- See Kachru, “Indian English: A Study in Contextualization,” in C. E. Bazell et al. (eds.), In Memory of J. R. Firth (London: Longmans, Green and Co. Ltd., 1966. Hereafter “Indian English”).
- For a detailed discussion of Firth's concept of the Context of Situation see his following publications: Speech 38–45 (London, 1930); The Tongues of Men 126–130 (London, 1937); “The Technique of Semantics” (1935); “Modes of Meaning” (1951); “General Linguistics and Descriptive Grammar” (1951) reprinted in Papers in Linguistics 1934–1951 (London, 1957. Hereafter Papers); “Synopsis of Linguistic Theory 1930–55” in Studies in Linguistic Analysis, Philological Society Publications 7–10 (Oxford, 1957. Hereafter Synopsis). Also see the following studies: G. L. Bursill-Hall, “The Linguistic Theories of J. R. Firth,” Thought 137–250 (Canadian Council of Learned Societies, 1961); “Level Analysis: J. R. Firth's Theories of Linguistic Analysis,” JCLA/RACL VI: 2 and 3; J. Ellis, “On Contextual Meaning,” In Memory of J. R. Firth; M. A. K. Halliday, “Contextualization,” in The Language of the Chinese “Secret History of the Mongols” (Philological Society Publications No. 17 [Oxford, 1959]); Kachru, “Indian English,” op. cit.; John Lyons, “J. R. Firth's Theory of Meaning,” In Memory of J. R. Firth; T. F. Mitchell, “The Language of Buying and Selling in Cyrenaica; A Situational Statement,” Hespéris (1957), 31–37.
- J. R. Firth suggested this term and the definition in a private conversation in August, 1960.
- The term “linguistic performance” is used in the Hallidayan sense (see his “Syntax and the Consumer,” Monograph Series in Language and Linguistics, 13 (1964)) and not in the sense in which Chomsky uses it in his Aspects of the Theory of Syntax (MIT, 1965). Halliday says: “… the explanation of linguistic performance can also perhaps be regarded as a reasonable goal and one that is still, as it were, internal to linguistics.” (Ibid., p. 13.)
- All the examples of IE texts are given with the sources from which these are taken. The abbreviations used are the same as those used in Kachru, “Indian English,” Appendix, pp. 286–287.
- See Halliday, op. cit., fn. 4, 17: “The interest is focused not on what the native speaker knows of his language but rather on what he does with it: one might perhaps say that the orientation is primarily textual and in the wider sense, sociological.” (My italics.)
- Most of the technical terms (e.g., context, level(s), (inter)-level, rank, lexis, collocation) have been used following Halliday's use in his “Categories of the Theory of Grammar,” Word XVII (1961), “Class in Relation to the Axis of Chain and Choice in Language,” Linguistics 2 (1963); “Lexis as a Linguistic Level,” in In Memory of J. R. Firth.
- Used as a technical term in the Firthian sense. See Firth, “Modes of Meaning” (1951); Synopsis 11–13. Also cf. T. F. Mitchell, “Syntagmatic Relation in Linguistic Analysis,” TPhS CVIII (1958); Halliday “Categories,” p. 276; Kachru, “An Analysis of Some Features of Indian English: A Study in Linguistic Method” (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Edinburgh University, 1961).
- J. Ellis uses the term “The Englishness of English” in order to emphasize the “individuality” of language. See his “Some Problems in Comparative Linguistics,” Proceedings of the University of Durham Philosophical Society 7.56 (1961). In a private communication Ellis says that this term was originally used by J. R. Firth.
- Following J. C. Catford I shall use the term L1 and L2 as the abbreviations for the primary language (mother tongue) and secondary language. (See his “The Teaching of English as a Foreign Language” in R. Quirk and A. H. Smith (eds.), The Teaching of English (London, 1959)). Considering the complex linguistic situation of India, I shall make a distinction between a first language, a second language, and a foreign language. A first language is the mother tongue, or the language which is learned first. A second language is a language which belongs culturally and linguistically to India, say Tamil and Kannada in Uttar Pradesh, or Hindi and Bengali in Andhra Pradesh or Tamilnad. A foreign language is a language which is not used as a first language in any part of India. It may be argued that for some Indians, perhaps, English has equal status with an Indian language. Even so, there are important spheres of language use—notably in the private and emotional life of such persons—where an Indian language is the first language. For most, English is clearly a foreign language.
- By a “variety” of a language I mean two or more forms of a language as developed in two different cultural settings. For example, the English language in America, Australia, Britain, Canada, and so forth. These may be treated as the varieties used as the first languages. The varieties used as foreign (or second) languages are Indian English, African English, Malayan English, etc.
- In recent years the socio-cultural impact and the linguistic setting of many non-English speaking countries have contributed towards the growth of a new idiom of English especially in West Africa, India, the Philippines, etc. The new idiom, naturally, involves the problem of intelligibility with other varieties of English which are used either as first languages or foreign (or second) languages.
- For any comparative (or descriptive) statement, it is useful to use some such scale, however arbitrary, since the competence and proficiency of “educated” Indians varies significantly in their use of English. The term “cline” has been borrowed from Halliday (see his “Categories,” 248–249). My use of the term is, however, different. The concept of the “cline of bilingualism” has been discussed in detail in a forthcoming publication.
- see N. Yule and A. C. Burnell, Hobson-Jobson (London, 1903), pp. 133–134.
- For further linguistically interesting examples see Cecil Hunt, Honoured Sir from Babuji (London, 1931) and Babujee Writes Home (London, 1935).
- Used as a technical term (see Kachru, “Indian English”). Also cf. M. A. K. Halliday, et al., The Linguistic Sciences and Language Teaching (London, 1964), pp. 87–98.
- The term has been suggested by David Abercrombie in his Problems and Principles (London, 1956).
- There are some Indians who have “native-like control” (see Bloomfield, Language p. 56 [New York, 1951]) at one level, but at the other levels their English may show marked influence of the substratum. For example, at the grammatical level one may attain an ambilingual's command, and at the same time show marked Indianness at the phonological and lexical levels.
- Note that the term IE writing may be used for the whole mass of English writing in India on different subjects, or in a restricted sense, only for “standard” creative writing and newspaper writing.
- The tradition of creative writing in English in India is fairly old. It may be traced back to 1901 when a collection of ten stories Love and Life behind the Purdah by Miss Sorabji was published (see Bhupal Singh, A Survey of Anglo-Indian Fiction [London, 1934] p. 306). But the impact of IE creative writing in India, and its recognition by the wider English-speaking world is, strictly speaking, a post-Indian Independence phenomenon. It is only during the last two decades that IE fiction and poetry have been recognized as forming a significant part of the Commonwealth form of English literature.
- It is interesting that only three decades ago the status of IE writing was different. In an Appendix to his Survey (see ibid., pp. 306–310) Bhupal Singh commenting on this new development says: “An interesting feature of the twentieth century Anglo-Indian fiction is the emergence of Indians as the writers of fiction in English. This is a natural result of the spread of education in India and the increasing familiarity of Indians with English literature.” He adds: “Indian writers and story-tellers, on the whole, do not compare favourably with Anglo-Indian writers. That they write in a foreign tongue is a serious handicap in itself….” Perhaps it is true, but then, it was said much before Raja Rao, R. K. Narayan, B. Bhattacharya, and others, established themselves as Indian writers in English.
- See Kachru, “Indian English.” Also Halliday, et al., op. cit., fn 16.
- The following further distinction may be made in a bilingual situation. A bilingual may make alternate use of one or more languages, other than his Li, either for restricted communication, or for unrestricted communication. On the basis of the functional use of a language we may then have restricted bilingualism and unrestricted bilingualism. Restricted bilingualism is restricted in the sense that an L2 is used only for some specific purposes, e.g., (1) administration, (2) legal proceedings, (3) education, (4) rituals. The above (1, 2, and 3) include the uses of English in India, and (4) includes the uses of Sanskrit in India and the use of Latin in certain parts of Europe. Anexample of unrestricted bilingualism is the use of Hindi in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, etc.,—the so-called Hindi-speaking areas of India—where people speak dialects or varieties at home and use Hindi as a common medium outside their homes. The bilingualism of a Hindi speaker, in the above case, is of a different degree from that of a Tamil or a Kashmiri Hindi speaker.
- The writings of those “educated” Indians who use English as a foreign language and write for the Indian and/or foreign reading public, have been termed by some Indo-Anglican, Indo-Anglian, or Indo-English (see, for example, K. S. Srinivasa Iyenger, The Indian Contribution to English Literature, i-ii (Bombay, 1945)). I shall, however, use the term INDIAN ENGLISH writing for the writings of such Indian bilinguals. This term has been used earlier in roughly the same sense by the following: M. R. Anand, The King Emperor's English (Bombay, 1948); P. E. Dustoor, “Presidential Address Delivered at the Seventh Session of the All India English Teachers Conference,” Dharwar, 1956, Reprinted in Shiksha: The Journal of the Education Department, (April, 1957) U.P. 61–71; A. N. Jha, in his address at a Conference of English Professors, Playwrights, and Critics, Lucknow, 1940.
- H. A. Passé—and some other scholars, too—object to the use of this term. According to them, it implies a status for IE which equals it with those varieties of English which are used as Li's (see Passé, The English Language in Ceylon, Ph.D. thesis: University of London, 1948).
- I think the term IE is contextually self-explanatory, and linguistically significant. Furthermore, it makes clear that the English language is used as a foreign language by the users of Indian languages, and more important, that it functions in those contexts which are “non-English” or “non-American.” The term Anglican is misleading in another sense, too. It has a theological connotation connected with the Church of England which does not fit in an Indian context. Perhaps it should be made clearer here that the term IE is not used in this study in the same sense in which it has been used by G. C. Whitworth (see his Indian English [Lahore, 1932]) and other scholars. Whitworth uses it in the sense of a “sub-standard” variety of English.
- See C. F. Hockett, For Roman Jakobson (The Hague, 1956), p. 233.
- It may be argued that the factors which mark IE as separate are not much different from those factors which justify the differences in Australian English, Canadian English, Scottish English, etc. This analogy, however, cannot be taken too far since IE is used as an L2 in contrast with the above varieties of English which are, by and large, used as L1's.
- A “mistake” may be defined as any “deviation” which is rejected by a native speaker of English as out of the linguistic “code” of the English language, and which may not be justified in Indian English on formal and/or contextual grounds. A “deviation,” on the other hand, may involve differences from a norm, but such deviations may be explained in terms of the cultural and/or linguistic context in which a language functions.
- Kanthapura (London, 1938), pp. 9–10.
- Rao was not alone when he pleaded for an Indian variety of English. In 1940, addressing the Conference of English Professors, Playwrights, and Critics, in Lucknow, India, Dr. A. N. Jha went a step further. He said: “May I, in that respect, venture to plead for the use, retention and encouragement of Indian English?… Is there any reason why we need be ashamed of Indian English? Who is there in the United Provinces who will not understand a young man who had enjoyed a freeship at college, and who says he is going to join the teachery profession and who after a few years says he is engaged in headmastery? Similarly, why should we accept the English phrase mare's nest, and object to horse's egg, so familiar in the columns of Amrita Bazar Patrikal Why should we adhere to all this when this all is the natural order suggested by the usage of our own language? Why insist on yet following though when in Hindustani we use the equivalent of but Must we condemn the following sentence because it does not conform to English idiom, even though it is a literal translation of our own idiom? I shall not pay a pice what to say of a rupee. Is there any rational ground for objecting to family members and adhering to members of the family?… A little courage, some determination, a wholesome respect for our own idioms, and we shall before long have a virile, vigorous Indian English.” (Reported in the Ceylon Daily News 28.9.40).
- Jha's tone is perhaps rhetorical, and the arguments not very clear, but what he is aiming at is to emphasize the distinctive characteristics of IE, which, as he argues, is determined by the transference.
- See Halliday, “Categories.”
- ‘Unit’ is used here both for the units of description as used by Halliday (see “Categories”), and for the contextual units. The second use of the term is non-Hallidayan (Cf. Kachru, “Indian English”).
- Used in the sense of a provider or helper.
- Mode of reference to Lord Shiva in Hindu mythology.
- Angus Mcintosh, “Patterns and Ranges,” Language XXXVII (1961), 333.
- Used in a technical sense. See Kachru, “Indian English.”
- Note that it is the translation of Hindustani sarkār, and is used as a mode of address for one who represents authority.
- In certain circles it is the normal mode of address (or reference) used for one's wife. Note that in Indian orthodox circles a lady is not expected to refer to her husband by his name. In such situations, a third person pronoun may be used.
- Frequently used in the South of India as a term of address.
- It is, however, difficult to say whether, on the part of an IE writer, the attempt to establish equivalence is “conscious” or “unconscious.”
- It is a loan-shift from Sanskrit dvija. The three castes, Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya are “twice born” in the sense that once they have their natural birth, and again, at their initiation they are invested with the sacred-thread, which implies acceptance in the caste, hence, rebirth.
- Rank-bound translation applies to the higher units of description, too. Consider, for example, the items horse's egg “ghõrardim” (Bengali) and king of pearls “moti- yamdä bädshah” (Punjabi); both of these are nomináis belonging to unit group in the respective languages.
- Only the English equivalents are given here.
- See Language (New York, 1938), p. 457.
- For instance, M. R. Anand. (See his The King Emperor's English 23 [Bombay, 1948] “… for now I literally translate all the dialogues in my novels from my mother tongue and think out the narrative mostly the same way.”)
- R. B. Lees, The Grammar of English Nominalizations, Bloomington: Indiana University Research Center in Anthropology, Folklore, and Linguistics, Publication Number 12, July, 1960 (IJAL XXVI, Number 3, Part II), p. 167.
- Ibid., 152–53.
- Note also the following three-item collocations: brother-anointing-ceremony (Kanth 56); inter-district criminals (SL 6.6.59); inter-caste-unions (MM 190); nine-stranded-thread (He Who 45); red-paste-trident (He Who 98); rice- initiation ceremony (Kanth 37); thousand-and-eight flames ceremony (Kanth 142).
- The item salt-giver is used in a metaphorical sense referring to one who is a provider (of food, etc.). It is a translation of annadātā.
- Also consider, strength of class→roll strength”, a box of matches→match box.
- G. C. Whitworth, Indian English (Lahore, 1932).
- He also lists the following formations under this class: state-subject; government-member; sandal-wood pieces; bride-price; bride-groom price; English-educated; England- goers; foreign-travelled; tea-cups; grape-bunches; grass-blades.
- See R. C. Coffin, “Some notes on Indian English,” S.P.E. XLI, 31 (Oxford).
- In terms of the structure, it is a rank-bound and item-bound transfer. It is rankbound in the sense that structurally in Bengali and English it belongs to the same unit (‘word’, compound), and item-bound in the sense that phūl has been equated with flower and shɔjjā with bed. The collocation has been used in the same contextual unit in which phūl shɔjja operates in Bengali culture. As mentioned earlier, in this case the register-confusion could be avoided by the use of an item like nuptial bed.
- A parallel to this cross-cultural linguistic situation is not difficult to find. A significant number of Americanisms or Australianisms have been so named because the English-speaking settlers in America and Australia had to coin new expressions for the contextual items of the new world. Hence the following Americanisms: bull-frog, razor-back, turkey-gobbler, egg-plant, Jimson-weed, fox-grape, apple-butter. (See H. L. Mencken, The American Language [New York, 1941], pp. 113–121. For Australianisms see E. E. Morris, Austral English [London, 1898], p. 160.)
- The case of Indianisms, however, is different in the sense that in India it is not a group of new settlers using their L1 in new situations in a new country. In this case, a foreign language is used by the natives, in their own native contexts. The introduction of such Indianisms may be traced back to early foreign travelers to India, who borrowed a large number of Indian words into English, or coined many hybrid formations for Indian contexts.
- Reference to a caste symbol on one's forehead. Cf. “A fine thing, too, it is, you with your broad ash-mark and your queer son and his ways.” (Kanth 65.)
- Showing social attitude towards a widow in Hindu society. Cf. “What to that bangled widow? She will lead us all to prostitution.” (Kanth 233.) (A Hindu widow is not supposed to wear any ornaments.)
- Restricted to ceremonies in Hindu temples.
- On the analogy of black-market. Cf…. and he had more than a hundred thousand rupees of black money in the locker… (1001 Nights 43).
- A special ritual performed in the Hindu wedding ceremony.
- Used in the sense of ‘cremation-ground’.
- Reference to famous Hindu festival in Puri, Orissa.
- “On this, her flower-bed, her seven children were born.” (MM 109.)
- “Heera Lal knowing the caste injunctions would not touch the forbidden meat.” (MM 31.)
- Restricted to the religious register. (”I will make a milk-bath offering to the deity.” [He Who 124].)
- Reference to the holy thread (”janeo”) worn by Hindus. (”That white… nine-stranded thread shall gleam across your chest.” [He Who 45].)
- A crimson mark of trident shape on the forehead of the Brahmins.
- “His forehead smeared with red vermillion and a splash of sacred ash.” (FE 52.)
- Furthermore, note that in many cases affixation is used to form Indianisms for Indian contextual units. Consider, for example, the following: inter-dine, inter-marriage (MM 11), inter-marry (HS 15.6.59), sub-caste (AD 10), casteless (He Who 203), and so on.
- For a detailed formal and contextual classification of hybrid Indianisms, see Kachru, “A Sociolinguistic Study of Hybridization in Indian English” (forthcoming).
- See Kanthapura 9–10.
- For instance, the term brother-in-law has one restricted meaning in British English as a kinship term; in IE it has acquired three distinct meanings (1) as a term of abuse, (2) affection or intimacy, and (3) kinship. The terms sister and mother have extended collocations as terms of regard and respect without relationship, e.g., “Now you know what your duties are, and how to do them, sister, you will receive our instructions.” (WM 93). In IE, then, the members of the English kinship system, e.g., brother, brother-in-law, cousin, father, and mother, need different formal and contextual statements since: (1) the members of one British English set operate in three sets in IE; and (2) the meaning of the items has been extended. In IE the members of the BE kinship system may operate in any of the following sets: (1) modes of address/reference, (2) terms of endearment, (3) terms of regard and respect, (4) markers of attitude (brother-in-law); and, in the normal BE sense, (5) term of kinship. For further discussion of English kinship terms in IE see Kachru “Indian English.”
- See Synopsis 11.
- For a brief survey of the South Asian varieties of English, see Braj B. Kachru, “English in South Asia,” in T. A. Sebeok, et. al. (eds.), Current Trends in Linguistics, Vol. V (The Hague: Mouton and Co., forthcoming).
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