The English-Vernacular Divide

Postcolonial Language Politics and Practice

By (author) Prof. Vaidehi Ramanathan

Publication date:

18 February 2005

Publisher

Multilingual Matters

Dimensions:

210x148mm
6x8"

ISBN-13: 9781853597701

This book offers a critical exploration of the role of English in postcolonial communities such as India. Specifically, it focuses on some local ways in which the language falls along the lines of a class-based divide (with ancillary ones of gender and caste as well). The book argues that issues of inequality, subordination and unequal value seem to revolve directly around the general positioning of English in relation to vernacular languages.  The author was raised and schooled in the Indian educational system.