Discursive
Evolution of English: From Colonialism to Digital Bangladesh
Dr.
Elham Hossain
Associate Professor
Department of English
Green University of
Bangladesh
Dhaka, Bangladesh
Abstract:
Language reacts upon life and is fed by life,
and as such, it goes through changes, constructions and deconstructions and
ultimately comes into a being which may be different from the original one. The
Bengali language that the people of Bangladesh and West Bengal speak is
different from that of the Charyapada, a collection of Buddhist mystical poems
and songs, though it offers the ancient form of the present days’ Bengali
language. Present day’s English is different from Anglo-Saxon English. Even
Indian or African English are different from British or American English as it
has been Indianized in India and Africanized in Africa. Various factors remain
active behind the evolution of a language over time. In the same vein, it is
found that due to the impact of social media and digital technology and AL
revolution English language has already started having new shapes in terms of
syntax and vocabulary. Omnivorous
behavioral trait and unparallel flexibility has made English much richer than
any other language of the world. At the same time, this phenomenal capacity
brings about a paradigm shift of its genuineness, uniqueness and purity.
Digitalizations of the mode of communication, introduction of cyber technology,
human-machine collaboration and, above all, AI revolution are outstandingly
creating a new English which essentially defies the traditional English
language. But Bangladesh in receiving and responding to English language is
significantly slower than many of the postcolonial countries of the world,
though at present it has progressed in this process farther. This paper seeks
to explore the complicated role of language keeping English in its focus and
investigate various factors behind Bangladesh’s response to English language
from the historical perspective. It will borrow the theoretical framework of
the structural linguistics based on the synchronic and diachronic roles of
English language.
Keywords:
AI, Colonialism, Digitalization, Facebook, Social Media
Bangladesh is one of the least developed countries in the subcontinent
in “English writing resources” (Alam 135). One of the reasons is that it is
predominantly a monolingual country. Though a good number of ethnic groups of
people with their individual ethnic languages live mostly in the hill tracts,
much necessity of a bridge language which may be English, is never felt acutely.
Consciousness of linguistic nationalism, religious bias and rooted resentment
to the native speakers of English, that is, the British colonizers who snatched
away political power from the Muslim rulers are mostly responsible for the
least development in English writing resources. But at present, due to its
frequent international exposure in the era of global economy, cyber technology
and ICT, Bangladesh is amazingly advancing in using English language and in
parallel it is Bangladeshizing English remarkably. In this process of
assimilating or absorbing English social media is playing a crucial role. For
an in-depth investigation a synchronic and diachronic study of language in
general and English in particular is needed.
True, language is a system and it articulates the thought process of an
individual as well as a community. It
constructs the individual’s identity by spurring his relationship with and
response to the surrounding world. But the term ‘language’ is ambiguous as it
encapsulates the whole and intricate spectrum of an individual’s locus in a
culture, his identity, response to his surrounding world that approximates his
condition in terms of his discursive and dialectical role and the factors with
which he constantly reciprocates. In fact, the most intricate locus of a
language is the space between ‘langue’ and ‘parole’, a linguistic dichotomy
assumed by Ferdinand de Saussure who thinks, “Language is not a function of the
speaker; it is a product that is passively assimilated by the individual” (76).
In the process of langue’s transformation into parole some subtle capacities of
a language are lost. This loss defines the incapacity of an individual in
conveying the content and the way he intends to convey to the target listeners.
From this very space there evolves crutch language that does not have
comprehensibility but enables the individual to sustain the fluidity of the
conversation process. Besides, this space, as it does not have any conspicuous
shape and wide acceptability, gives birth to another language which usually
does not go hand in hand with the traditional language. And here lies the
stimulus of the creation of the social media-language which is remarkably
different from the traditional language.
Communication is not only verbal but also written and social media in
most cases encourage written communication more that verbal communication. This
non-verbal communication is preferred by the users of the social media as it
provides them with a scope of editing, revising and avoiding physical
confrontation with the target listeners. But one of the fatal drawbacks of this
phenomenon is that retarded speech, speech disorder and even dumbness among the
children are on the rise at an alarming rate in the present days of
human-technology collaboration. Televisions, mobile phone, social media like
facebook, whatsApp, instagram and so on create anarchy in the name of
cross-cultural and multicultural realities. Android phone just like Aladin’s
lamp brings new content with new linguistic identity with a soft touch on its
screen. It fascinates, and at the same time confuses as it offers things
heterogeneous, and even lack of harmony in nature. Living in-between
fascination and confusion seriously defers the linguistic capacity of the
children. Besides, the visual projection of language through pictures or videos
does not make the children feel the necessity to speak. They rather communicate
in exchanging imojis and dispersed sentences devoid of proper syntactical
order, verbs and even subjects. This informal language helps them communicate,
but it defies the austerity of the traditional English language.
Actually, to understand the nature-nurture of this emerging language, it
requires an in-depth study as it incurs anthropological, ethnological and
ethnographical aspects of the community which uses this language. Language has
the potential to bind a community with the chain of colonial hegemony. It has
the power to colonize and contrapuntally decolonize the mind. In his Decolonizing the Mind Ngugi wa Thiong’o
interprets his stance regarding the reason behind his choice of Gikuyu language
as a medium of writing. True, the study of language helps study of cultural
phenomena and in this connection, Jonathan Culler mentions two fundamental
insights. According to him:
... first that social and cultural phenomena
are not simply material objects or events but objects or events with meaning,
and hence signs; and second, that they do not have essences but are defined by
a network of relations, both internal and external. (73)
The act of speaking of an individual is determined by a whole system of
constitutive rubrics which create “the possibility of particular forms of
behavior” (Culler 73). There is no denying the fact that culture is “composed
of a set of symbolic systems” (Culler 73). Equally, language is a social
institution and hence, the study of language is the study of a community which
uses this language in communication.
Furthermore, language constructs identity. As it works as a system in
thought processing of the individuals, it potently shapes the subjectivity of a
community, too. Weedon, in this connection, concedes that language is “the
place where our sense of ourselves, our subjectivity is constructed” (21). Norton also claims, “Identity is constituted
in and through language” (4). The articulation and representation of ideas are
usually done through the language a person speaks or uses, and it determines a
person’s response to his surrounding environment. It also determines his
location in the society as it goes with a person’s social, economic, political
and moral stance. It connects him with time and space both synchronically and
diachronically.
True, with the rise of digital media texting, messaging overrides the
verbal expression. It is reshaping the digital media users’ epistemic and
cognitive stance. Not only that, it is dislocating them both in context of the
temporality and spatiality. In this connection, Ron Darvin claims, “As the
digital provides multiple spaces where language is used in different ways,
learners are able to move across online and offline realities with greater
fluidity and perform multiple identities” (524). Besides, digital media are
more aptly capable of serving the purpose of the power-structure which always
tends to, in the name of ensuring cyber security, control online interactions
among the users. As a result, exposure to such a controlled means of
communication shapes a specific vocabulary and it threatens the chances of the
development of a free and liberated literacy and thus, it tells upon the
fluidity of language as well as identity. On the other, it has the likelihood
to generate a new modality of language under the surveillance of the
power-structure. By bringing about an amalgamation between synchronous and
diachronous modalities of language, the digital media have the capacity to
generate a new kind of language which may aptly define the generations of the
first few decades of the 21st century.
If viewed from the colonial perspective, the history of the introduction
of English language to this subcontinent is more than four centuries old. With
the grant of the charter of East India Company in 1600 AD by Queen Elizabeth,
English language came to this subcontinent as a language of power and pelf.
Again, on 2nd February 1835 Macaulay’s minute presented in the House of Commons of the British parliament
confirmed the status of English as a medium of teaching and learning here. He
could aptly realize that the complicity of language with culture, ideology,
class, race, ethnicity and gender constitutes a community and it can be
transformed into an ‘Other’ if its language can be replaced by the colonizers’
language. In consequence of Macaulay’s proposition, colonial schools were set
up in India during the colonial era with a view to belittling the natives’
“lived experience, history, culture, and language” (Macedo, et al. 15).
Superficially, their schools, colleges and universities were advertized as
purifying fountains where the Indians could be “saved from their deep rooted
ignorance, their “savage” culture, and their primitive language (Macedo, et al.
15). Colonial propaganda was very active during the colonial period that
English was the language of prosperity and success, but in the postcolonial
period a single example will suffice to prove it wrong. Millions of English
speaking native Americans and Europeans today are not relegated to ghetto
existence, staunch poverty and cruel deprivation. The colonizers’ stance
regarding English language emanated from their phenomenal belief that English
is an apparatus to ensure hegemony upon the colonized.
In the same vein, Chomsky is true while he goes on to say that
“questions of language are basically questions of power” (Romaine 1). Language
is a system consisting of ideas and the ways of articulation of these ideas. If
the language is strong then the mapping of ideas will inevitably be strong and
consequently the articulation process of ideas will also be strong. Learning
grammar is next to narrowing down the language into a mechanical system. It is
to be studied in context of socio-political realities because language is a
social as well as political phenomenon. Suzanne Romaine, in this connection,
claims:
Some time ago, one linguist commented that no
two languages are sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the
same social reality. This is an acknowledgement of the crucial role language
plays as an agent for the transmission of culture. It is often said that the
vocabulary of a language is an inventory of the items a culture talks about and
has categorized in order to make sense of the world. (26)
Actually, language helps an individual make sense of his surrounding
world which is a construction based on his vocabulary. Humans interact with
time through language. It is not only objective but also subjective and human
kinship with fellow humans and the animal world is constructed with certain
synchronous and diachronous terminologies, and the categorization of the world
emanates from the intersections between the individuals verbal expressions and
the subjective perceptions. This categorization has cultural basis and hence,
it varies from culture to culture. Even an individual culture has got an
individual concept of time and every language is a repository of data. In the
present age an individual is what the data of his language do to him. If these
data are hacked, the individual can be hacked. In the wake of the changing
realities, the power-structure’s target in not human body, but human brain
which can be hacked through the hacking of the data preserved in the
individual’s language.
This hacking can be done in a very tempting way of negotiation, not
through coercion. Social media provides the opportunity of free expression and
communication. Visibly it does not prevent anybody from his attempt of
uploading his post on the facebook or on some other digital media, such as
WhatsApp, Instagram, imo, messenger, but from behind the curtain all the
facebook-posts are scrutinized under cyber security law, and if anything is
found anti-government or blasphemous, the individual is immediately brought
under severe punishment. Not only that, social media are used by the
power-structure as a means of validating whatever it practices in the name of
democracy, as it works as its vast advertizing platform. Power-structure
controls, postpones and manages it if needed for its smooth exercising of
hegemony upon the people. As such, social media has become a powerful platform
of expressing love, anger, anxiety, reactions and even hatred in abusive
language which does not follow the hard and fast rubrics of the traditional
English language.
In fact, the English which is now used, if the case is examined with
special concentration on Bangladesh at present, is of a new kind and it is
found emerging out of the dialectical dispositions of the Z and Alpha
generations who are astonishingly active in the social media. Even in the
emergence of political, social, natural calamities, social media work as a
powerful medium of communication among the young people. These generations
characterized by inherent impulses do put more emphasis on mutual comprehensibility
than grammatical austerity. As a result, the social media traditional English
is losing its hegemony in terms of its Englishness or Britishness or
Americanness. For convenience a few examples of facebook english and
Traditional English are demonstrated below:
|
facebook english |
Traditional English |
|
I am facing differernt
different problem. |
I am facing different problems. |
|
Bhai is back! |
Leader
is back. |
|
Amar ID satdiner jonno why
restricted? |
Why is my ID restricted for seven days? |
Lots of innovations, modifications have occurred because of the
intrinsic intrusion of native dialects into social media-english. Even the
spellings of words are experiencing some veritable changes due to the
amalgamation of heterogeneous linguistic ingredients. It may be interpreted as
a response with a counter discourse to the colonial legacy which was once
imposed upon the natives of the subcontinent. In retrospect, the history of
English language in the subcontinent is nearly four and a half centuries old.
English arrived here with Queen Elizabeth’s granting of a charter proposed by a
few adventurous and ambitious businessmen with an initiative called East India
Company. But the formal introduction of English in South Asia, after passing
through several stages with Lord Macaulay’s much maligned Minute on 2 February 1835. It “initiated planned activity for
introducing the English language into South Asian education. This initiation of English language teaching initially goes
through four basic stages- exploration, implementation, diffusion and
institutionalization” (Kachru 33). After the approval of Macaulay’s Minute, English was added to the existing repertoire of South Asia.
Regarding the implementation of Macaulay’s Minute
Kachru claims:
The implication of this imposition was that
by 1882 over 60 per cent of primary schools was imparting education through the
English medium. Macaulay’s dream had, at last been realized. In 1857, three
metropolitan universities were founded by the government in Bombay, Calcutta
and Madras, which significantly contributed to imparting English education to
enterprising Indians. There are, however, scholars who in retrospect feel that
“in the very conditions of their establishment and organization the seeds of
the decline [of English] were present. (38)
For introducing English as a medium of education in India Raja Ram Mohon
Roy felt grateful to the English government. Macaulay also took pride in his
initiative and assumed that his Minute
brought about a revolution in the education system of India. But the British
linguist J. R. Firth called Macaulay’s Minute
superficial. He was proved right afterwards because “The original role of
English in South Asia was essentially that of a foreign language” (Kachru 38).
Consequently, with the diffusion of bilingualism in English, and its
institutionalization, English developed various derivatives.
Not only that, after 1947, even if the root of English by that time
delved deeper into our history, a new episode of anti-English policies emerged
as a response to the colonial hegemony and as a result of the development of
post-colonial consciousness. Such consciousness is deeply rooted in the
deliberate objective colonizing the natives through the diffusing process of
English. Initially the uses of English were concentrated within a very small
group of people, especially those who had to deal with the affairs of the
British East India Company and later those of the Raj. In retrospect, if
examined, it is found that the East India Company which was mainly formed by a
few trading factories started its commercial and manufacturing enterprises in
Surat (1612), Madras, now Chennai (1836- 1840) and Calcutta (1690). During the
reign of King Charles-II, the company grew ambitious and dreamt of becoming a
state within the state. After the fall of Serajuddoulah in 1757 and the gaining
of dewani (land grant) of three regions-
Bengal, Bihar and Orissa given by Emperor Shah Alam to the company in 1765,
English attained an irresistible impetus. In 1784 Indian Act was passed and
then the company gained joint responsibility for Indian affairs with the
British crown. Then the missionaries went on with preaching gospels among the
natives through the native languages and consequently there occurred
hybridization among English and native languages. Several charity schools were
set up in Madras (1715), Bombay and Calcutta where English language was used as
a medium of education. The missionaries gradually took up political role after
the ‘missionary Clause’ was added to the charter of the East India Company at
its renewal in 1698. This clause lasted till 1765.
The missionaries promoted English language as the language of spreading
light and removing the darkness of superstition from India. Charles Grant
defended the missionary activities in India and proclaims that English is the
language of uplifting of the natives. He asserts:
The true curse of darkness is the
introduction of light. The Hindoos err, because they are ignorant and their
errors have never fairly been laid before them. The communication of our light
and knowledge to them, would prove the best remedy for their disorders. (Grant
60-61)
The British colonizers considered their colonial enterprises as an
exchange of darkness of superstition of India. In this mission, they gave an
impetus to the teaching of English as it was one of the major languages of
instructions of the missionary schools.
In Srilanka, according to Kachru, the missionaries started imparting
education in English long before the Srilankan government initiated teaching
the countrymen English in 1831. According to Kachru, “By this time, Srilanka
already had 235 protestant mission schools, and only ninety of them were under
the direct control of the government. By the time the government in Srilanka
involved itself in imparting English education, the Christian institution was
already there; its foundation was laid in 1827 by Sir Edward Barnes” (35). All
these missionary schools were set up with a view to ensuring so called superior
education for a number of young people who would after receiving this English
language, prove themselves to be fit in communicating not only at home but also
abroad.
During the 19th century English was considered to be a
gateway to knowledge, power and prosperity in this subcontinent. Even Raja Ram
Mohan Roy wrote a letter on 11 December 1823 focusing on the local demand of
English. He, like some other local influential Indians, felt that English was
preferable “to Sanskrit, Persian and Arabic, as it was a valuable linguistic
tool for access to such knowledge” (Kachru 35). In fact, after Macaulay’s Minute was approved on March 1835 by Lord
William Bentick, some visible initiatives worked for the introduction and
diffusion of English in the subcontinent, the then India. As a repercussion it
was found that in 1882 60% of primary schools imparted education in English.
After 1947, Pakistan and India- two politically independent states emerged.
Since then controversies regarding the location of English in the existing
linguistic repertoire were expedited specially by the colonial trauma and agony
emanated from the exploitation and tyranny. This trauma was deepened with
Jinnah’s declaration of Urdu as the state language of Pakistan. In 1952
Language Movement invigorated the spirit of linguistic nationalism among the
Bangalis of the then East Bengal, Actually this language movement gradually leads
to the birth of Bangladesh in 1971. Qudrati Khuda Education Commission proposed
to use Bengali as a medium of instruction in higher education. That was a
crucial initiative to push away English behind. People welcomed this
proposition because they thought that it would fortify their linguistic
nationalism based on which Bangladesh was born, and in this connection, it is
worth mentioning that the Language Movement of 1952 sowed the seed of
linguistic nationalism into the conscious of the Bangalis.
Besides, with the spread of capitalist economy immediately after the
birth of Bangladesh as an independent nation, English emerged as a language of
a specific class with capital. In parallel with the rise of bourgeoisie,
education then turned into a commodity, an affordable commodity for this class
only. On the other, those living in the margin or periphery failed to compete
with the haves and afford the commodity of education. As a result, English,
basically surviving English got confined to the haves of the society. As the
medium of teaching and learning became Bengali, English lost its impetus. In
addition, it gained resentment, religious bias and a sort of derision for its
being the language of the exploiters, colonizers and oppressors. During the
regime of H. M. Ershad, Bengali was officially made a compulsory medium of
instructions in all levels of education, from primary to tertiary level. That
was another fatal blow upon English. All
these attempts sarcastically interpret that Bangladeshis in 1970s, 1980s and
even 1990s were wrestling recklessly to become more national than
international, though, after all, it was the formation phase of Bangladeshi
nationalism. A kind of inertia emanated from the aversion to the booming of
globalism, multiculturalism and internationalism led the people of Bangladesh
to the Hamletian confusion- to be or not to be, that is, whether they would
receive English or not; whether it would tell upon their spirit of nationalism
or not. Besides, politicization of the academic curriculum from primary to
tertiary levels is fatal to the development of the generations with very good
command of English. Education system in Bangladesh still seems to be in its
experimental stage and even today not a concrete education system that can
cater to the demand of the present world is yet to be developed. As an
inevitable consequence of the ambivalence created and patronized by the state,
a huge section of Bangladeshi learners lagged behind in receiving the proper
working knowledge of English.
While the power game was playing tricks with the education system, a
section of people in the centre of the power-structure with capital could
rightly feel the pulse of the globalizing world. They sent their children to
English medium schools. They also sent their children abroad to be equipped
with updated knowledge and competencies in English language which is still
considered to be a gateway to the pelf and power. Due to economic
discrimination, the society was heavily compartmentalized and grossly divided
into centre and margin. In the margin, especially due to the economic cause
madrasha education flourished and the children sent there lagged behind in
comparison with the children receiving mainstream education. Besides, due to
the emergence of a petit bourgeois class after the independence, education was
being hugely commoditized and this process was triggered much more owing to the
government policy of privatization of education system. Some sectors are
crucial as they directly contribute to the onward movement of the state, for
example, communication, Army, police, electricity, education and so on. Before
privatizing all these sectors the government needs an extensive study on both
sides- advantages and disadvantages. Since the inception of Bangladesh as an independent
nation, education system here appeared to pass through ambivalence and
experimentations.
This ambivalence tells upon English language competence of Bangladeshi
learners. Even after studying English for ten years from class one to class ten
many students can’t use English in their working areas. While participating in
a three month course of Chinese or Arabic language a semi-educated person
attains the working knowledge of this language and can communicate with his
employer in China or Saudi Arabia, many average students even after passing
Secondary School Certificate Examination can’t efficiently use English in his
work areas! This inability, of course, is not apolitical. It is also
psychological.
But adherence to linguistic nationalism is a question of identity, and
it is true that in the present state of the world identity is not monolithic;
it is rather polyphonic. This realization may accelerate the assimilation
process of foreign languages. Actually, as Shashi Tharoor claims:
A people’s conviction that its national
identity reflects an ideal of self-determination, that it is the natural and
ideal basis for the political organization of its people, and that its
sovereignty rests on popular will, makes the nation and the only rightful and
legitimate source of political power in the state. (49)
Nationalism exists in collective imagination. Bangladesh is mostly a
monolingual country. Its birth as an independent nation was ushered in 1952
through the language movement against West Pakistani’s attempt of imposing Urdu
as the state language upon the people of East Pakistan, now Bangladesh. The
impetus and vigor that led this geographical segment to independence actually
comes out of the Bengali language which was lying in the heart of the language
movement.
But along with all these limitations, at present Bangladesh gives birth
to a good number of English writing authors. Due to all these fatal loopholes,
English language teaching and learning has been confined to an elitist class
which can ensure, of course, with their financial capability, an English
exposing environment. On the other hand, the huge majority is not able to
afford it and consequently, they lag behind in the competitive job market both
domestic and international. Two things are crucial regarding the acquisition
process. One is that the learners must map their ideas and generate knowledge
onto “propositions that they can then express as single words or groups of
words” (Clark 269). The intentions of the learners must be mapped out at first
and then they have to communicate. Mapping and communication go hand in hand
and the simultaneous juxtaposition of these two can expedite the acquisition
process. It is regretful that while the author of this article asked his
students in his English class in tertiary level, why many of them can’t speak
English or use this language in their day to day work spontaneously, what came
out of their answer was really horrible. 90 per cent of the students told the
author that in primary, secondary and even in higher secondary levels their
medium of instruction even in the English language class was not 100% English.
It was mostly Bengali. Even in the classroom they did not get an English
exposing environment let alone outside the classroom.
But at present the picture is changing fast. Constant exposure of
Bangladesh to the international community, participating in the competition for
job in the international job market, interaction with Bangladeshi diaspora
living in many parts of Europe and America and so on are expediting the
interest of the people here to receive the working knowledge of English.
Equally, Bangladeshi English writing is increasing remarkably. Furthermore, the
use of social media provides the young generation with an opportunity to
comprehend their location properly in the globalized world. Hence, they are not
only using English but also constructing, deconstructing and reconstructing
English in their interaction in such a way that it appears to be Bangladeshi
English or Banglish. It is hoped that the days are not far while Banglish, like
Indianized or Africanized English, will produce remarkable quantity of writing
which will be a subject of study in English Departments of many universities of
the world.
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