LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 15:8 August 2015
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         S. M. Ravichandran, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.
         C. Subburaman, Ph.D. (Economics)
         N. Nadaraja Pillai, Ph.D.
Assistant Managing Editor: Swarna Thirumalai, M.A.

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Community, Aspirations and English:
A Sociolinguistic Study of a West Bengal Village

Manish Kumar, M.A., M.Ed.


Abstract

This paper tries to understand the perception of a community and its desire for socio-economic mobility of its new generations by learning the English language in a NGO run school named Brilliant School (name is changed) in a village of Murshidabad district of West Bengal. It is a semi-ethnographic study with participant observation, non-structured interviews and observation with the help of an interpreter Sahib (name changed; also all personal names given in the article are changed names), because the author was not fully conversant in Bengali. It is a qualitative study which tries to describe the context of reality in relation to learning English as perceived by the target group.

Keywords: Community, aspiration, context, narrative, enquiry, imitative use, computeracy, cultural capital, critical pedagogy.

Focus of This Paper

In this paper the perceptions of the residents of a village towards 'English in School' would be looked into, based mainly on recorded interviews with parents who send their kids to Brilliant School, an English medium school. These interviews, and narrations based on them were conducted with the help of an interlocutor because I was not conversant in Bengali language.

After recording these interviews and narratives, an analysis of the same is undertaken.


This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.


Manish Kumar, M.A., M.Ed. (Delhi University)
A-883 Palam Extension
New Delhi-110077
India
mrai3281@gmail.com

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