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 MEG- 04 /2020-21
Attempt all the questions

1. Discuss ‘Indianisation’ of English, citing examples of some major features of Indian English.
(20)

Indian English is any of the forms of English characteristic of the Indian subcontinent. English
has slowly become the lingua franca of India, and is the language of their cultural and political
elites, offering significant economic, political and social advantage to fluent speakers. Though
English is one of modern India's twenty-two official languages, only a few hundred thousand
Indians have English as their first language. According to the 2005 India Human Development
Survey, of the 41,554 surveyed households reported that 72 percent of men (29,918) did not
speak any English, 28 percent (11,635) spoke some English, and 5 percent (2,077) spoke fluent
English. Among women, the corresponding percentages were 83 percent (34,489) speaking no
English, 17 percent (7,064) speaking some English, and 3 percent (1,246) speaking English
fluently. According to statistics of District Information System for Education (DISE) of National
University of Educational Planning and Administration under Ministry of Human Resource
Development, Government of India, enrolment in English-medium schools increased by 50%
between 2008-09 and 2013-14. The number of English-medium schools students in India
increased from over 1.5 crore in 2008-09 to 2.9 crore by 2013-14. Indian English generally uses
the Indian numbering system. Idiomatic forms derived from Indian literary languages and
vernaculars have been absorbed into Indian English. Nevertheless, there remains general
homogeneity in phonetics, vocabulary, and phraseology between variants of the Indian English
dialect. English language public instruction began in India in the 1830s during the rule of the
East India Company (India was then, and is today, one of the most linguistically diverse regions
of the world). In 1837, English replaced Persian as the official language of the Company. Lord
Macaulay played a major role in introducing English and western concepts to education in India.
He supported the replacement of Persian by English as the official language, the use of English
as the medium of instruction in all schools, and the training of English-speaking Indians as
teachers. Throughout the 1840s and 1850s, primary- middle- and high schools were opened in
many districts of British India, with most high schools offering English language instruction in
some subjects. In 1857, just before the end of Company rule, universities modelled on the
University of London and using English as the medium of instruction were established in
Bombay, Calcutta and Madras. During subsequent Crown Rule in India, or the British Raj, lasting
from 1858 to 1947, English language penetration increased throughout India. This was driven in
part by the gradually increasing hiring of Indians in the civil services. At the time of India's
independence in 1947, English was the only functional lingua franca in the country. After Indian
Independence in 1947, Hindi was declared the first official language, and attempts were made

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to declare Hindi the sole national language of India. Due to protests from Tamil Nadu and other
nonHindi-speaking states, it was decided to temporarily retain English for official purposes until
at least 1965. By the end of this period, however, opposition from non-Hindi states was still too
strong to have Hindi declared the sole language. With this in mind, the English Language
Amendment Bill declared English to be an associate language "until such time as all non-Hindi
States had agreed to its being dropped." This has never occurred, as English is now reckoned as
all but indispensable. For instance, it is the only reliable means of day-to-day communication
between the central government and the non-Hindi states. The spread of the English language
in India has led it to become adapted to suit the local dialects. Due to the large diversity in
Indian languages and cultures, there can be instances where the same English word can mean
different things to different people in different parts of India. There are three different stages
of English Language in India i.e. Cultivated, closely approximating Received Pronunciation and
associated with younger generation of urban and sub-urban regions of metropolitan cities of
the country; Standard, a social indicator of the higher education, and Regional, associated with
the general population, and closely approximating the second-language Vernacular-English
variety. They met each other. Despite the assumption that English is readily available in India,
available studies show that its usage is actually restricted to an elite, by providing inadequate
education to large parts of the Indian population. The employment of outdated teaching
methods and the poor grasp of English exhibited by the authors of the guidebooks, serve to
disadvantage students who rely on these books. English has a special status in India. Apart from
having a place in the public institutions of the country, in parliament, the law courts,
broadcasting, the press and the education system English has spread in our daily life. English
plays a key role in professional relationships between foreign and Indian companies. English
permeated symbolizes in Indian minds better education, better culture and higher intellect.
Actually 4% of Indian use English. Thus India ranks third in the world after USA and the UK to
use English as spoken language. Indian English comprises several dialects or varieties of English
spoken primarily in India. This dialect evolved due to British colonial rule of India for nearly two
hundred years. English is the coofficial language of India, which has the world's largest English-
speaking population. After Hindi English is the most commonly spoken language in India. But
usually Indians mingle English with Indian languages. Stylistic influence of Indian local languages
is a particular feature of Indian literature in English. Indian English speakers often mix Hindi and
other languages with English. Indians will often ask, “What is your good name?” which is
translation of Hindi “Apka Shubh naam kya hai?” Shub means auspicious or good, and it is
basically used as a polite way of asking someone’s name. Similarly Indians say “Today morning”
(aaj Subha) or “Yesterday night” (kal raat) to mean this morning last night. Indians use shut up
(chup bhait) which is generally used more causally in Hindi but it is offending tern in America.
Indians commonly use “you people” when they want to address more than one person. It is a
simple translation of “aap log” or “tum log” but they do not realize that it carries with it racial

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connotation. Some expressions such as “general mai” (in general) and “ek minute” (one
minute) are prevalent in Indian English. Variations in the pronunciation of several phonemes
are affected by the regional tongues. Several idiomatic forms crossing over from Indian literary
and vernacular language also have made their way into the English used by the masses. Given
India's diversity, however, there is indeed a general homogeneity in syntax and vocabulary that
can be found among speakers across South Asia. In upper-class families, English is typically very
close to Received Pronunciation, while still retaining hints of a uniquely Indian flavour. The form
of English that Indians are taught in schools is essentially British English, Indian English had
established itself as an audibly distinct dialect with its own quirks and specific phrases.
However, due to the growing influence of American culture in recent decades, American English
has begun challenging traditional British English as the model for English in the Indian
subcontinent. The American English is spreading among Indian youth. American English
spellings are also widely prevalent in scientific and technical publications while British English
spellings are used in other media

2. Give a complete description of the consonants of English. (20)

In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or

partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are [p], pronounced with the lips; [t], pronounced
with the front of the tongue; [k], pronounced with the back of the tongue; [h], pronounced in
the throat; [f] and [s], pronounced by forcing air through a narrow channel (fricatives);
and [m] and [n], which have air flowing through the nose (nasals). Contrasting with consonants
are vowels.
Since the number of possible sounds in all of the world's languages is much greater than the
number of letters in any one alphabet, linguists have devised systems such as the International
Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) to assign a unique and unambiguous symbol to each attested
consonant. In fact, the English alphabet has fewer consonant letters than English has consonant
sounds, so digraphs like "ch", "sh", "th", and "zh" are used to extend the alphabet, and some
letters and digraphs represent more than one consonant. For example, the sound spelled "th"
in "this" is a different consonant from the "th" sound in "thin". (In the IPA, they are
transcribed [ð] and [θ], respectively.)
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or
partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are [p], pronounced with the lips; [t], pronounced
with the front of the tongue; [k], pronounced with the back of the tongue; [h], pronounced in
the throat; [f] and [s], pronounced by forcing air through a narrow channel (fricatives);
and [m] and [n], which have air flowing through the nose (nasals). Contrasting with consonants
are vowels.
Since the number of possible sounds in all of the world's languages is much greater than the
number of letters in any one alphabet, linguists have devised systems such as the International

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Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) to assign a unique and unambiguous symbol to each attested
consonant. In fact, the English alphabet has fewer consonant letters than English has consonant
sounds, so digraphs like "ch", "sh", "th", and "zh" are used to extend the alphabet, and some
letters and digraphs represent more than one consonant. For example, the sound spelled "th"
in "this" is a different consonant from the "th" sound in "thin". (In the IPA, they are
transcribed [ð] and [θ], respectively.)
The word consonant is also used to refer to a letter of an alphabet that denotes a consonant
sound. The 21 consonant letters in the English alphabet
are B, C, D, F, G, H, J, K, L, M, N, P, Q, R, S, T, V, X, Z, and usually W and Y. The letter Y stands for
the consonant /j/ in yoke, the vowel /ɪ/ in myth, the vowel /i(ː)/ in funny, the
diphthong /aɪ/ in my, the r-colored vowel /ɜr/ [d] in myrrh, the last part of many diphthongs
and/or digraphs (e.g. gu"y", sa"y", bo"y", ke"y", etc.) and numerous other phonemes. W always
represents a consonant except in combination with a vowel letter, as in growth, raw, and how,
and in a few loanwords from Welsh, where it stands for u(ː), like crwth or cwm.
In some other languages, such as Finnish, y only represents a vowel sound.
Consonants and vowels correspond to distinct parts of a syllable: The most sonorous part of the
syllable (that is, the part that's easiest to sing), called the syllabic peak or nucleus, is typically a
vowel, while the less sonorous margins (called the onset and coda) are typically consonants.
Such syllables may be abbreviated CV, V, and CVC, where C stands for consonant and V stands
for vowel. This can be argued to be the only pattern found in most of the world's languages,
and perhaps the primary pattern in all of them. However, the distinction between consonant
and vowel is not always clear cut: there are syllabic consonants and non-syllabic vowels in many
of the world's languages.
One blurry area is in segments variously called semivowels, semiconsonants, or glides. On one
side, there are vowel-like segments that are not in themselves syllabic, but form diphthongs as
part of the syllable nucleus, as the i in English boil [ˈbɔɪ̯l]. On the other, there
are approximants that behave like consonants in forming onsets, but are articulated very much
like vowels, as the y in English yes [ˈjɛs]. Some phonologists model these as both being the
underlying vowel /i/, so that the English word bit would phonemically be /bit/, beet would
be /bii ̯t/, and yield would be phonemically /i ̯ii ̯ld/. Likewise, foot would be /fut/, food would
be /fuu̯ d/, wood would be /u̯ ud/, and wooed would be /u̯ uu̯ d/. However, there is a (perhaps
allophonic) difference in articulation between these segments, with
the [j] in [ˈjɛs] yes and [ˈjiʲld] yield and the [w] of [ˈwuʷd] wooed having more constriction and a
more definite place of articulation than the [ɪ] in [ˈbɔɪ̯l] boil or [ˈbɪt] bit or the [ʊ] of [ˈfʊt] foot.
The other problematic area is that of syllabic consonants, segments articulated as consonants
but occupying the nucleus of a syllable. This may be the case for words such
as church in rhotic dialects of English, although phoneticians differ in whether they consider this
to be a syllabic consonant, /ˈtʃɹ̩tʃ/, or a rhotic vowel, /ˈtʃɝtʃ/: Some distinguish an
approximant /ɹ/ that corresponds to a vowel /ɝ/, for rural as /ˈɹɝl/ or [ˈɹʷɝːl ̩]; others see these
as a single phoneme, /ˈɹɹ̩l/.

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Other languages use fricative and often trilled segments as syllabic nuclei, as in Czech and
several languages in Democratic Republic of the Congo, and China, including Mandarin Chinese.
In Mandarin, they are historically allophones of /i/, and spelled that way in Pinyin. Ladefoged
and Maddieson call these "fricative vowels" and say that "they can usually be thought of as
syllabic fricatives that are allophones of vowels". That is, phonetically they are consonants, but
phonemically they behave as vowels.
Many Slavic languages allow the trill [r̩] and the lateral [l ̩] as syllabic nuclei (see Words without
vowels). In languages like Nuxalk, it is difficult to know what the nucleus of a syllable is, or if all
syllables even have nuclei. If the concept of 'syllable' applies in Nuxalk, there are syllabic
consonants in words like /sx̩s/ (/s̩xs̩/?) 'seal fat'. Miyako in Japan is similar, with /f̩ks̩/ 'to build'
and /ps̩ks̩/ 'to pull'.

3. What, in your view, are the most important learner variables in the learning of a second
language? Explain. (20)

Some students learn a new language more quickly and easily than others. This simple fact is
known by all who have themselves learned a second language or taught those who are using
their second language in school. Clearly, some language learners are successful by virtue of
their sheer determination, hard work and persistence. However there are other crucial factors
influencing success that are largely beyond the control of the learner. These factors can be
broadly categorized as internal and external. It is their complex interplay that determines the
speed and facility with which the new language is learned.

Internal factors

Internal factors are those that the individual language learner brings with him or her to the
particular learning situation.

 Age: Second language acquisition is influenced by the age of the learner. Children, who
already have solid literacy skills in their own language, seem to be in the best position to
acquire a new language efficiently. Motivated, older learners can be very successful too,
but usually struggle to achieve native-speaker-equivalent pronunciation and intonation.
 Personality: Introverted or anxious learners usually make slower progress, particularly
in the development of oral skills. They are less likely to take advantage of opportunities
to speak, or to seek out such opportunities. More outgoing students will not worry
about the inevitability of making mistakes. They will take risks, and thus will give
themselves much more practice.
 Motivation (intrinsic): Intrinsic motivation has been found to correlate strongly with
educational achievement. Clearly, students who enjoy language learning and take pride
in their progress will do better than those who don't.
Extrinsic motivation is also a significant factor. ESL students, for example, who need to

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 learn English in order to take a place at an American university or to communicate with
a new English boy/girlfriend are likely to make greater efforts and thus greater progress.
 Experiences: Learners who have acquired general knowledge and experience are in a
stronger position to develop a new language than those who haven't. The student, for
example, who has already lived in 3 different countries and been exposed to various
languages and cultures has a stronger base for learning a further language than the
student who hasn't had such experiences.
 Cognition: In general, it seems that students with greater cognitive abilities
(intelligence) will make the faster progress. Some linguists believe that there is a
specific, innate language learning ability that is stronger in some students than in others.
 Native language: Students who are learning a second language which is from the same
language family as their first language have, in general, a much easier task than those
who aren't. So, for example, a Dutch child will learn English more quickly than a
Japanese child.

External factors

External factors are those that characterize the particular language learning situation.

 Curriculum: For ESL students in particular it is important that the totality of their
educational experience is appropriate for their needs. Language learning is less likely to
place if students are fully submersed into the mainstream program without any extra
assistance or, conversely, not allowed to be part of the mainstream until they have
reached a certain level of language proficiency.
 Instruction: Clearly, some language teachers are better than others at providing
appropriate and effective learning experiences for the students in their classrooms.
These students will make faster progress.
The same applies to mainstream teachers in second language situations. The science
teacher, for example, who is aware that she too is responsible for the students' English
language development, and makes certain accommodations, will contribute to their
linguistic development.
 Culture and status: There is some evidence that students in situations where their own
culture has a lower status than that of the culture in which they are learning the
language make slower progress.
 Motivation (extrinsic): Students who are given continuing, appropriate encouragment
to learn by their teachers and parents will generally fare better than those who aren't.
For example, students from families that place little importance on language learning
are likely to progress less quickly.
 Access to native speakers: The opportunity to interact with native speakers both within
and outside of the classroom is a significant advantage. Native speakers are linguistic
models and can provide appropriate feedback. Clearly, second-language learners who
have no extensive access to native speakers are likely to make slower progress,
particularly in the oral/aural aspects of language acquisition.

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4. What do you understand by ‘foregrounding’? Discuss with suitable examples. (20)

The study of literary stylistics or distinctive styles in writing looks at the role of foregrounding
by analyzing the effect that it has on a piece as a whole. In other words, how does
foregrounding impact the composition of a piece and the experience of readers? These
excerpts from scholarly writing on the subject attempt to define this.

 "Foregrounding is essentially a technique for 'making strange' in language, or to

extrapolate from Shklovsky's Russian term ostranenie, a method of 'defamiliarisation' in
textual composition. ... Whether the foregrounded pattern deviates from a norm, or
whether it replicates a pattern through parallelism, the point of foregrounding as a
stylistic strategy is that it should acquire salience in the act of drawing attention to
itself," (Simpson 2004).
 "[T]his opening line from a poem by Roethke, ranked high [for the presence of
foregrounding]: 'I have known the inexorable sadness of pencils.' The pencils
are personified; it contains an unusual word, 'inexorable'; it contains
repeated phonemes such as /n/ and /e/," (Miall 2007).
 "In literature, foregrounding may be most readily identified with linguistic deviation: the
violation of rules and conventions, by which a poet transcends the normal
communicative resources of the language, and awakens the reader, by freeing him from
the grooves of cliché expression, to a new perceptivity. Poetic metaphor, a type of
semantic deviation, is the most important instance of this type of foregrounding,"
(Childs and Fowler 2006).

Examples of Foregrounding in Systemic Functional Linguistics

Foregrounding from the perspective of systemic functional linguistics presents a slightly

different angle, described in the following passage by linguist Russel S. Tomlin, that looks at the
device on a much smaller scale. "The basic idea in foregrounding is that the clauses which make
up a text can be divided into two classes. There are clauses which convey the most central or
important ideas in text, those propositions which should be remembered. And there are clauses
which, in one way or another, elaborate on the important ideas, adding specificity or contextual
information to help in the interpretation of the central ideas.

The clauses which convey the most central or important information are
called foregrounded clauses, and their propositional content is foreground information. The
clauses which elaborate the central propositions are called backgrounded clauses, and their
propositional content is background information. So, for example, the boldfaced clause in the
text fragment below conveys foregrounded information while the italicized clauses
convey background.

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This fragment was produced by an individual recalling action she witnessed in a brief animated
film (Tomlin 1985). Clause 1 conveys foregrounded information because it relates the critical
proposition for the discourse at this point: the location of the 'smaller fish.' The state of the air
bubble and its motion are less central to that description so that the other clauses seem merely
to elaborate or develop a part of the proposition contained in clause 1," (Tomlin 1994).

M.A.K. Halliday offers another description of foregrounding in systemic functional linguistics: "A
great deal of stylistic foregrounding depends on an analogous process, by which some aspect of
the underlying meaning is represented linguistically at more than one level: not only through
the semantics of the text—the ideational and interpersonal meanings, as embodied in the
content and in the writer's choice of his role—but also by direct reflection in
the lexicogrammar or the phonology," (Halliday1978).

5. Write short notes on the following: (20)

a) The function of intonation.

As you will have seen in the previous section, intonation is a complex and difficult area, where
much depends on the correct interpretation of certain patterns, an interpretation which is
often made more difficult by the influence of specific segmental features, such as the absence
of voicing in consonants preceding a vowel, etc. Because of this complexity, we will only be able
to cover a relatively tiny part of what there is to know about the topic.

When we talk about intonation, we may actually refer to different features, depending on
whether we think in terms of production, perception or systematic use as a
structuring/cohesive device. On the one hand, we may mean the active modulation of the
speaker’s voice – or fundamental frequency (F0) to be more exact –, caused by changing the
frequency of glottal pulses in the production of voiced sounds. This is strictly on the acoustic,
measurable, production side. On the other hand, we may be referring to the impression created
in the hearer on the auditory side, which is usually referred to as pitch. However, the term pitch
is also often, perhaps confusingly, used to refer to fundamental frequency, especially when we
talk about the pitch range of a given speaker. And finally, on the third level, we may be talking
about a somewhat more abstract system of F0- or pitch contours/patterns used to structure and
emphasise particular bits of information. The latter may be seen as an attempt to relate the
two former levels to one another, despite the fact that there are no absolutely clear physical
correspondences between F0 and perceived pitch.

In order to arrive at such an abstraction in everyday speech, the listener must not only take into
account segmental features influencing the pitch contour, but also the pitch range of the
individual speaker and interpret each change in pitch relative to the overall range. Pitch ranges
themselves, although usually different from speaker to speaker, are still to some extent
physiologically conditioned, e.g. by the size of the larynx, which helps us at least to some extent

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to prime our expectations for a given speaker. The approximate pitch ranges and average
values for men, women and children are given below:

 men: ~60-240Hz; avg. ~120Hz

 women: ~180-400Hz: avg. ~225Hz
 children: ~170-600Hz; avg. ~265H

b) Conversion as a morphological device.

In linguistics, intonation refers to the way in which a speaker varies his or her pitch when
pronouncing words. Along with stress (the way certain words are emphasized), intonation is an
element of linguistic prosody. "Pitch" refers to the height of one's voice when saying a word.
Normal speech is delivered at midlevel, and intonation involves altering one's pitch. "Sentence
stress" is also part of intonation, and it involves pronouncing some words at a higher pitch and
more clearly to emphasize them.

Intonation has several functions. It allows the speaker to convey emotions and attitudes in
speech, such as finality, joy, sadness, etc. Intonation also allows the speaker to stress certain
words. In addition, intonation can help the speaker convey the grammar of the spoken words
by pausing at certain points, for example, or by raising the voice to ask a question. In addition,
intonation can help the speaker convey what he or she expects of the listener(s) in discourse
by, for example, seeming to ask a question or by conveying when something is new information
in contrast to information the listener already knows.

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