In India there are vast varieties of languages and dialects spoken. The different languages belong to four different language families. They belong to the Indo-Iranian, the Dravidian, Austroasiatic and the Tibeto-Burman language families (“India” 2015). Since there are more than 25 languages found in India it is possible that people from neighboring valleys and villages do not speak the same language or dialect. Nevertheless, India has two official governmental languages which are English and Hindi. Next to the 22 languages that are recognized in the Indian constitution, these are also the languages in which many texts and official announcements are made (“India“, 2015). The result of this is that most people in India are multilingual educated and English is an associate official language which is widely spoken by the population of India. Furthermore, the English language, a leftover of the colonialisation of India, is used as a lingua franca and therefore India makes out a great part of the English speaking community (“India”, 2015).
The Encyclopedia Britannica even states that English serves as the language linking the central government with the states, especially with those in which Hindi is not widely understood. English is also the principal language of commerce and the language of instruction in almost all of the country’s prestigious universities and private schools. The English-language press remains highly influential; scholarly publication is predominantly in English (almost exclusively so in science); and many Indians are devotees of literature in English (much of it written by Indians), as well as of English-language film, radio, television, popular music, and theatre.“ (“India”, 2015)
So the variety of Indian English can be counted to the New Englishes (Balasubramanian, 2009, p. 4)). Those New Englishes or New English Varieties (NEV) are characterized through four major points. These are, according to Platt et al. (1984, p. 2-3 zitiert nach Balsubramanian), the following:
1. It has developed through an education system.
2. It has developed in an area where a native variety of English was not the language spoken by most of the population
3. It is used for a range of functions among those who speak or write in the region where it is used
4. It has become ‚localized‘ or ‚nativized‘ by adopting some language features of its own, such as sounds, intonation patterns, sentence structures, words and expressions
The first point fits very well to the History of English in India since the language was introduced as a part of the educational system in the second half of the eighteenth century (Balasubramanian, 2009, p. 7). Since the introduction through Macaulay’s “minute” of 1835, English has been the language of the Indian educational system (Balasubramanian, 2009, p. 7). In referring to the citation from the Encyclopedia Britannica English, it is still the language of education in schools and universities. The second point can also be easily referred to the language situation in India, since Indian English has become a spoken language in the country. As mentioned before, English came to India through the East India Trading Company and the colonialization by England in the eighteenth century (“India”, 2015). Nevertheless, the first step of bringing the English language to India was the Missionary Phase in the seventeenth century. Afterwards followed a phase in which the native society saw an advantage in learning the English language, for example to trade with the west or to understand it better (Hickey, 2004, p. 541-542). In the last phase English became the language of the educational system. As a result English became an important language in a country where it had not been one before.
Additionally, the third point also fits to English in India. English is used as a communication language through which people of different mother tongues can communicate with each other. Moreover, it became a language of literature and an associate language for the government (“India”, 2015). As well as the other three points are proven, the fourth point can also be proven by some examples. The English language in India has therefore some loanwords from the Sanskrit or other regional dialects. Words like: Bungalow, Masala, Basmati and Guru became standards also in the use of English (Hickey, 2004, p.54) However, not only words were changed and lend to English but also some features in syntax, grammar and pronunciation changed by introducing English as an associate language in India. According to Jenkins Indian English „has undergone a process of indianization in which it has developed a distinctive national character comparable to American and Australian English.“ (Jenkins, 2003, p.4). Nevertheless, we are not talking about the one Indian English. All the different dialects, languages, ethnic groups and proficiencies of the speakers in India influenced the English language in different ways. (Balasubramanian, 2009, p. 8-9).
According to all points mentioned before, the linguistic situation for all citizens is a multilingual one, which can be described by an L1 to L3 model. The L1 Language „is any first or primary language“ and is therefore the local language or dialect (Spitzbardt, 1976, p.16), the L2 language is a second language and is here defined as the state language. Last but not least there is the L3 language which is defined as a federal or union language. (Spitzbardt, 1976, p.16). As a consequence of this model all Indian citizens have at least three languages to master, and at some point, the model has to be expanded by an L4 language, which is often English. (Spitzbardt, 1976, p.17). All these points have to be considered when talking about the representation of English in Media. On top of this, it is also assumable that English is a language of educated elites who shape the sciences and literature in India (Gargesh,…, p.96). As a result the used variety of this group of educated people is often considered to be the standard Indian English (Kachru 1983, zit. Gargesh, p.96). Moreover English is also the „principal language for interethnic communication in India“ (Hickey, 2004, p.540).
The pidgins that have existed during the trading between India and England and the colonialization are not looked further at, since there is no pidgin Indian English represented and used in Media. Nonetheless, there are not only Indians who learned English as L3 or L4 languages, but also a group of so called Anglo-Indian. Hickey describes this as „[…] the speech of those Indians who are the descendants of British colonials (from the military or the administration) and lower-caste Hindu or Muslim women.“(Abel, 1988, zit. nach Hickey, 2004,p.541). These people were not welcome in both groups and therefore did not belong to any of them. Hickey furthermore states, that this is the reason why this group of people only married within their group. This led to a linguistic separateness of the group. (Hickey, 2004, p. 543)
Features of Indian English
In this chapter I like to introduce some features of Indian English that will later on be the foundation for the analysis of Indian English in the movies. Here it is to notice that there is no standard variety of Indian English, but it is possible to look at a General Indian English (GIE) with features that could be identified by actual language research. Nevertheless, some features may be slightly different for speakers of different L1 languages or dialects (Ramsaran, 1990, p.220-221).
Pronunciation
Since there are more language families in the L1 Background of the Learners, which are not completely different, there can be found some similarities in the pronunciation of Indian English (Hickey, 2004, p.544-545). Here, I will look on the vowel system and the consonants separated at first. Tom Mc Arthur states “Speakers of General Indian English (GIE), have a 17-vowel system (11 monophthongs and 6 diphthongs)” (Mc Arthur, 2003, n.p.). The vowels range of General Indian English includes the monophthongs: /iː/,/eː/, /ɛ/, /æ/, /ɑː/, /ɒ/, /oː/, /ʊ/, /uː/, /ə/ and the diphthongs: /ai/, /ɔi/, /aʊ/, /iə/, /eə/, /ʊə/ (Mc Arthur, 2003, n.p.). Moreover, the realization of the vowels in GIE differ from the RP versions. The /ɪ/ and /ʊ/ sounds for instance are in GIE closer and not as centralised as in RP and other varieties (Ramesh, 2013, p. 224). Next to the range of vowels that are inherited in the GIE, a characteristic of the variety is that the rising Diphthongs, we find in RP, are often realized as monophthongs. Examples for this phenomenon are the realization of the word low or game. The vowel in low would be realized as an /oː/ instead of an /əʊ/ and in game the a is realized as /eː/ instead of /ei/ (Bansal, cit. by Hickey, 2004, p. 545, Gargesh, 2006, p. 102). Furthermore, Bansal states that
this Tendency means that varieties of Indian English have fewer vocalic contrasts than most forms of British English. This can also be seen in the use of schwa for English /ʌ/ and /ɜː/ and the lack of distinction between /ɛ/ and /æ/ […]. (Bansal, cit. by Hickey, 2004, p. 545)
Additionally, the General Indian English has two realizations of the phoneme /ɒ/. These are [ɒ] and [ɒː], “corresponding to RP /ɒ/ and /ɔː/“ (Ramesh, 2003, p.223). According to Ramesh this also leads to the fact that words like cot and caught become homophones or are only distinguishable through the length of the vowel realization (Ramesh, 2003, p. 223). When talking about length variation of vowels, Ramesh also quotes that the vowel realizations of the vowels /iː/, /eː/, /ɑː/, /oː/, /uː/ and the diphthongs in GIE is not consistent (Ramesh, 2003, p. 223). Therefore, the comparatively long vowels and diphthongs are not shortened before voiceless consonants (Ramesh, 2003, p. 223).
When taking a closer look on the realization of consonants, Ramesh states that the speakers of General Indian English have 22 to 24 phonemes, wich are: /p/, /t̪ʰ/, /d̪/, /t/, /d/, /tʃ/, /dʒ/, /k/, /ɡ/, /f/, /s/, /z/, /ʃ/, /h/, /m/, /n/, /ŋ/, /l/, /r/, /v/, /j/ and optional /ʒ/, /w/ (Ramesh, 2003, p.224). It is conspicuous that the dental fricatives /θ/ and /ð/, which are common in RP English, are missing. These are often substituted by the aspirated realizations of /t/ and /d/ and Hickey states that this occurs because the aspirated alveolar plosives are the nearest phonetic equivalents to the th-sounds in the Indo-Aryan Languages (Hickey, 2004, p. 544). So the word three would be pronounced /t̪ʰriː/ instead of /θriː/ and the voiced fricative would be realized as the voiced aspirated plosive /d̪ʰ/. Additionally, the “[…] stops used for /ð,θ/ are dental […]” (Hickey, 2004, p. 544), therefore /θ/ is replaced through /t/ (Gargesh, 2006, p. 102). According to Mc Arthur, there is also no distinction between /v/ and /w/ and the words vine and wine would be pronounced equally (Mc Arthur, 2003, n.p.). When looking further on the realization of the phonemes /t/ and /d/, Gargesh also states that those become often retroflexed (Gargesh, 2006, p.102) and are realized as [ʈ] and [ɖ]. In the manner of that fact, the words certificate and London for example would be realized as /sərʈɪfɪket/ and /ləɳɖən/. [distributional things could be added here]. They seem to produce the stereotypes in western minds about GIE. In this first part, I only looked at single consonant realisation but it is also possible to take a closer look on consonant clusters. When looking at these, Ramesh states that
some Indians have difficulty with initial and final consonant cluster. For Example, some Hindi and Urdu speakers prefix a vowel – usually /ɪ/ – before the initial clusters […]. (Ramesh, 2003, p.226)
Hickey furthermore argues that through this phenomenon the clusters are changed from a CCV (Consonant, Consonant, Vowel) Cluster to a VC.VC Cluster. Examples for such a change can be seen through the examples speech [ɪspiːtʃ] and store [ɪstoːɹ] (Kachru, cit. Hickey, 2004, p.544) [Gargesh 2003]. Gargesh furthermore states, that the way to break up the cluster is especially used with an initial /s/. About other consonant clusters and variation he does not say anything, while the other authors do not mention a specific initial vowel (compare: Gargesh, 2006, p.103, Hickey, 2004, p 544). On the other side some speakers of Punjabi tend to break up the cluster by inserting an /ə/ after the initial consonant. This is especially common „to break initial clusters beginning with /s/ and those with /l/ as the second element“ (Ramesh, 2003, p. 226).
Going along with the pronunciation and the features of General Indian English, the speech rhythm of the variety also is important. Nevertheless, I will not deal further with the topic because it is difficult to identify the speech rhythms of the speakers in the analyzed movies. However, it should be mentioned that speakers of General Indian English tend to divide their speech in wrong intonation groups or set the wrong intonation nucleus. An example for this would be “I don’t think `so” (GIE) instead of “I don’t `think so” (Standard English) (Ramesh, 2003, p.228)
Grammatical features
In general the grammatical competence of the speaker is independent of the background of the Learner. Important factors here are
the background native language of the speakers and acquisitional competence in English which turn depends on such factors as schooling and exposure to near-native varieties of English (Hickey, 2004, p. 545).
Furthermore, he mentions that many observed phenomena are not especially common in only the Variety of Indian English, but are observable in other varieties or speakers of English as a foreign language as well (Hickey, 2004, p. 546). However, there were some features found, that are used frequently in GIE.
At first, I will look on question forming in General Indian English. In some varieties the question tag isn’t it is frequently used instead of using the question tags that would be used in standard English (Sailaja, 2009, p. 59). So a possible sentence in GIE would be “You will come, isn’t it?” instead of “You will come, wont you?” (Sailaja, 2009, p.59). While Sailaja also states that the question tag isn’t it is not so common in standard Indian English, Balasubramian, who worked on a corpus of Indian English, figured out that at least 67.5% of her research present the use of the question tag (Balasubramian, 2009, p. 113) in GIE. In spoken English it were actually 85.7% (Balasubramian, 2009, p. 112) but with a total of 35 isn’t it cases it does not seem to be a representative amount. On the other hand, it is interesting that it is more common in spoken English and not in written Text. Somehow it can be described as colloquial not as standard. Another possibility for a question tag in GIE would be „[…] the invariant no as a tag.“ (Sailaja, 2009, p.59). Instead of isn’t it or other question tags a no is added at the end of the question, so it would be „You will go to the party, no?“ instead of „You will go to the party, won’t you?“ (Balasubramian, 2009, p. 205). Additionally, the question forming in GIE is dominated by a lack of subject auxiliary inversion (Gargesh, 2006, 104). Sailaja declares that this happens because the speakers of GIE follow native patterns in which a question is constructed out of a statement (Sailaja, 2009, p.56). Examples would be:
(a) When will you begin ? from You will begin when?
(b) How will you come? from You will come how?
(Sailaja, 2009, p.56-57)
When the subject-auxiliary inversion is missing, speakers of General Indian English will form questions like:
(a) When you will begin? from You will begin when?
(b) How you will come? from You will come how?
(Sailaja, 2009, p. 57)
In these examples there is only one transformation taking place. The question word is moved to the beginning of the sentence but the inversion of subject and auxiliary does not take place. In contrast, the subject-auxiliary inversion takes place in indirect questions the standard sentence would be “We asked when you would begin.”, while in GIE it would be “We asked when would you begin” (Sailaja, 2009, p.57). In Yes-No Questions
the predominant tendency in standard as well as in non standard IE is to not invert the subject and auxiliary […]. The preference is to retain the structure of the statement and to use a rising intonation pattern on the sentence. (Sailaja, 2009 p.58)
Examples for this usage are:
You will come? instead of Will you come ? from You will come.
(b) He slept well? instead of Did he sleep well? from He slept well.
(Sailaja, 2009, p. 58)
Gargesh furthermore names the use of the progressive aspect with stative verbs as an other phenomenon of GIE Syntax (Gargesh, 2006, p.103) and Balasubramanian worked out that this use of the progressive aspect is more common in GIE than in British or American English (Balasubramanian, 2009, p.149). Furthermore, she figured out that this happens more often in spoken than in written language and 8.4% percent of the stative verbs in TV- News were used in the progressive aspect (ibd.). However, only 9 of the 22 stative verbs occurred with a progressive aspect. These were: „have, hear, understand, see, find, think, know, feel and hear.“ (Balasubramanian, 2009, p.150). So in spoken GIE it would be common to say “She is not understanding anything” instead of “She does not understand anything” (Sailaja, 2009, p.49). In my movie analysis I will mainly look if the above named stative verbs will occur with a progressive aspect. Balasubramanian also acknowledges the present aspect is used in Academic English and that the people „who contributed to these registers (spoken and written Academic English) of the corpus are younger than the other contributers“ (Balasubramanian, 2009, p. 151). Hence she concludes that the IE has already undergone a certain nativization and those younger contributors grew up with an „Indian Identity“ of the language and have „no external norm to aspire to“ (Balsasubramanian, 2009, p.151). Sailaja also states that next to the use of progressive aspect with stative verbs, there is a general tendency to use the progressive form (Sailaja, 2009, p.49). He even says that such sentences are more common than sentences without progressive aspect (Sailaja, 2009, p.49).
Lexis
In her chapter about South Asian Englishes, Ravinder Gargesh states that Lexis is maybe the aspect of South Asian English (SAE), and therefore also GIE, in which the variety has the most differences from Standart English (Gargesh, 2006,p.103). The first loan words that were often used in English and also in Indian English Language were words used for trade. Mostly they have been content words, like for example pepper, sandal and sugar (Rao, 1954, p.10-12). Throughout the whole colonialisation time, before it, and in present times (Sailaja, 2009, p.69) mother tongue words of Indian speakers were transferred to English, either because there was no English word for a concept (for example for religious words) or because a historical event shaped the language as well (Rao, 1954, p. 15-36). Some words have come directly into the English language and some came through other languages like Portuguese and French (Sailaja, 2009, p. 69). The loan words of both categories are also called assimilated items.
Next to only lending words from Indian Languages, there it is also possible that already existing words become a different meaning for speakers of General Indian English or are used in another way. Such examples would be:
GIE Meaning
shift move, especially house or office
smart Well dressed or cunning
social a film with a social theme
mixture a snack combining several ingredients, such as lentils and peanuts
(Sailaja, 2009, p. 69)
Such an example would also be the use of keep instead of put. Balasubramanian found out that this peculiarity is common in spoken and written Indian English (Balasubramanian, 2009, p.120). An example for such an utterance would be „I keep my shoes under the bed“ instead of „I put my shoes under my bed“ (Balasubramanian, 2009, p. 120). She also found out that this phenomenon can often be found in Fiction. There 91.6% of the usage of keep were in the Indian use of the word (Balasubramanian, 2009, p. 120). She noticed the same for the use of stay instead of live.
Examples:
I stay in that RNA extension (Conversational English; Oral Interview24)
My auto still stays at New Jersey (Conversational English; Oral Interview15)
Are Kajol and you planning to say in a house of your own, away from the family (FInt6)
(Balasubramanian, 2009, p.123)