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Linguistic Diversity, Rights and Education - ECCE

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Course Type Course Code No. Of Credits
Foundation Elective SES201221 4

Semester and Year Offered: Winter Semester

Course Coordinator and Team: Dr. Shivani Nag

Email of course coordinator: shivani[at]aud[dot]ac[dot]in,

Pre-requisites: No pre-requisite.

Course Details:

Summary:

This course aims to question the assumptions underlying language hierarchies and establish linguistic diversity as an important cultural, pedagogic and knowledge resource. The course will also attempt to foreground instrumental aspects of linguistic human rights (LHR) that go beyond the communicative and expressive components of language, and play a key role in ensuring participation of people in education and democracy. The course also attempts to explicate the relationship between language and participation in knowledge processes, to highlight the linguistic exclusion of linguistic minorities and other oppressed identities. It further aims to familiarise students with some initiatives to ensure LHR and promote multilingualism.

Objectives :

  • To encourage appreciation of linguistic diversity in India and the world and the concerns around Linguistic Human Rights.
  • To develop an understanding of languages as fluid, evolving, interacting and question the assumptions that see languages as static, having well-defined boundaries and being superior or inferior to one another.
  • To develop an understanding of various forms of linguistic exclusion and marginalisation and also the significance of linguistic human rights
  • To familiarise students with initiatives from different parts of the world to ensure linguistic human rights and promote multilingualism.

Course Outcomes

  • The students, after completing the course. will be able to:
  • To appreciate linguistic diversity and recognise the challenges to linguistic diversity, and the reasons why languages should be preserved.
  • Understand the different ways in which linguistic exclusion happens for linguistic minorities and oppressed identities.
  • Distinguish between different forms of linguistic human rights (LHR) - positive and negative, expressive and instrumental and recognise the significance of each.
  • To understand the relationship between language, instrumental human rights and participation in knowledge access and advancement.
  • Recognise some of the context specific initiatives in education for ensuring LHR of linguistic groups and promoting multilingualism among all linguistics groups.

Overall structure: The course is divided into three modules:

  • Module 1 (Week 1-4): Linguistic Diversity and threats posed to it
  • Module 2 (Week 5-9): Linguistic Human Rights and the varied forms of linguistic marginalisation and exclusion
  • Module 3 (Week 10-14): Ensuring Linguistic Human Rights and promoting multilingualism: some initiatives.

Content:

Module 1: Linguistic Diversities

The module will focus on enabling students to recognise the linguistic diversity in India and the world and appreciate linguistic diversity as a cultural, pedagogic and knowledge resource. Students will also be introduced to positions that see languages as fluid, evolving and challenge myths pertaining to language hierarchies and ‘superiority’ of some languages over others. The module will also attempt to highlight the different threats to this diversity.

Core Readings:

Suggested Readings

  • Dehlvi, Sadia (2008). My Delhi Vs Lucknow, Punjabis and the Americans. In The Delhi Walla - https://www.thedelhiwalla.com/2008/01/07/viewpoint-–-my-delhi-vs-lucknow-punjabis-and-the-americans/
  • Agnihotri,R.K.(2009). Multilinguality and a New World Order. In A.K. Mohanty, M. Panda, M., R. Phillipson, and T. SkutnabbKangas, T. (Eds). Multilingual Education for Social Justice: Globalizing the Local (pp. 268-277). New Delhi: Orient BlackSwan.
  • Skutnabb-Kangas, T. (2003). Linguistic diversity and biodiversity: The threat from killer languages. In M. Christain, The Politica of English as a World Language. New Horizons in Postcolonial Cultural Studies (pp. 31-52). Amsterdam: Rodopi
  • Conrick, M. (2009). Citizenship and Language: The Interface between Language Policy and Planning and Linguistic Diversity. The Canadian Journal of Irish Studies, Vol. 35 (1),pp. 25-31
  • Hashmi, Sohail (4 May 2019). How several languages took flight in Delhi. The Wire. https://thewire.in/culture/delhi-languages-persian
  • Sarkar, B., Sinhababu, N., Roy, M., & Pramanik, P.K. (2019). Mining Multilingual and Multiscript Twitter Data: Unleashing the Language and Script Barrier. International Journal of Business Intelligence and Data Mining, Vol 16(1), 107-127.

Video:

Module 2: Linguistic Human Rights (LHR) and the varied forms of linguistic marginalisation and exclusion​​

This module will focus on the significance of linguistic human rights. The discussion on linguistic human rights will encourage students to engage with concepts of positive and negative rights and also expressive and instrumental linguistic human rights. The unit module will also attempt to familiarise students with varied forms and contexts of linguistic exclusion and marginalisation by focusing on experiences of linguistic minorities, ethnic minorities, indigenous communities and oppressed identities (caste, race and gender).

Core readings:

Part A (LHR)

  • Rubio-Marín, Ruth. (2003). Language Rights: Exploring the Competing Rationales. In: Language Rights and Political Theory (eds. Will Kymlicka and Alan Patten), 52-79. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Skutnabb-Kangas,T and Phillipson, R. (2008).A Human Rights Perspective on Language Ecology. In A. Creese, P.Martin & N.Hornberger, Ecology of Language. New York: Springer
  • Miklos, R. Philipson, T. Skutnabb-Kangas, & T. Varady, Language: A Right and a Resource- Approaching linguistic human rights (pp. 187-222). Budapest: Central European University.

Part B - Forms of linguistic exclusion and marginalisation

  • Devy,G.N., Davis,G.V. and Chakravarty, K.K.(2016). The Language Loss of the Indigenous. New York: Routledge (Introduction, chapters 10).
  • Brock-Utne, Birgit (2017). Multilingualism in Africa: Marginalisation and empowerment. In H. Coleman (ed.) Multilingualisms and Development. London: British Council, pp. 61-78
  • Babu, Hany (2017). Breaking the Chaturvarna System of Languages. Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 52 (23). https://www.epw.in/journal/2017/23/special-articles/breaking-chaturvarna-system-languages.html
  • Jhingran, Dhir (2009). Hundreds of home languages in the country and many in most classrooms- coping with diversity in primary education in India in Mohanty, A. K.; Panda, M.; Phillipson, R.; &SkutnabbKangas, T. (Eds) Multilingual Education for Social Justice. New Delhi: Orient BlackSwan pg. 250-267.
  • Skutnabb-Kangas (2019). Human Rights and Minority Language Education. Speech during the 12th session of the United Nations Forum on Minority Issues. http://www.tove-skutnabb-kangas.org/pdf/UN-Geneva-12th-Forum-Minority-Issues-2019-Theme-1-Human-Rights-and-Minority-Language-Education-Tove-Skutnabb-Kangas-Original.pdf

Suggested Readings

  • Phillipson, Robert & Skutnabb-Kangas, Tove (2018). Linguistic imperialism and the consequences for language ecology. In Penz, Hermine & Fill, Alwin (eds). Handbook of Ecolinguistics. New York: Routledge, 121-134.
  • Rege, Sharmila. (2016). Education as Trutiya Ratna: Towards Phule- Ambedkarite Feminist Pedagogic Practice’. In: Thinking Gender, Doing Gender (ed. Uma Chakravarti), 3-16. New Delhi: Orient Blackswan.
  • Guru, Gopal (2012). Egalitarianism and the social sciences in India. In: The Cracked Mirror: An Indian Debate on Experience and theory (eds. Gopal Guru and Sundar Sarukkai), 9-28. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.
  • King, Jessica (2016). The Violence of Heteronormative Language Towards the Queer Community. Aisthesis, Vol. (7).
  • Coates, Jennifer (2013). The discursive production of everyday heterosexualities. Discourse and Society, Vol. 24 (5), p. 536- 552.

Module 3: Ensuring LHR and promoting multilingualism: some initiatives.

This module will focus on initiatives in different parts of the world towards ensuring LHR of the linguistic minorities and indigenous communities and promoting a multilingual-multicultural pedagogy. The initiatives include policy level changes brought about by sustained movements and cultural/ pedagogic initiatives by communities and academics.

Core readings:

  • Mohanty, A. K.; Panda, M.; Phillipson, R.; &SkutnabbKangas, T. (2009). Multilingual Education for Social Justice. New Delhi: Orient BlackSwan-

Chapters:

McCarty, T. L. (2009) Empowering Indigenous Languages- what can be learned from Native American Experiences.

Mohanty, A.K., Mishra, M., Reddy, U. & Ramesh, G. (2009). Overcoming the language barrier for tribal children: MLE in Andhra Pradesh and Orissa, India. In

  • Agnihotri, R. K. (2007). Towards a pedagogical paradigm rooted in multilinguality. International Multilingual Research Journal, 1(2), 79-88.
  • Hooks, Bell (2017). Language: Teaching new worlds/new words.Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. New York: Routledge, pp.167-177.
  • Jayaram, Keerti (2017). Linguistic and cultural diversity and language teaching- with a specific focus on the teaching of reading and writing to young learners. In R. Agnihotri, A.S., Gupta, A. L. Khanna (Eds) Trends in Language Teaching. New Delhi: Orient BlackSwan, 57-70.

Suggested Readings

  • Agnihotri, R.; Gupta, A.S.; & Khanna, A.L. (Eds) (2017) Trends in Language Teaching. New Delhi: Orient BlackSwan
  • Chapter 3- Innovations in Research and Teaching in Multilingual Classrooms (By Mukul Saxena), pp. 31-45
  • Chapter 4- ‘Speaking of food- apple... ice cream… posto… pesta… roti…’(by Rimli Bhattacharya), pp. 82-97

Videos:

  • Multilingual Classroom by Ramakant Agnihotri- A documentary on Multilingual Classroom teaching Written and Produced by ZackieAchmat Produced for : The national language project and the linguistics department of university of Cape Town. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l74ULxuBM3E
  • MLE: A New Beginning (A short film on Mother tongue based Mutlilignual Education Programme in Odisha). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTQaDbt5uJY
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