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Learning English as a Second
Language
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Introduction to the course
• Looks at learning of English as a second language in Indian contexts
• Historical context and current status
• Indian English as a variety
• Learning English – strategies and skills and sub-skills
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Some key terms…
• Language
• First language
• Second Language
• Second Language learning
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What is language?
• Language – a medium of communication (personal/semi-formal/
formal)
• Dissemination of knowledge
• Entertainment/ recreation
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What does it consist of?
Primarily speech – writing systems
• Sounds
• Words
• Sentences/ structures
• Meaning
• Pragmatics
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• Human language vs animal communication systems
• Human language – systematicity and complexity
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What is first language?
• First language/ mother tongue (L1)
• Dominant regional language
• Language vs dialect
• Bi-/Multilingualism
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Second language
• Second language – any language learnt after L1
• Are there Third/ Fourth/ Fifth languages?
• School curriculum – First, Second, Third languages
• English as a second language in Indian contexts
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What is language learning?
• Two terms: Acquisition – learning
• Using a language
• What is L1 acquisition?
• How do we decide if someone has acquired a language?
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• English as a lingua franca in India
• Colonial roots – English vs other Indian languages – English in
media/ popular culture – English in higher education and jobs
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• In the year 1613 Jahangir, the Moghul emperor permitted the
English to establish a factory permanently at Surat. By 1619,
the British had factories at Surat, Agra, Ahmadabad and
Broach, and Masulipatam. (Majumdar, Raychaudhuri, & Dutta,
629–632 cited in Auddy 2020: p.33).
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• It was in the seventeenth century that the first English school in
India was established in 1642 in Madras, presently Chennai.
• Francis Ephrem de Nevers, a French priest, opened the school
• John Miller’s ‘The Tutor or a New English & Bengali Work, Well
Adapted to Teach the Natives English’ in 1797 – the first
textbook
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• Nurullah and Naik, English education was looked upon by many
as a ‘royal road to a black-coated profession with a decent
income and an important status in society’ ( History of
Education , 78 cited in Auddey 2020:p.34).
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• British politicians aimed at establishing the English taste and
lifestyle, which would lead to the creation of demand for British
consumer goods (according to some historians)
• In the nineteenth century especially for people like Raja
Rammohan Roy, Michael Madhusudan Dutt, Keshab Sen,
Bankimchandra Chatterjee, and Krupabai Satthianadhan English a doorway to rationality and modern science.
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• Raja Rammohan Roy’s letter opposing establishment of Sanskrit
college – 1823
• Macaulay’s Minutes - 1835
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Macaulay’s Minutes
• ‘We must at present do our best to form a class who may be
interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern; a
class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in
taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect.’ (Macaulay 1835)
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Macaulay’s Minutes
• “…a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole
native literature of India and Arabia”
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Macaulay’s Minutes
• Education Commission in 1950 - English ‘divided the people
into two nations, the few who govern and the many who are
governed, the one unable to talk the language of the other, and
mutually uncomprehending, which is a negation of democracy’
(chap. 9: 316).
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• Jaithirth R ao, Chairman and CEO of an IT firm, says in a
column in the Indian Express, 26 May 2005
• Macaulay was ‘the most important founding father of India’.
• English language just like the Indian monsoons: ‘It may not
touch everyone, but its influence touches everyone.
• Without Macaulay’s gift, “so many of us would be lesser
individuals”
• Calls English speaking Indians “proud Macaulay-putras’
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• English – official language of Education in 1837
• Early Indian English writers - Michael Madhusudan Dutt, C V
Boriah, etc.
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Wood’s Despatch 1854
• Three universities established in Bombay, Calcutta and Madras 1857
• English was a medium of instruction and also a subject of study
• In contrast, in Oxford University only from 1894 and Cambridge
University 1911 (earlier only Greek and Latin literature and English
was considered ‘a vernacular’)
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• English gradually became the language of education, commerce, and
the administration
• Language of prestige/ language of power and money
• Language of print media – language of freedom movement
• Slowly emerged as lingua franca
• But largely ‘urban-centric’ – education at the lower levels suffered
neglect
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English as a second language
• Educated Indians used English to fight the British
• English became one of the Indian languages
• Nehru’s famous speech in English
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• British left India in 1947
• But ‘Brown Sahibs’ took over
• Constitution was written in English
• Railways, telecommunications and postal services – mostly English
• Bureaucracy - English
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• After independence ‘Angrezi Hatao’
• English equated with British
• Symbol of slavery
• C. Rajagopalachari – “English language Goddess Saraswati’s gift to
India”
• But the alternative?
• India – multicultural, multilinguistic, multi-religious, multi-ethnic
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• Several commissions and committees post-independence
• All emphasize that mother tongue should be the medium of
instruction; Hindi should be the dominant federal language; but
English should be studied in high schools and universities
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NEP 2020
• Mother tongue to be the medium of instruction till Class 5
• Three language formula – at least two languages should be native to
India
• English is a language; it is not a test of your intelligence
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• English a global/ international language; language of internet;
language of books/ papers; language of jobs; language of aviation;
language of media/ movies
• 52% of the students expected their job prospects to be excellent if the
medium of instruction was English vis-.-vis 7% for Hindi and 28% for
Kannada (cf. Sridhar 1982: 144 cited in Sedlatschek 2009: 23).
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• “English is the world’s way of communicating internationally and
interculturally just as the Christian calendar is the world’s way of
tracing time, just as the Arabic numbers are the world’s way of
counting…” (Huntingdon, 1996:6 cited in Krishnaswamy &
Krishnaswamy 2018: 153)
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• English – language of IT
• Major software companies in the US
• Nearly 80% of all websites in English; ¾ of world’s communication in
English
• China has a policy on learning English
• ‘English tsunami’
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• India - ‘English advantage’
• “We are grateful to the British for ruling India and teaching us English,
a fact the Chinese are repenting now” (Pramod Mahajan, The Hindu
Jan 6, 2002 cited in Krishnaswamy & Krishnaswamy 2017: 157)
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• Many Englishes? Indian English as a variety
• English language – stripped of culture/ class/ race
• Earlier English speaking – imitating British – using cutlery, wearing suit
etc.
• But no longer
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• Indianisation of English and Englishization of Indian languages
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Official status - now
• English is the official language of four Union states (Manipur,
Meghalaya, Nagaland and Tripura) and of eight Union territories
• 22 Officially recognized languages – Eighth schedule of constitution –
not English
• Associate official language
• Earlier English was supposed to expire as an official language in 1965
• Anti-Hindi agitations in Tamilnadu 1965
• But amended act in 1963/ 1967 – English continued
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Indianization of English
“Dear Sir,
I am arrive by passenger train at Ahmedpore station and my belly is too
much swelling with jack-fruit. I am therefore went to privy. Just I doing
the nuisance, that guard making whistle blow train to go off and I am
running with lotah in one hand and Dhotie in the next when I am fall
over and expose all my shookings to man, female, woman on
platform… If passenger go to make dung, that dam guard no wait train
five minutes for him. I am therefore pray your honour to make big fine
on that guard for public sake.”
(letter cited in Krishnaswamy & Krishnaswamy 2017: 165)
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• “thanking you in anticipation”
• Drums beating
• Hook-swinging festival
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• Several words from Indian languages have been borrowed into
English
• Curry, coolie, pundit, juggernaut, jute, toddy (17-18 th century)
• Avatar, ahimsa, mantra, bandh
• Oxford dictionary lists about 1000 words of Indian origin – some up to
2000
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Only in Indian English
• Footpath, curd, pass out (=graduate), picture (=movie), would be
(=fiancé/ fiancée)
• Speed money (=bribe), eve-teasing (=street sexual harassment)
• Timepass (=pastime)
• Upgradation (=upgrading)
• Delink (=disconnect), upliftment
• Enthu, funda, senti
• Incharge (=one who is in-charge)
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• …want + that (=want somebody to do something)
• Overuse of definite article ‘the’ (e.g. acknowledge receiving this letter
and acknowledge the receipt of this letter.)
• Count-uncountable distinction
Aircrafts, equipments, softwares
A pant, a trouser
• Overuse of present continuous tense
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Englishization of Indian languages
• More than a thousand English words are in everyday use
• Bulb, switch, motor, car, lorry, bus, auto, train, pump, court, school,
college, bank, post office, TV, computer
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Code mixing
• … this is a total downer, considering the baap of action flicks is
associated with it. John Woo saab goes haywire with weird motorcycle
chases and leaps in the air that defy gravity. Slow motion zindabad!
(Sedlatschek 2009: 56)
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• Researchers have detected what they say are snapshots of an
imminent invasion of northern India by Hinglish that is set to shrink
populations of monolingual Hindi and bilingual Hindi-and-English
speakers.
• A study that examined dialogue on the Hindi reality television show
Bigg Boss and everyday language practices has suggested that
speakers of Hinglish, the hybridised version of Hindi peppered with
English vocabulary, could out-number speakers fluent in either one or
both languages.
• Telegraph, Jan 17, 2016