Review of Kubchandani's 1981 Book
Language, Education and Social Justice

H. Schiffman
Handout for SARS 523


  1. Chapter 1: Language and Education

    LK reviews what education was like before colonialism. Education was regarded as `an extension of primary socialisation imbibed through immediate environments of family, caste, creed, and tradition'. Emphasized disciple/master relationship between pupil and teacher; designed to preserve segmental identities by catering to the needs of the Advanced and Ordinary (sic) traditions.

    1. Advanced: gurukul and madrasseh traditions of `elegant' education for elites (sons of priests, ruling classes, high officials): reading of scriptures and historical texts through Sanskrit or Perso-Arabic.
    2. Ordinary: pathasala and makta traditions stressed practical education provided to administrators, merchants through locally dominant vernaculars (use in lower courts, for accounting).

    Structure was hierarchical both in society and in education. Thus there were local varieties, sub-regional dialects, supra-regional dialects, and `high-brow' styles, arranged in complicated diglossias. Education provided fluidity in use of language, according to appropriate conditions of identity, context and purpose, a strength of plural societies.

    Report of 1823, Bellary District, (numbered 7 on this map) enumerating 533 schools in district: 235 used Kannada, 226 Telugu, 23 Marathi, 21 Persian, 4 Tamil, 1 English medium, plus 23 schools for Brahmins taught in Sanskrit.

    British (during consolidation of rule in 19th century, but not before) introduced schools which eclipsed the traditional systems in most of British India. This differed from previous attempts such as by missionaries, private societies and individuals supported somewhat by East India Company. Early attempts relied on extant systems, expanding madrassas and Sanskrit colleges. Indigenous rulers and British did not at first perceive that they had any responsibility for state education, since in Britain itself there was no public state system at this time (1823); this system looked much like pre-renaissance Europe.

    Eventually changes occurred both in Europe, and these were extended to British India as well, turning away from elitist educational goals to deal with needs of humbler subjects.

    Debate between Classical and Scientific subjects:

    There then arose a debate over classical vs. scientific subjects: classicists thought classical education ennobled people, refined soul and character. People wanting science thought this would help modern industrializing nations. Classics were (for them) too narrow, incomprehensible, irrelevant. Science and English were utilitarian. It took until 19th century (in Europe in general after the French revolution) for the medium of instruction, and the focus of education, to switch to English

    Respectability of Vernaculars Use of English in schools was low-status in England until the 19th century, and even after that it was the medium of education but not the subject. Victorians accepted class divisions and accepted that some people ought to have utilitarian education and others elitist. Gradually, the study of English literature was also legitimized. English (especially English literature) didn't acquire respectability as a subject until 20th century(!). Progressive theories began to question methodology, rote learning, etc.

    Colonial situation Concerns back in Britain about these goals and issues affected the ways they conceived of education in India, but despite gradual changes, LK says the British never resolved three issues:

    • The content of education: initially change from traditional (classic) to western (utilitarian) knowledge did not affect the others very much.
    • The Spread of education: how broad in society should it be, i.e. who should get it. Missionaries wanted it to go deep and be broad; wanted local vernaculars etc. while rulers wanted to attract respectable members of Indian society to man the administration through English medium.
    • the Medium of education. At first British used local classical mediums; then they began to question this: the battle between the ``Orientalists" (Princep) and the ``Anglicists" (Grant and Macaulay) heated up and went on for some time.

    Indian elites were also realizing that English was the key to power and participation, and abandoned classical languages. Many reformers cried out for access to English (Ram Mohan Roy etc.), pleading with rulers to give them English.

    Macaulay's hard-line: His Minute of 1835 recommended this and the government made it official: spend all gov't money on English education, found English universities, etc. Hardinge's (1844) proclamation made recruitment for public offices only through English schools. This was of course focused on elites only.

    Later the British recognized they had to think about the masses, too, and recommended use of vernaculars. Thus, English for the elites, and vernaculars for the masses.

    In actuality, the British recognized 3 types:

    1. English medium, in urban areas, for elites, from beginning.
    2. Two-tier: vernacular for primary, English for advanced, in smaller towns.
    3. Vernacular medium: in rural areas for primary education (rural ed. didn't go beyond this).

    Thus though in England English represented an opening to the masses, humanistic values, etc. in India it represented elitism, and occupied the space of classical languages. It dichotomized education: English vs. vernacular. But the content of education through English did have an effect on the Indian psyche, getting ideas (e.g. democracy!) that were not elitist. Nevertheless, Indian reformers (Gandhi, Tagore, Gokhale etc.) campaigned for vernacularization of education, universalization of education, even use of mother-tongue in administration. These leaders were thus planning ahead for a language policy in an independent India .

    This policy would deal with:

    1. Medium: vernacular or English/foreign?
    2. Content: urban values/rural needs?
    3. Spread: how many people would have access?

    Gandhi etc. wanted to bring education and life together, make education meet needs of poor and rural people, e.g. connecting it to handicrafts, work. During the independence struggle, however, most of the quarreling was about the medium issue while ideological issues of content were ignored. The needs of white-collar urban elite overshadowed, and still overshadow, needs of rural areas.

    On the other hand, there was a focus on certain issues, e.g. facility of expression in mother-tongue and superiority of mother-tongue education were highlighted rather simplistically, always contrasting mother-tongue against English. Taken for granted that foreign medium is bad; taken for granted that Hindi would be better for everybody! Supporters of mother-tongue haven't defined what they meant, nor was attention paid to hierarchy of different linguistic forms, diglossia etc. prevailing in pluralistic societies. If needs of urban-based people are primary, the diglossia of vernaculars becomes exacerbated. Urban-based dialects may be as difficult for rural people as another FL. Leaders acted as if substitution of Native Language for FL would solve all problems.

  2. Chapter 2: Language and Society.
  3. During independence. struggle, people did not understand how pluralistic Indian society was, and the sociolinguistic complexity of India's linguistic situation. Especially didn't understand

    1. diglossia
    2. The fluid nature of language boundaries (dialect continuum): speakers of Pahari, Lahnda, Rajasthani, Maithili, Bhojpuri, Awadhi, Chattisgarhi etc. may declare that they are Hindi speakers; or may not.
    3. Inconsistency of language labeling: Hindi? Urdu? Panjabi?
    4. The tendency to declare linguistic loyalty to a language not their mother-tongue, such as Urdu for Muslims, Panjabi for Sikhs. Declaration of linguistic identity is often a declaration of ethnicity, not of linguistic habits.
    5. Tendency for declarations (in census) to fluctuate: between 1951 and 1961, changes of more 14,000% (sic!) were recorded for some languages.
    6. In pluralistic societies, people often claim native competence in more than one language/dialect. (e.g. Oriya/Telugu in Ganjam District., 1931 census).
    7. Wide-spread code-switching may also be evident.
    8. Grass-roots multilingualism is widespread, but may be non-literate . It is thus devalued (also because it may be in non-standard forms) unless they move toward standard mastery, and literacy.

    9. Many people do not recognize that they are in fact bi- or multilingual; it's just their repertoire, and they do not declare it.

    The plurality of mother-tongues may be more widespread even than recorded; a phenomenon not known in the west. Problem may be that linguistic identity may not be congruent with other identities, such as religious, ethnic, national, etc. These identities cross-cut other identities, rather than lining up with them. There may be one kind of ``speech" but many different kinds of variety, lack of unity, diversity). No one trait dominates the other. In Europe or other insular societies, various social identities are congruent and their boundaries are co-terminous. (Example: In Europe, if you're Italian, you're Catholic; if you're Swedish, you're Protestant.)

    Gandhi is quoted as having said that in India, a person's identity is embedded in concentric circles which radiate out forever, instead of stopping at some boundary and then piling up in a kind of cone. (Or maybe if not that image, this one.

    Table 1: Speech Behavior and Language Education

    an example from Rural Marathi community around Nagpur.

    Speech Varieties

    1

    Communication Situations

    2

    Languages Taught

    3

    School Values

    4

      Nagpuri Marathi

      close ingroup

      --

    denied prestige, and used minimally as substandard varieties

      Supra-dialectal Marathi

      wider ingroup

      --

    denied prestige, and used minimally as substandard varieties

      Standard Marathi

      ingroup mass communication

      Marathi

    promoted through `autonomy' values in all situations

      Neighboring varieties of Marathi

      optional familiarity through mobility

      --

    regarded as non-prestigeous and their use not promoted

      Nagpuri Hindustani

      inter-group

      --

    use signifies non-prestigious upbringing

      Standard Hindi/Urdu

      inter-group mass communication

      Hindi

    learnt as `exercises' for eventual use after school career (not related to immediate use)

      Regional English usage (a few phrases)

      optional modernistic acquaintance

      English

    learnt as `exercises' for eventual use after school career (not related to immediate use)
    Sanskrit or Arabic (a few phrases) optional ritualistic acquaintance Sanskrit
    Persian
    learnt as an optional `classical' language for religious and literary scholarship

     

     

     

    Table 2: Rural Santali Community in Bihar.

    1

    2

    3

    4

      Local Santali

      close ingroup

        --

      denied prestige, used minimally as substandard varieties

      Supra-dialectal Santali

      wider ingroup

        --

      denied prestige, used minimally as substandard varieties

      (Standard) Santali

    --

      Santali (standard set by language-elite)

      medium for primary education

      Other tribal languages (Munda, Ho, etc.)

      optional familiarity through mobility

        --

      regarded as non-prestigious, use not promoted

      Sadri (Sadan), a hybrid Bihari language

      tribal intergroup

        --

      use signifies non-prestigious upbringing

      Bihari languages (Maithili, Magahi, etc.) Regional Bengali or Oriya

      non-tribal intergroup

        --

      regarded as non-prestigious, use not promoted

      Regional Hindustani

      urban contact

        --

      use signifies non-prestigious upbringing

      Standard Hindi/Urdu; standard Bengali or Oriya

      mass communication

      Hindi

      medium for further education

      Regional English usage (a few phrases)

      optional modernistic acquaintance

      English

      learned as an `exercise' for eventual use after the school career (not related to immediate use).

        --

        --

      Sanskrit

      learned as an optional `classical' language for religious and literary scholarship

    Problems with this analysis:

    1. Compare this with my Concentric Circles: , or Mackey's boxes: (See full document on BlackBoard Course Documents)

         

      • With Mackey's boxes model, we would have to have many more than the four he gives (Home, Region, School, Nation) but as many as eight or nine.
      • Not clear if they should be nested as they are with Mackey, since there are many auxiliary languages.
      • Is the concentric circle model, with compartmentalization as we move outward from the home environment, preferable?.
      • Khubchandani also doesn't allow for diversity within the home as we often get in S. Asia (and in Indonesia!): speaking one Language with mother, or women folk; another with father/menfolk, or with servants. Ananthanarayana: speaking Tulu in the back of the house with the women, and Kannada on the front porch with the men.

  4. Problem of literacy programs in plural societies: what kind, how much, and for whom? Should be geared to facilitate communication with prevailing socialization values extending from native language (associated with native speech) to 2nd language, and on to foreign language
  5. The S. Asian pattern is not just linear: child ==> school ==> region, but probably nested circles, and language boundaries (and codes) are not discrete.

    Standardization is done by the officially-accredited custodians of linguistic reality in grammars, dictionaries, etc. Standard usage is the shift from event-centered discourse (what actually happens) to ideal-oriented correct expression. Contextual and functional fluidity is deprecated. In actuality, uniformity and homogeneity are myths, but they are what is cultivated by custodians. Literacy is a crystallized entity characterized by a distinct tradition embodied in a literary language. When standardization occurs today, it is done to serve the needs of urban elites and their tradition-inspired value system.

Chapter 3: Communication

Language and the needs society have for/of it are not often thought of as primarily communicative . Society tends to think of language as an either-or, right or wrong situation, instead of deviations from the norm as appropriate if serving such needs as being purposeful, amusing, pejorative, offending, ironic, ambiguous, hazardous, unintelligible, socially neutral or group-identifying (region, strata, class etc.)

LK summarizes in Table on pg. 40:

Medium for transmitting literacy skills universally
Conventional educators adhere strictly to standard language prevalent in the area
Liberal educators recommend bidialectal approach, gradually phasing in from home D to standard Language. Literacy is initiated through non-standard variety, transiting to Standard Language later
Some advocate dichotomous approach, accommodating D's/non- standard V's at spoken level but maintaining literacy only in standard Language.
Pluralistic grassroots approach to universalization of education endorse a model where variation is an asset to communication. Diversity is a positive value.

Chapter 4: Language Privileges

Center-periphery hypothesis. Parallel to the Developed/Developing economy model, language also treated to the same categories: Developed countries have more homogeneity in language, less developed countries have heterogeneity in language. To get higher economic development, ergo, get rid of heterogeneity. Introduce homogenization a la European societies.

Dimensions of Language Development

Dimensions: `Developed' Languages `Underdeveloped' Languages
Ecological

      Utilization:

wider communication `world' languages languages limited to a region (national, local languages)

    Population strength:

dominant `majority' languages dominated `minority' languages (often treated as `dialects' in policy making
Social

      Legitimization:

standard languages (acceptable to the elite) non-standard regional varieties, sub-standard languages (slang, hybrids, pidgins)

      Domains of Use:

full-fledged `autonomous' languages languages with restrictive use (vernaculars in diglossia situations)
Projectional

      Graphisation:

written languages unwritten

    Medium of Education:

advanced `cultivated' languages preparatory `ethnic' languages

      Technologization:

languages suitable for typing, shorthand, telecommunication, [computerization] languages not extended for technological tasks

Economic model says `get rid of the handicapped language' and introduce the privileged one. Less-favored languages are thus condemned to extinction (or language shift). The age-old harmony of hierarchic patterning of different varieties in the verbal repertoire of pluralistic societies gets disturbed, and disharmony occurs: language strife, state boundary disputes, fights over language privilege in education, which language to be used for exams, etc. Keeping up with the Joneses: less favored varieties struggle to catch up with favored ones, which have gone on to higher technological uses (email, computerization, internet, etc.)

One approach in S. Asia has been to try to legislate the role of various languages in the public spheres: communication, administration, education, mass media etc. Legislators have tried to affix labels to language, to differentiate their status:

Long before modernization, the conflict between Hindi and Urdu illustrated the kinds of conflicts possible in S. Asia. As role of Persian declined, persianized Urdu arose in its place. British meddled in this (divide and conquer) aggravating language loyalties, resulting in eventual partition of country.

Dominance of English during British period brought an equal and opposite reaction against it after Independence, which has to do with alienation of elites from masses. But elites still want their privileges, and English still favors meritocracy in business and technology; even the masses want a piece of the pie. How to reduce the role of English from dominant to one of linguistic partnership?

Meanwhile, the same kind of elite behavior favors Sanskritic Khari-Boli over local varieties such as Bombay Hindustani; people speak Bombay H but have to write in Kari Boli Hindi; Kari Boli Hindi is not used in real life (except by elites in Delhi etc.) so an old pattern continues of language being divorced from life and usage. Language is taught as an exercise or preparation for a test, which, once passed, is never used again. Takes on role of the classical language in early renaissance Europe; the notion of what you actually do with language is ancillary.

Role of small minority languages After regional standard languages took over in the states, the role of smaller languages was less protected. University Education Committee (1949) and Official Language Commission (1956) deemed the languages of the large advanced and organized groups as fit media of instruction, but not the languages of small minorities. Using them for education would be colossally expensive and only feasible if group was large and compact. 1961 Census shows that 87% of India are speakers of one of 12 major languages; 76% reside in their own homelands (and will therefore get education in their language) while another 11% reside outside their homeland and are thus minorities in other states [with little protection and provisions for education, hs]. The remaining 13% [approximately 130,000,000 speakers in 1999, hs] are thus ignored.

Recently some concessions and arrangements for these groups are being made, e.g. for elementary education, and perhaps even secondary. Articles 350A and 350B, seventh amendment 1956 states that:

``It shall be the endeavor of every State to provide adequate facilities for instruction in the mother-tongue at the primary stage of education to children belonging to linguistic minority groups."

However, without teeth for these provisions, little can be expected.

Chapter 5: Squabbles Among Language Elites

Some States are initiating bilingual schooling for their tribal populations; various minority communities, especially in urban areas, also prefer bilingual models (especially if it involves English!):

BILINGUAL MEDIA

  Media at Primary Stage State
A Manipuri-English Manipur
  Khasi-English Meghalaya
  Garo-English Meghalaya
  Mizo-English Mizoram
  Assamese-English Arunachal Pradesh
  Hindi-English Andaman and Nicobar Islands
B. Santali-Elementary Hindi West Bengal
  Tibetan-Elementary Hindi West Bengal
  Kuvi-Oriya Orissa
Extended to Secondary Stage
C. Kashmiri-Urdu Jammu and Kashmir
  Urdu-English Jammu and Kashmir
  Sindhi-English Maharashtra
  Sindhi-Hindi Delhi
  Panjabi-Hindi Chandigarh
  Malayalam-English Lakshadveep Islands

Informally in these models, we see much code-switching and hybridization of the languages in contact. The actual usage or type of model varies tremendously: there may not be exclusive use of the preferred medium, but shifting and other kinds of variation depending on context, domain and channel:

Passive and active media: Students listen to lectures in one language and write answers in another.
Formal and informal media: Formal teaching in the classroom is conducted in one language, but informal explanation is provided in another
Multi-tier media: Elementary ed. is initiated through mother-tongue as the preparatory but as the student moves upward in the ladder, shift to a more `cultivated' language occurs.

 

HS comment: I might add that in the first category ( Passive and active media ) the language that may be `official' as medium is used in texts, written on blackboards, etc. but all explanation is done in another language:
  • English and Nagamese in Nagaland schools: English is official but not used to communicate anything, and never used for explanation. Explanation all done in Nagamese.
  • In Tamil pre-university courses, supposedly taught in English, the subject matter is presented in English and then explained in spoken (!) Tamil.
  • In Singapore schools where Tamil is the subject of instruction, Literary Tamil may be the subject, but explanations are given in spoken Tamil and/or English .

This model (not mentioned by LK) may be more widespread than reported; it tends to be denied when observed and commented upon by foreigners etc.

We therefore may have to speak of a language of explanation in addition to medium of instruction, subject of instruction, etc. (end HS comment.)