Language Planning and Language Development Essay

oral discourse is a typic on the wholey military man phenomenon. In abject from the behaviorlike macrocosm of animal existence to the cultural being of human existence, verbiage plays the decisive role. Language gives a sense of identity to an individual(a) as tumefy as a neighborly group and, in the process, creates multiple identities. The maintenance, merger, clash and change in identities based on and reflected in the quarrel change has prompted linguists, philosophers, psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists and policy-making scientists to strike wording in its sundry(a) dimensions. Since economical and societal planning slang to, of necessity, take into account the scope of planning, in that location is no wonder that worldwide attention has been drawn towards words planning.Language is an asset and a primary instrument of human communication. However, linguistic process deal become a fuss and a barrier to communication, virtu completelyytimes sy mbolically so, under conditions of multiplicity of ethnic groups, expressions, stresss, styles, registers and rule books. These conditions may lead to i or much(prenominal) of the following situations which necessitate talking to planning (i) mutually unintelligible actors linage, dialects or scripts competing for supremacy of dominance (ii) Mutually intelligible lectures, dialects or scripts,(a) threatening mutual identity,(b) with mutually unfavorable mental attitudes.(iii) populace of diglossia, triglossia or multiglossia.(iv) Existence of oral communications with prevalent/ nonage relationship with a communityal frontier. (v) Social variables correlating with dustup social function and creating communication z iodines. (vi) Official action in recognising official spoken lyrics, distributing patronages for study of verbiages which may depute lead the remote implication of displacing or worrying in reality or symbolically, the existing domains of voice communication use. (vii) Language utilise by the politicised elect(ip) to retain their elitist privileges by restricting language use in education, administration and tidy sum media. There is an pressing need for dangerous attention to language planning in a realm the like India. The following examples atomic number 18 illustrative of situations which demand the attention of educationists and contrivers to the crucial richness of language in society.1. Sometime back, the Physics Department of the Aligarh University administered a foster creativity test to the high achievers of the University. To their great surprise they found the go away absolutely erratic. After hurried consultations among the scientists involved, it was decided to translate the test into HindooUrdu, the start play of the students taking the test. It is only then that the test yielded the expect standard go pop out2. 2. A very signifi finisht programme, the preparation of a tie Course in Kannad a, was undertaken by the Central embed of Indian Languages some years back. From experience and observation the Institute came to a few conclusions 1. Language learn method, particularly that of principle the m new(prenominal) vernacular in the Indian teachs, is high-risk 2. What is taught in the name of language is literature.3. The teaching of literature is restricted to the teaching of ancient and medieval literature and seldom touches the contemporary. 4. Even in literature, more emphasis is inclined to teaching about literature than really teaching literary sensibility and critical judgment. 5. No attention is paid to the teaching of distinguishable registers. 6. As a result, in that respect is a gap among the language attainment at the end of the school stage and the language requirement at the beginning of the college stage, particularly when taught through the sustain tongue medium. As a result of this, the students can non cope with their college studies. Some 900 students selected from three Universities of Karnataka were given a pre-test. A hundred-hour Bridge Course genuine by the Institute was offered to an experimental group of about four hundred students and a post-test given to all the 900.It was established that the hypotheses suggested by the institute were valid and that, pending revision of the school curriculum, the Bridge Course was of immediate necessity, particularly in the place setting of switchover to the stick tongue medium at the University stage (Upadhyaya 1972 and Dave 1974). 3. In Nagaland, there argon 22 mutually unintelligible Naga languages, of which 16 recognised by the postulate Government. The language of communication among the people is Pidgin Naga, which is used even in the al-Qaida of the Assembly, though non an officially recognised language. In the absence of an satisfactory crude language, the domain Government has adopted side of meat as the State Language (Sreedhar 1974). This has not only created a wide gulf among the elite and the masses of people, but also deprived the common man from in effect participating in the processes of governance of the State.4. The widespread radio network in the country has shrunk distances. The growing television network has demonstrated the potential of revolutionising communication in a very short time. However, out of the 1652 bring forth tongues of the country, transmit is not done even in 150. Broadcasting in languages other than the 15 major languages is meant aboutly either for entertainment, or for purposes catering to peripheral device interests of the listeners. The television is much more restricted in the coverage. Under these circumstances, in spite of all the outer-trappings, the message broadcast over the mass media murderes a very restricted audience (Pattanayak 1974). A study of the language of newspapers and that of the consume is hold back to reinforce the preceding(prenominal) conclusion.5. Illiteracy is a m ajor problem of the country (Pattanayak 1974). Out of 800 grinderion illiterates in the world, India is credited to arrest 400 million . if in eradicating illiteracy the intention is to move from a stopping point of silence to a gardening of thinking participation and the emphasis is on the creation of an intelligent task force for economic and industrial study, then, urgent and bold steps need to be taken in this argona. Literacy in a multilingual essential be based on the show needs of a people3. Secondly, the language of literacy has to be determined keeping in view the different contexts of language use and strategies linking the languages of literacy with that of education and administration. It would olibanum be quite establish that whether it is in the field of language use in education, language use in administration or in mass media, there is a constant need to weigh alternatives and plan action. The examples cited above are as true of any multilingual country as they are of India.Such examples not only establish the necessity for language planning, but also the need to analyse its process and product. Before public lecture about language planning, one mustiness understand the motivation and mechanisms of planning. provision is not merely a catalogue of resources and the organisation and mobilization of these resources to reach a certain defined goal. Since the technocrat is seldom the decision maker, it is important that the deviser provides alternatives and options are given, the goal is expressd and the strategies are spelled out the politician-decision maker can take a decision. The two aims of planning are growth furtherance and environment amelioration. Here, environment is not used merely in the strong-arm ecological sense, but is used in the sense of sociocultural context of the individuals in society. It is most unfortunate that the pre-occupation with economics as the only field of disturb of planning blinded the planners t o its equally important second tone of planning.Those who are obsessed with growth and economic training take the social and cultural imperatives for granted. Like the textbook and laboratory controlled experiments, where all other conditions being equal a certain conclusion flows out of it, the economic planner takes the context of planning for granted and concentrates on the economic planning. He forgets that in material invigoration all the conditions seldom remain equal and that the context in which social problems are nurtured is as important as the problems themselves. readying is not merely a balance sheet of inputs and outputs. That input-output statements of growth hurl to be checked against cost benefit to the society, need to be forceful more, if planning is not to defeat its declare purpose. Language planning does not merely entail drawing a list of mother tongues verbalise in a defined territory, nor does it merely mean listing of their actual and desired domain s of use. Whether in a unilingual or in a plurilingual society, language planning is essential to deal with such problems of dialect, language standard, all aspects of language development and the contexts of language use are areas of concern of a language planner.It would be much more meaningful and sensible to talk of relatively unitary and pluralilstic societies, as the great divide seems to be unitary and pluralilstic quite a than developed and developing in the context of language planning. In pluralistic societies, choices, options and alternatives are imperatives of planning, as the basis of pluralism is transparent and easily manipulated. Speaking of language development, Khubchandani (1975102) offers the following framework which accepts the distinction surrounded by developed and undeveloped languages proportion Developed Language Undeveloped LanguageRange of communication Wide,Sometimes multi issue. limited to region.Ecological status. Spoken by rife majorities. Spoken by dominant minorities. Domian of use. All. Restricted as with vernaculars.Writing system Present. May not be present.Literary status With literary traditions. Colloquial, bazar languages. Social prestige normal language, acceptable to the elite. Non-standard or sub-standard slangs, hybridsThis is too simplistic a sham. Following this one can argue that the major (scheduled) languages of India are both developed and un-developed and they are uncomplete developed nor un-developed. One can asseverate that, barring their restricted domain of use, they fulfill all the criteria of developed language. At the alike time, feel at the situation from national and global perspective, one can say that, being diglossic, they fall in all the features of undeveloped, whereas in Latin the States, the major language is developed and the minority (such as Indian) languages are undeveloped. If one takes the case of incline alone, this scheme will lead to untenable conclusions. Actuall y such a schematic presentation conceals and confuses issues rather than clarifies them. Fergusons criteria (Fishman 1968 28) of a developed language, inter-translatablity with languages in the industrial society, is ethnocentric. One may wish to give the benefit of mistrust by saying that the industrial society probably has developed the most varied registers of the language used.But, in the agricultural society, certain contemplative disciplines have flourished which may not have found place in the industrial society. In any case, there is no reason why value judgement about a society need be sensible transferred into the discussion of language use without establishing its relevance to such discussions. What, then, is language development? Can a language be developed by a language planning society ? One best-selling(predicate) notion of a developed language is its antiquity. Languages which are older are popularly considered more developed. Scholars of history of language and literature in all Indian languages ordinarily devote considerable space and time to this aspect of the question. Another popular notion is linked with the availability of creative literature in a language.Thus, a quarrel whether Bengali or Tamil is more developed has resulted in a lot of unproductive debate. A corollary of this stand is the rejection of utter languages as languages and give them a grudging recognition as dialects. Scholars have even gone to the extent of saying that Saora has only 700 words, and therefore it does not deserve the status of a language, thus putting the premium on the vocabulary. Presentation of a norm or standard where competing varieties of a language exist is a primary step in language development. This can be achieved by standardising spelling, writing grammars, dictionaries, textbooks, etcetera Developing a script for non-literate languages forms a legitimate concern of language is another major concern of language development.This is best ach ieved by promoting new registral writing, creating technical terminology, and encouraging translation, etc. In a multilingual society, allocation of domains of use to each language and ensuring its increased or decreased use for specific domains forms part of the study of language development. Language planning agencies, endowed with sufficient technical expertise, and executive director power, and certainly do a great deal to influence language development, and, through planning, help reduce conflict and tension. The problems in a linguistically plural society are complex, the options are competitive and the goal is laborious to perceive, because of the volotile nature of the context of language use. It must be understood that no language or goal group is absolutely unitary or monolithic in nature. For example, all persons speaking English do neither speak a uniform language nor do they share a single culture.Even all English speakers in England or America cannot be so classifi ed. Communication facilities, ethnicity, religious grouping, unparallel opportunities leading to uneven education and cultural development are some of the parameters which account for regional linguistic differences even where a single language is dominant. In the past, linguists expect a uniform and invariant structure of language. At the present scrap it is generally accepted that the oral communication matrix of a community is comprise of varieties of varieties of the language. These are generally treated under rubrics of style, register, dialect, sociolect, etc. While in a single dominant language society, the different varieties tend to have specialised functions, in a multilingual society, in addition to varieties of mother tongue, one or more other languages share the communicative domain. When there are people using different languages and different varieties of a language, it is natural that they develop certain attitudes towards each other. These attitudes indicate so cial ranking and relative status of groups and also intergroup cohesiveness or lack of it within a broad framework. Each person considers his language to be the paragon of ravisher and mellifluousest sounding of all.The neighbours language usually comes in for a drubbing. The neighbour with whom one comes in constant communication, competes for socio-economic advantages, trades and establishes other societal relationship, by nature exerts a lot of linguistic influence. The nature of this influence depends on umpteen factors, the important one being the political-economic power of the communities concerned. A Telugu speaker calls Tamil by the given name Aravam, meaning sound not sweet to hear. The neighbours language is described in some languages as the sound of pebbles in a tin drum or sounds coming from a mouth filled with pan. Ones deliver language is like peeled sweet banana, sweet as net income and like nectar. When so expressed the unconscious feelings are expressed as conscious attitudes. The epithet of Devabhasha language of the gods brought out the retort from the Maharashtra saint poet, If Sanskrit is the language of gods, is Prakrit the language of thieves ?All such overt attitudinal statements are grist in the mill of the linguist and the language planner. The above attitudes are not strictly limit to interlingual relationships. Attitudes of dialect speakers of one language towards each other may result either in consolidation and standardization of the language, or separation and expose of a language. The notion of dialect may or may not have a pejorative connotation for the for the standard language speaker, but, for the dialect speaker, it is related to local pride. Any effort at standardisation must take this factor of local pride into consideration. A study of dialects of Hindi in India alone will provide examples of both consolidation and separation. As attitudes towards others language have serious sociolinguistic implications, so has ones attitude towards ones deliver language. A derogatory attitude or a sense of deficiency towards ones own language results in the face for an external standard, acceptance of a culture language or even language loss.The Canadian French speakers face towards Parisian French, the Caribbean Hindi speaker, the Ceylonese Tamil speaker and the Malayalee settlers in Hon Kong looking towards India, for standards is the result of a feeling of deficiency by the speakers of those languages outside their kinfolkland. Non-literate minority languages adopting a dominant language for almost all purposes other than home use, as in the case of Kannada for Tulu, Kodagu and Marathi or Kannada for Konkani in India, are examples of culture languages. Examples of loss of language due to weakened loyalty can be found almost in all parts of the world. In India various tribal languages which are lost because of the modernising thhrust of various dominant languages may be taken as examples. Someti mes loyalty towards ones own language is shaken due to induced circumstances. For example, the team roller furtherance in favour of American white English and standard is answerable not only for the lack of confidence in the native black and brown speakers of English about the standard of their mother tongue in the USA itself, but also for the lack of faith of the non-English world in Asia and Africa in the non-white speakers, including native speakers of English of Latin American origin in the USA as class room models.As would be clear by now, although language planning in some form is indispensable in al societies, the need for it is greater in a muitllingual society where the problem of communication is complex, and confronts the speaker with multiple options. Linguists have conceived of primary, secondary and ordinal speech communities on the basis of communicatory situations linking the National languagewith the secondary and the international language with tertiary (Hauge n 1972166). But such a simplified model is inadequate to explain the situation in multilingual societies in general and Indian situation in particular. Take for example, a group of Dravidian and Munda language speakers using a common code, Desia, for communication, which is a dialect of Oriya, an Indo-Aryan language.Oriya as a language has dialects which shade of into Marathi, Hindi or Bengali. If one measures the country in any direction on a straight line with points at short intervals, it will be quite evident that there is break in communication only at the extreme points of the scale. Viewed from on angle, there is partial understanding among contiguous speech communities in India viewed from the other, there is Switzerland like tertiary speech communities among whom interpreters are needed as there is no of creation and change of primary language loyalties, the process of a group transcending the primordial linguistic loyalty through and identities, sub-national or national, is secret in these simplified models.Because of ethnic cohesiveness and consequent density in communication, at the intermediate contiguous points even languages belonging to two different families are found to share a common grammar. Gumperz (1971 255) has pointed out that the bilinguals in the border of Maharashtra and Karnataka operate with a single grammar and move from one language to the other through a set of transformation rules. It is not eer that a third language is used as a common code. In the cases of Konkani Marathi Tulu Kannada, the former has adopted the latter as culture languages, thus allocating the culture language the domain of formal commuinication. All these call for a re-examination of notions like national language, George Puttenhams comment (1589) After a speech is fully fashioned to the common understanding, and accepted by consent of a whole country and nation, it is called a language is a poor exposition both of nation and of language. In a nation like India, where there are languages of all India importance, languages of regional importance and languages of local importance, all the 1652 mother tongues, listed by the Census are national languages.This includes the so-called foreign mother tongues which have become part of the national cultural heritage of the country. It must be understood in this connection that nation is a political apprehension. A political entity becoming a nation faces the challenge of developing a sense of nationalism among all the people inhabiting it. If already a majority of people have imbibed the spirit of nationalism, the task is to persuade the minority to accept the national goals set by the majority. In a nation inhabited by people of diverse ethnicity and language without a dominant group, a national outlook has to emerge through consensus. This requires coherence between the local group needs and national needs, between micro-planning, and macro-planning, and between economic development a nd political development. In short, it requires coherence between economic development through planning and socio-political context for such developmental planning.The sons of dominion possible action as propounded in different regions of India has to be viewed in this general perspective. In fact, this phenomenon is not peculiar to India. The demands of the French in Canada, the Tamil in Sri Lanka, the Bengalis in the erstwhile Pakistan, the Flemings in Belgium, the various ethnic groups in Philippines, UK, USA and even in the USSR for equal national importance and equal share in development can be subsumed under this rubric. Such theories arise out of micro-planning at its narrowest application and is anti-national in both approach and content. India as a nation can be viewed as constituting a single soil, Maharshtra or Tamil Nadu may be viewed as disparate entities and independent soils. indoors Maharashtra. Vidarbha and Marathwada claim independent soil status, whereas Marath as, not to speak of the backward classes, are not even given equal treatment with Brahmins in the same soil. Under these circumstances sons of soil is not only a mortal(a) doctrine, but any planning based only on such considerations without reference to macro-planning is bound to defeat the very purpose of planning.Those who plead for sons of soil theory, often due to lsck of perspective, draw strength and support from notion such as situation-bound language planning (Khubchandani 1975). In a nation state with pluri-lingual society, it is important to be aware of the local needs as well as the national needs. Exclusive concern either with the dominant or the minority without reference to the other is bound to hurt both and destruct the society. Neighbourhood is important and of immediate relevance to all but fender of the neighbourhood or at least the awareness of its extended frontiers so as to reach out to the national frontiers is of equal importance from the point of view of the existence of a nation. If there is no coherence between a speech area and a language area, then it is bound to create conflict. Language planning and language development, to be effective, must have the twin focus on micro and micro level needs, aspirations and resources.The westbound view is liner and binary whereas the Eastern is cyclical and spiral. However, the westernised eastern elites, who are in charge of planning, follow essentially the Western world view. That is why, all language problems are reduced to binary oppositions such as EnglishHindi HindiUrdu HindiIndian languages, etc and all integrative solutions confuse them. Unity in diversity is so worn out through constant use that it is often rejected as a cliche. And barely if language planning is to be achieved without coercion in a multilingual, multiethnic society, it has to be viewed in the grand design offered by Gandhi in his concept of the oceanic circle. In this structure, composed of innumerable speech c ommunities, life will not be a pyramid with the apex preserve by the bottom.But it will be an oceanic circle whose concentrate on will be the individual, always ready to defend and amend his mother tongue, each speech community ready to defend and amend the standard, the superposed or the culture language, each such group ready to defend, ameliorate and sacrifice for the regional dominant language and the latter ready to defend, meliorate and sacrifice for the link language, national language or language and languages of national and international integration, till at last the whole becomes one life composed of individuals, never aggressive in arrogance, but ever humble, communion the majesty of the oceanic circle of which they are integral unit. nock1. These multiple identities may be both multi-lingualism in the mother tongue and plurilingualism in the sense of different language use. See wandruszka, Mario, Interlinguistics-Outlines of the New Linguistics. grooming Vol. 1 2. Institute for Scientific Co-operation, Tubingen, Landhausstr. 18, FRG, 76 ff. 2. Personal communication from Prof. Rais Ahmed, formerly prof of Physics, Aligarh Muslim University, and later Director, NCERT, New Delhi. 3. Ph.D. thesis of Daniel Moulton in the University of Texas based on his field work in Andhra Pradesh, India under supervision of the author.