#TeamEnglish@CMS_Kottayam: The learner in me, hand in hand with the teacher in you!

 Difference between traditional grammar and structural linguistics Traditional/Prescriptive Grammar:- This has been the basis of all school-grammar until the structuralists headed by Leonard Bloomfield and C. C. Fries. With them began the structural or descriptive analysis of English grammar. The structuralists pointed out some major defects of traditional English grammar.     (i) Traditional grammar was based on the dead classical languages, Latin and Greek. Latin was taught in England for a long time. The rules of Latin grammar were imposed on English grammar. Latin was a highly inflected and dead language. The rules of an inflected language cannot be the basis for analysing an uninfected language like English. Modern language keeps on changing.     (ii) The definitions of grammatical categories like noun, verb etc. were Latin. These definitions were unsatisfactory, the reason was that there was not a single criterion for classification. There was opposition b...

Language is culture preserving and culture transmitting, that was why Descarte said, " thank to language, man became man". There are other forms of culture preservation such as; art forms, architecture, painting, music etc. But, language is the most dynamic form in which culture is preserved and transmitted to future generations. Language is dynamic not static. it keeps on changing at all levels; at the level of sounds, words and word meanings and sentences. Each generation modifies and changes its language in its process to adapt to the changing needs and demands of the people who use it. Language is a pattern system of arbitrary sound signals, characterised by structure-dependence, creativity, displacement, duality and cultural transmission. One other similarity links human language with animal communication, it is predestined to evolve. Just as frogs inevitably croak and cows moo, birds chirp... so humans are rearranged for talking. Human language is innately guided; the h...

Standardisation or uniformity is possible to a certain extent in grammar, syntax, and even vocabulary. But in the case of pronunciation, each person or each locality has its own variations. The spoken form varies so much that sometimes it is even difficult to understand each other.  for example, London Cockney differs much from early Scottish English or Yorkshire dialect. Moreover, what is slang and vulgar in one particular period may become acceptable later. Words like cab, taxi etc., have now become acceptable though they were slang a few years before. But in spite of these differences and peculiarities, we find there is an accepted form of English, which stands above the local or regional dialects and is spoken by the educated people from whatever locality or social class they come. This is Standard English or King's English, the linguistic currency of the realm. Daniel Jones defines Standard English as the form of speech most usually heard in everyday speech in the families of ...

Literature and Liberation: The Dalit Movement Part II - pp. 105 - 111 -  Cross-currents - Sem. 4 BA English Complementary Course This blogpost presents the main points of the section;  students are urged to read the text (pp. 105 - 111). Also note that some points included here may not exactly match with what is in the text. Modifications and additions are made to give a better picture on the topics. For a YouTube lecture on the topic,  click here. Maharashtra: The Dalit Sahitya Movement Maharashtra of the 1970s witnessed an outburst of unprecedented radicalism in literature: an outburst of the poetry of revolt, which today is known as the Dalit Sahitya Movement. Most of the people who associated with this were activists who called themselves “Dalit Panthers” or “Black Panthers”. (This term links them with the late 1960s’ Black Panther Movement of America, which responded to atrocities against people.) The Black Panthers of Maharashtra demonstrated a revolutionary ard...

  Literature and Liberation: The Dalit Movement  Part I - pp. 98 - 105 -  Cross-currents - Sem. 4 BA English Complementary Course For a YouTube lecture on this topic,  click here. ‘Dalit’ The Dalits are members of various people groups in India who are considered outcasts of Brahminical Hinduism. The Dalit Movement The Dalit Movement implies a confrontation with the existing tyrannical social order which refused to acknowledge their basic humanity, a way of affirming their self worth, a campaign for essential amenities needed for them to come out of the swamp of wretchedness. It represents their aggressive efforts for resurrection, a demand for reform, and their recourse to writing as a means of self assertion. The term “Dalit” Debjani Ganguly, in the work “Caste and Dalit Worlds”, explain the term thus: This is derived from the Marathi language. It connotes the state of being “ground down” or “depressed”. Since the 1970s, this has been used generically in India to r...