Abstracts Language, Literature, and Linguistic

Language and ‘postcolonial shame': the politics of policy, curriculum and classroom practices in urban India

by Mohini Gupta

This thesis aims to investigate the relationship between language and ‘postcolonial shame’ within the context of education in urban India. The thesis applies the lens of ‘postcolonial shame’ (Bewes 2010) to the study of language in India for the first time, using a cross-cultural comparative case study of Wales in the United Kingdom. The thesis attempts to draw parallels between the historical and colonial construction of language shame in both regions and how this impacts articulations of language shame in policies, textbooks and teaching practices until today. The research situates itself theoretically within the discipline of sociolinguistics and draws its methodology from linguistic anthropology. It uses document analysis to look at language and education policies and language textbooks in India and Wales; conducts qualitative in-depth interviews with school teachers and policymakers in India and Wales and includes ethnographic data from non-participant observations of Hindi classrooms across private, government, English-medium and Hindi-medium schools in New Delhi. The chapters explore ‘hidden agendas’ (Shohamy 2005) in policy, ‘hidden curriculum’ (Jackson 1968; Apple 2009) practices and, in some cases, ‘erased curriculum’ (term mine) to study language socialisation in the classroom and language attitudes of shame and pride amongst students. Through ethnographic observations, the thesis unpacks contemporary pedagogic practices such as ‘reverse’ or ‘demanded’ translanguaging or ‘bhasha-washing’ (terms mine), that claim to challenge postcolonial linguistic hierarchies but continue to privilege English over Hindi in schools today. It also explores the dual position of Hindi as the oppressor and the oppressed within national language politics. Overall, the thesis seeks to trace the creation of a ‘linguistic habitus’ of shame for students through their interactions with the school, the home and the world outside. The Welsh language revitalisation project provides an effective counterpoint to the Indian linguistic landscape. Ultimately, the thesis identifies language teaching methods that positively engage students in the classroom, in order to reverse enduring ideas of language shame.