

(Adiga, 40)

The abovementioned quotation shows the mentality of the poor on which Balram bitterly criticizes. If the poor would become rich, their poor mentality will remain within themselves. They never think beyond the constructed ideas. Whereas Balram Halwai is the White Tiger a species that comes once in a generation and he comes out of the cage and fights with the circumstances and achieves the level of the master. For him, no matter how he achieves. Balram is altogether different from the other poor people. He does not like to walk on the path on which the other are walking but he has created his own path to accomplish the st5atus as the Master.

Works Cited

Adiga, Aravind. The White Tiger. Harper Collins Pub. India: 2008. Print.

Sebastian, A. J. “Poor-Rich Divide in Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger”. Journal of Alternative Perspectives in the Social Science. Vol.1, No.2. 2009. 229-245. PDF file.

The Role of Journalism in the Society

Siddharth G. Desai

Roll no. - 07

SEM - IV

Paper no.E-C-404

Year – 2012

Topic: “The Role of Journalism in the Society”

Submitted to Dr. Dilip Barad

Department of English,

Bhavnagar University.

           

Journalism is one of the most efficacious mediums which play a very vital role in the society. Anyone can have question, “What is journalism?” The words like, ‘Journalist’, ‘journal’ and ‘journalism’ are derived from the French word ‘journal’, which in its turn comes from the Latin term ‘diurnalis’ or ‘daily’. ‘The Act Diurna’ was perhaps the world’s first newspaper which was a hand written bulletin put up daily in the forum, the main public square in ancient Rome. Later, pamphlets, tracts, reviews, periodicals, gazettes, news books, newssheets and letters came to be called as ‘newspaper’. The persons who wrote for news were first called ‘news writers’ or ‘essayists’ and later on the term ‘journalist’ came to appear.

          Today, a journalist is anyone who contributes in some way to the gathering, selection, and processing of news and current affairs for the press, radio, film, television, cable and the internet; and journalism is the profession to which they belong. The persons like, editors, correspondents, assistant editors, reporters, sub-editors, proof-readers, cartoonists, photographers are journalist; so are camera crew audio and video editors, news readers, producers, directors and managing editors. ‘Stringers’ are part-time journalists, while ‘free-lance’ journalists are those who are occasional contributors where news is used primarily for publicity of an organization or a product or of a particular perspective on issues national and international, the kind of journalism that results may be termed “public relations”. The chief objective is not the reaping of profits but in advancing causes and perspectives’ or in fighting a ‘cold war’. Most verses broadcast like; the Voice of America, the BBC World Service, Radio Deutsche Welle, and AIR’s external service are examples of the use of broadcasting for public relations. Governments and corporate groups the world over spend millions of dollars to do public relations under the cover of journalism. They present views and perspectives as ‘facts’ in the form of news stories. Newspapers in India, especially the local and business sections, are packed with reports and features that have their source in ‘press releases’ and ‘backgrounders’ issued by social, political and business groups who wish to publicise their activities.

          In recent years, newspapers and magazines have begun publishing glossy sections which are interesting termed ‘response features’ or ‘space marketing’ supplements. Several journalists too write for such supplements; however they do not equate this with journalism, but rather with public relations and publicity.

          Now let us see the print media in which journalism has the pivotal significance and it affects the people very much in both ways positive and negative. Prior to independence, the press in India had a clear-cut role to play in the nation’s struggle against British rule. It had put up a brave fight in its heroic effort to expose the brutality of the regime, particularly in its suppression of the freedom movement. Many editors of the Indian language press defied censorship regulations to keep the nation informed about the progress of the movement.

          With the goal of Independence being achieved at long last, the Indian press seems to have lost its moorings. It was in a quandary. Should it play the role of an adversary to the government in power- the role it had played with remarkable success- or should it transform itself into and ally, and support the government in its effort at national development? The quandary of the press has yet to be resolved.

          According to the first press commission the press should help secure and protect a social order in which justice would prevail. But the role of the press in India need not be that of adversary or of an ally of the government. The press should be a ‘watch-dog’ and act as a catalytic agent to hasten the process of social and economic change. The perspective of an adversary role for the press derives from the assumption that the press is the voice of the public, is above corruption and that the government though deriving power from the people, might misuse it. It must be noted that the press is part of the political process, craves for power, is made up of people with personal ambitions and aversions, preferences and prejudices. As perhaps the largest advertiser, the government supports and strengthens the press. Both the government and the press represent the ‘power elites’, and therefore reflect their interests. This is why the interest of the poor is surely on the agenda of public discussion.

          Journalists present the news of the current happenings in the simplest language so that even a lay man can understand and read the happenings around the world. Both the print media and broadcast present the news of every field in a comprehensible way that satisfies all the readers of the society. The press is so obsessed with politics that even a petty matter becomes the headline of the front page. The press immediately need what it is called creative, investigative and development reporting chiefly on non-political themes like, unemployment, malnutrition, exploitation of the poor, miscarriage of justice, political atrocities, development schemes and the like.

          The exposure of the building incidents at Bhagalpur, which would have never come to light but for the alert press, is just one example of the heights the Indian Press can sometimes scale. Credibility is indeed the very life-blood of the press, no matter which government is in power. The period of the Emergency shows how the credibility of the press could suffer. There are other reasons why credibility suffers, the chief being the unduly heavy dependence on official press handouts by business and government. When, for example, there is a strike or riot, the police department’s handout is printed without comment. On-the-spot investigative reports are few and far between. Further, journalists are inclined to accept favors from government such as subsidized housing and medical facilities and it is therefore not surprising that they rush to the same government when they have differences with editors, with management or when they demand higher salaries and better working conditions. However, the press is much too important in a democracy to be entrusted entirely to journalists; a vigilant public, the courts and the press council is needed to keep a watchful eye on it.

The ‘Power’ of the press to bring about social and political change or economic development is extremely limited. In capitalist society, the press is primarily like any other business or industry. It exists to raise advertising revenue and circulation with the aim of making profits. ‘Public Service’ and public interest’ are not the main concerns. This is not to suggest that the press does not make attempts to exercise its ‘power’ in favour of one political or economic ideology over another, or of one group or classes or caste over another. These attempts, it must be acknowledge, are sometimes successful and at other times disastrous failure.

          At most times, however the attempts are not paid much heed to, unless it affects some group’s interest in a radical manner. In the ultimate analysis, the power of the press depends on its credibility among readers, as well as on how the news reported is understood and interpreted. Different group ‘read’ the same news is read is not entirely in the hands of journalists. Indeed, the press often succeeds only in reinforcing widely held beliefs and the status quo rather than bringing about change and development.

          There is no doubt that the press keeps us informed about selected events, issues and people. The public has interests, belies, and expectations that are created to by the press. While the press tells us what to think about, it has little power to change our ideas, beliefs and attitudes even when it attempts to do so. But when the press changes our ideas or thoughts, it brings a vast revolution or awareness. The prime function of journalism is to make aware people about the fact.

CALL-Computer Assisted Language Learning

Siddharth G. Desai

Roll no. - 07

SEM - IV

Paper no.E-C-402

Year – 2012

Topic: “CALL- Computer Assisted Language Learning”

Submitted to Dr. Dilip Barad

Department of English,

Bhavnagar University.

Call is defined as “any process in which a learner uses a computer and, as a result, improves his or language”. So while using computer, a learner enhances his knowledge of language. A learner participates in some activities which are made as a softwares program in computer so that a learner can develop his skills and increase his language ability while doing those activities. Although the definition that we saw ahead that might seem unworkably large, it at least encompasses broad spectrum of current practice in the teaching and learning of language at the computer. An awareness of this spectrum allows learners, teachers, and researchers to recognize appropriate materials and methodologies and adapt others to various teaching and learning styles. It helps teachers, learners, researchers to know about different techniques through which learning and teaching can be propelled.

CALL covers a broad range of activities, as we saw earlier, which makes it very difficult to describe, as a single idea or simple research agenda. CALL has come to include issues of materials design, technologies, pedagogical theories and modes of instruction. Materials for CALL can include those which are purpose-made for language learning that means it should some aims and specification in the subject and those which adapt existing computer-based materials, video and other materials. Audio-visual materials can increase the interest of learners in learning language. Materials should be provided in a way that learners can improve his language with the help of CALL.

It is very important to examine CALL practice in context of what has been tried and found wanting in the general area of language learning at the computer. Because of the changing nature of computer, CALL is formless or shapeless disciplines, constantly evolving both in terms of pedagogy can technological advances in hardware and software. Change is also occurring with advances in computer literacy among both teachers and learners. In many ways, CALL is employed, both in and out of the classroom. It can be used as a reward for better learners and solution as a kind of help. For the weak learners CALL activities based on email and the World Wide Web to supplement student learning are used by the teacher. Delivery methods for CALL include computers at home or in the classroom, classroom sets of computer, language labs into which computer functions have been incorporated, online instruction through the WWW and distance and networked learning through the use of email.

It is likely that in future, computer-based language learning tools will become both pervasive and invisible; that is, they will be commonly included in other applications and computer interfaces will become almost completely intuitive, perhaps through computer software able to recognize and intelligently functions are already integrated into word processing and other software that corrects spelling and grammar.

The general computer emerged as a significant tool for language widespread use of software, local area networks (LANs) and the internet has put large opportunities for learners to develop their communicative abilities, both by individualizing practice and by tapping into a global community of other learners. A number of content courses, particularly in English grammar and computer science, all these were done by maniframing computer as the task maker. Students ‘mastered’ each individual topic-which consisted of presentation and ‘practice’ in the form of test in solitary confinement in a language laboratory.

At the beginning of the twenty-first century multimedia has become virtually synonymous with computer. It has become also an essential part of computer which has expanded the horizons of language learning. With these changes, issues in computer-assisted language learning have also evolved from an early emphasis can how to use the new technology to research on technologies effect on learning. Higgins and Johns framed a debate by putting two roles of the computer they were computer ‘as a master or computer as a slave’ to the learning was that ‘computer to be a replacement for teacher, or an obedient servant to the students?

With the development of the multimedia personal computer were the changes in our understanding of the teaching and learning of languages. It created a new atmosphere for teaching and learning language. Multimedia is a prominent factor in developing teaching and learning language based learning are all enhanced by the use of the computer.

Technology enhanced language learning was given a huge theoretical boost when Sydney Papert, creator of the computer Logo and applied the principles of Dewey and Piaget  to the use of computer. ‘Constructivism’ involves the use of problem-solving during tasks and projects, rather than or in addition to direct instruction by the teachers.

In CALL this theory implies learning by using computer tools to explore stimulated worlds to build presentations and websites that reflect on personally engaging and significant topics and to undertake authentic communication with other learners around the world.

The constructive theory learning dovetails well with the recent recognition in language pedagogy of the need to encompass higher cognitive processes in the learning task. Chamot and O’Malley, who calls this the cognitive academic language learning approach, is probably the brief proponent of this view. The cognitive approach addresses the need for students to be aware of their own learning processes, and to organize and structure their learning themselves. The plethora of information available electronically makes these cognitive demands on language students, creating a suitably rich setting for the authentic tasks and projects that are seen to promote language acquisition. The chaotic information of the internet, with its largely native-speaker-oriented content resources, enhances the necessity for students to deeply schema and strategies for efficient learning. The technology thus becomes an ‘environment’ for learning, as well as both tutor and tool.

The computer is used as a researcher tool. Recent studies indicate a growing trend towards using the computer as primary research tool either to elicit data or to record data indirectly. For example, Liou reports on using computers to record interactive process. Wright is studying the effect that playing stimulations has on L₂ DEVELOPMENT. Ehsani and Knodt explore various speech technologies that might assist in oral language research. Murphy-Judy includes articles on pronunciation and online writing. Hulstijn provides an excellent summary of computer-elicited data collection techniques and how computerized tools record learner production. With a medium that can record each Keystroke, compare huge next corpora and create audio and video files with easy-to-manage technology, researchers should find many new data resources to investigate language acquisition.  Chapelle provides a useful overview of CALL and Second Language Acquisition.

Motivation has been a pervasive theme in CALL, and qualitative studies on attitudes towards computer use quickly emerged, sometimes focusing on “Computer Phobia”. However, most reports based on attitudinal surveys, student profile and self-reporting indicate that students and teachers, with few exceptions, are highly motivated when using computers.

Many empirical studies also contain qualitative elements. For example, Jacobsdottir and Hooper found that when computers ‘read’ a text aloud, learner’s listening skills and motivation improve. That’s how computer enhances the knowledge language proficiency of the learners. Soo links motivation and CALL learning styles: if a teaching style does not match students’ learning styles to some degree, instruction may be perceived as boring or incomprehensible, and students are less motivated. Motivation is an area that deserves close study. Cultural and ethnographic issues are aspects which may affect motivation.

Among the first and most significant applications for the teaching and learning of language at the computer were those used on the Programmed Logic/ Learning for Automated Teaching Operations system, developed in 1959 by University of Illinois working with a business partner, Control Data Corporation. PLATO combined some of the best CALL features being developed at other Universalities but differed from many other attempts to use computers to teach language in that PLATO’s computer and its programming language were custom-designed for the purpose of teaching language as well as a range of other Universities wide disciplines.

Much of PLATO’s first Language Learning work was done in teaching Russian using Grammar-Translation Approach. The focus was on the translation of Russian documents especially scientific documents. Curtin et al.’s work in ‘Russian language teaching and learning’ included grammar explanations, vocabulary drills and other drills and translation tests over a course of 16 lessons requiring 70 hours to complete. The system had so-called intelligent features still used today, suggests tests that were followed by direction to complete appropriate remedial work depending on the errors a learner had made. The system also included rudimentary spelling and grammar checkers.

Richards and Rogers noted that, “Grammar-Translation dominated European and Foreign Language Teaching from the 1840s to the 1940s and in modified form it continues to be wifely used in some parts of the world today.” In terms of Second Language Acquisition, the Grammar-Translation Approach probably appeared to work to a limited degree in early programs such as PLATO because the learner would have to adapt to the materials by creating personal learning strategies beyond those offered by the teacher or suggested by the learning materials.

Introduction to “Orientalism”

Siddharth G. Desai

Roll no. - 07

SEM - III

Paper no.E-E-305

Year – 2011

Topic: Introduction to “Orientalism”

Submitted to Dr. Dilip Barad

Department of English,

Bhavnagar University.

“Orientalism”, written by Edward Said in which he has depicted the European Imperialism power on the countries of the East, where as “Occident” means the countries of the West. Before discussing “Orientalism”, let’s see what are the Post-Colonial studies?

Post-Colonial studies:-

The critical analysis of the history, culture, literature, and modes of discourse that is specific to the former colonies of England, Spain, France and other European imperial powers. The studies have focused especially on the Third World countries in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean islands, and South America. Some scholars, however, extend the scope of such analyses also to the discourse and cultural productions of countries such a Australia, Canada, and New Zeeland, which achieved an independence much earlier than the Third World countries. Post-Colonial studies sometimes also encompass aspects of British literature in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, viewed through a perspective that reveals the ways in which the social and economic life represented in that literature was tacitly underwritten by colonial exploitation.

An important text in establishing the theory and practice in this field of study was “Orientalism (1978) by the Palestinian-American scholar from of Michel Foucault’s historicist critique of discourages to analyze what he called “cultural imperialism”. This mode of disseminating in subjugated colonies a Eurocentric discourage that assumed the normality and pre-eminence of every representations of the “Oriental” as an orientalist is now sometimes applied to cultural imperialism by means of the control of discourage, not only in the orient, but anywhere in the world.

                       

  [From M.H. Abrams- A Handbook of Literary Terms]

In the introduction of “Orientalism”, Edward Said writes that this concept of Orient was almost a European invention. The European Imperialism power has given the idea of the Oreent. They have seen the Oriental countries with completely different perspectives. Even today, they have the same perspectives that they had earlier. They, even today, see any Oriental country as a developing country. They believe that they are ahead in the world and we are underdeveloped people.

How do we look at East? How do we look at West? How do the European countries look at East? How do they look at West? All these four questions can be discussed in a broader sense. We always look at our country as we are lacking those powers and reputation that the Western countries have. We always crave for that and perhaps, it can be a possible reason for the thing that we are more and more impressed by the Western world and the impression is shrinking our perspective towards our country has started shrinking in our mind. But when we look at the Western countries, we are always surprised by their development and reputation in the world. We never get tired in praising them. This is where we have failed to understand them. Our mind has been molded in a way that we always think then the Western world as a developed country. If we talk about their perspective towards our country, they always consider the eastern part as a backward part of the world. They consider themselves superior in the world. They always think that we need their help for our development, so they feel proud in that thing. Here, we can find also that the Eastern part is in influence of the Western world. In a way, we are creating hollow personality of our Eastern world. By being impressed or mesmerized by the Western world, we are making our reputation or level lesser one in the world. The European Imperialism dominates behind all these things. They constructed our mind in a way that ewe cannot break that mentality to think beyond that structure, that mentality then even, we cannot do that.

Edward Said writes,

“…a way of coming to terms with the Orient that is based on

the Orient’s special place in European Western experience.

The Orient is not only adjacent to Europe; it is also the place

of Europe’s greatest and richest and oldest colonies, the source

of its civilization and language, its cultural contestant, and

one of its deepest and most recurring images of the Other.”

Here, by writing “greatest, richest and oldest colonies,” Edward Said has made sarcastic remark on the Western-European Imperial power. By writing also “the Other” in a way that it presents that we are not one of them. We are different from them. The first questions that the readers feel, who are they that they are giving identity as “the Other” to us?  But here, the most important thing is the POWER, which is responsible for this. The European-Western world has the power through which they are ruling over the Eastern World, even today. We have started living like them and we are running to catch the identity that the European-Western world has.

Said further writes,

“The Orient is an integral part of European “Material civilization and

culture. Orientalism expresses and represents the part culturally and

even ideologically as a mode of discourse with supporting institution, vocabulary, scholarship, imagery, doctrines, even colonial bureaucracies

and colonial styles.”

Here, Said has made satire by writing the word, “Material”. By following the European World, we have created the habit of using this we are molded to follow them. And we are representing their culture by following them. The Western world sees the Eastern world as the uncivilized people. So they teach us civilization by telling their cultural ideas to us. Unconsciously, we accept their ideologies, even if we do not want to follow but the tag “civilized” makes us helpless, and we start following blindly. They can easily control our mind and we become slaves of their ideologies. By teaching civilization, they are dropping the seed of the slavery, so that we can never challenge their given ideologies.

The Western part wants to bring a cultural change in our won ideologies. You can not bring cultural change until you rule and the European did this thing. They ruled on us and tried to bring cultural change and then also tried to put their ideologies in our mind y calling us “uncivilized” and by forcing us to follow them.

In India, the Britishers were able to rule because people of India need to be like them. We, somewhere, show them that they can rule but this attitude changed our entire identity. And they succeeded in molding our identity the way they wanted. The Britisher shown what they wanted but we were spellbound by their identity and reputation that we could not recognize their hidden intentions. By establishing “The East-India Company”, they got the half victory and the remaining half was achieved by them by expanding their British business in India.

We have perspective like, the Western things are better than Indian things. This kind of belief has decreased our level. We are more fascinated by the Western world day by day. We never give priority to our own country. The constructed programmed, in the past are responsible for this as we saw earlier.

In these slavery kinds of thing, we can utter thus men make their own history. The colonizers had their history by ruling on us and we had made our history by suffering from slavery. This is how your deeps reflect your journey and they make your history not really a person.

“Orientalism” can be discussed and analyzed as the corporate institution for dealing with the Orient- dealing with it by making statements about it, authorizing views of it. It can be possible to state about the Orient, by stating, we can give. The Orient is as the imaginative vision which means of description of a thing by a particular angle or perspective. The Orient is seen by the Western EYE with a particular perspective. As we earlier discussed, power is a ruler, not any country. The West has POWER so they see the east the way they want.

Somewhere, the Western Imperialism power made us helpless and we followed them blindly. Whatever they wanted, they did by colonizing us. They put shackles in our legs. They bounded our minds that boundaries. Said has discussed the “Orientalism” from the viewpoint of the European-Western Imperialism power.

Conclusion:-

To conclude my point, I would like say, “Orientalism was written to show European-American power to the Orient and the mystification of “the Orient” as we saw earlier, the Western’s view towards the East which is discussed by Said in this book. He shows the European-Western Imperial power along wit the confused feelings of the Oriental countries towards the Western power.

“Satan and Saraswati: The Double Face of English in India” by E. Annamalai

Siddharth G. Desai

Roll no. - 07

SEM - III

Paper no.E-C-304

Year – 2011

Topic: “Satan and Saraswati: The Double Face of English in India” by E. Annamalai

Submitted to Mr. Devarshi Mehta

Department of English,

Bhavnagar University.

Abstract

English language has affected to people in a very deep way, especially in India. Being a global and link language, English language has become an important tool for education, business, journalism etc. But it plays double roles in country like “India”. By playing the double roles, it has created clash among people and this clash creates the chaotic situation for English language.


     The researcher will show the policy and practice of English language and its contradictory two roles which people are facing in India.

After Independence, English is declined as our official language. Now, in our India, we have two official languages: Hindi and English and one language that the regional language as our official language. There were many controversies for English language in its initial stage; English plays a conflicting double role in India.

It has become a question that English language is Satan or Saraswati for us because its usage makes it a link language as a tool of communication with world. In our India, when it was declared English language as our official language, at that time, we had made some policies for this English language. But we got the different result for this. The policies those were made for English language’s usage are not put into practice while using the English language. The policies have become just like an Old Photo-Frame in the house. English language has created a major conflict for its usage in India.

When we accepted the English language as an official language, the bilingualism pattern has emerged in the field of executive, legislative, legal, and educational. The information is written in three languages: Hindi, English and the regional language of the state for any official document.

English language is just a medium, not our goal, but gradually, it has become our need. Because, nowadays, the higher-education is only in one language available that is English language. So, somewhere it compels us to learn to satiate our need. And while dealing with the English language in education, the first and the fundamental problem, that we face, is the cultural conflict. Our belief system is completely different from the English Culture. Every language represents its culture and belief system. We can not translate our myths or belief system or our cultural ideology into English Language.

This Socio-Cultural dimension creates the Satanic Image of English Language towards us while learning it. For example, we can not write in English, “Hanuman is a servant of Lord Rama.” Here, we can find the conflict while translating our ideas into English. It completely changes the meaning of the information that we want to convey. There is a lot of difference between the words like, “Bhakta” and “Servant”. When we write “Servant” for translating the word “Bhakta”, at that time, it kills the real meaning of the word “Bhakta”. By this example, we can understand that it is impossible to translate our cultural belief into English language. While dealing with the English language, we undergo from this kind of example in writing our ideas into English language.

Being a link and also a global language, English has attained the status of the dominant language in the world. English is only language through which we can communicate with other countries of the world. Moreover, English is prestigious and it is also in great demand, because its importance as the link language. But while dealing with English language, we face somewhere problem as we have earlier discussed.

English is taught as a language for its instrumental value in school and colleges compulsorily in almost all parts of the country with the exception of a very few states, where it is an optional or non-examinable subject. At the secondary school stage a student should learn at least three languages and one of them is English uniformly throughout the country.

So English has been spread all over the country, except some states of India, which don’t follow the English language as a compulsory subject. It can be possible that the satanic image of the English is responsible behind this reason. The double role of the English language creates the chaotic situation in a way that it can be impossible to solve this problem. This conflict is going on still.

After independence, the number of students learning English has greatly increased, but their level of competence in English has decreased. This thing completely shows the policy and practice of the English language. English is taught in the school, but the policy that is made which is not followed by the teachers or we can say that it is not put into practice. That’s why at the very initial stage (school level) students are facing difficulties to learn the English language.

This is the biggest problem in the country like India that the policy which are made for teaching English, are not put into practice by the teacher so the very beginning stage of learning English, difficulties are created by this confusion or folly. Perhaps, this creates the satanic image of English in the minds of the students. As Omkar N. Koul said that the subject levels for teaching of English need to be specified in clear-cut terms. The important task is to specify the general aims and objectives of English language teaching, keeping in view requirements of the people. We have to remember the policy which teaching English language and the aims and objectives should be achieved by the teacher. This is how the teacher can remove the satanic image of English language by teaching students the language in a appropriate way and also by keeping view the aim and objectives (policy) of the English language.

English has become more and more Indianised grammatical and functionally due to its use by a large number of Indians think to increased education, commerce and journalism and the Indian English was no more foreign. It’s because of widely use of English language became it our own Indianised English. India is the third largest publisher of books in English after USA and UK and 42% of the books published in India are in English, the second language speakers of English is only 2.5%. We are ahead in this publishing kind of things, but in schools to teach English, teacher somewhere has failed to follow or put the policy into practice, that is why the numbers of second language speakers are less, only 2.5% in the country.

To conclude my point, here I would like to say that the compulsion for teaching English or the negligence of the policy in teaching English is the responsible factor for its satanic image that is why the preference for English, however, is a private choice and not public platform. Being a foreign language, it always creates the cultural problem in learning it.

Work cited

Annamalai,E..“Satan and Saraswati: The Double Face of English in India”. English in India. Ed.Omkar N. Koul.Creative Pub.:New Delhi.Cha.II.1^sted.1992.Print.

Aslam,Rekha. “Socio-cultural dimensions of Second Language in India”. English in India. Ed. Omkar N. Koul.Creative Pub.:New Delhi.Cha.II.1^sted.1992.Print.