My thoughts on the subject of multiliteracies after reading Cope, Kalantzis and the New London Group:
The story of the English language pertaining to the group of New Londoners sounded familiar to one who has witnessed the story of the English language in India. As a print journalist for 15 years now, with a Master's Degree in English, one has seen the changes that English has undergone in both the media and academic worlds in India.
After two hundred years of colonization, English was was, but obviously, the official language of a country that had scores of native languages and dialects. Even while the British were still ruling the Indian subcontinent, their language started evolving, incorporating native Indian words that made their way into the Oxford English Dictionary (for example 'bandobast', meaning preparation by the authorities before a political rally, or a public event). Thus, the English language (that is, Queen's English) evolved as it met the diverse regional cultures and languages of India.
The huge number of Indian words in the Oxford English Dictionary is a salute to the phenomenon of evolution of the language. Then came globalization, with the opening of the Indian economy to the world,, and the Indian version of British English came under the influence of American English. As the US started outsourcing labor to India, a new class of workers at multi-national companies were groomed in "American English", leading to a second phase of hybridity of the language. This second phase is ongoing.
In the given context, the concept of democratic pluralism is particularly relevant to India. And it is imperative to ensure that differences in culture, language and gender do not hinder the purpose of education itself. While there are concerns that the canon of great literature needs to be preserved, even in England, the English language is undergoing an evolution, thanks to global connectedness.
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4 comments:
Moushumi,
I think your personal experience is proof that language and literacy are always evolving.
I am looking forward to learning more about India from you!
Robin,
I would be delighted to discuss India with you. It's my favourite topic!. I look forward to researching the rhetorical progression of the English language in India over the past two centuries, in the light of multimodality and multiliteracies.
Moushumi
Moushumi,
I like when you said, "And it is imperative to ensure that differences in culture, language and gender do not hinder the purpose of education itself. While there are concerns that the canon of great literature needs to be preserved, even in England, the English language is undergoing an evolution, thanks to global connectedness."
I think that we need to realize that every country is probably going through this in one way or another. So every language is evolving all of the time. Even though American English is dominant in the US, there are so many different cultures in this country that even we have words that are an evolution or a mixture of cultures. It seems that this happens all over the world and I think that it is important to try and preserve the original, but I also think that we have to resign ourselves to the fact that everything evolves in some way and that is going to include language.
Moushumi-
I really like your analogy of multimodality to the journey the "Queen's English" has taken in India. I think the idea that not only is English shaping culture in India but also that English is being shaped by that culture is very important in thinking about modes and media. It seems that the goal of multimodality is to recognize the ways that media shape and reshape one another and the users coming in contact with them. It seems impossible for any of us to internalize a language - whether written, spoken, visual, or multimodal - without imprinting that language with our own purposes and meanings. Just as the meaning of traditional words does not reside in the word itself but instead in the "conversation" and negotiation taking place between writers and readers, it seems that the meanings in multimodal spaces are also dependent on the meanings viewers and users bring to them.
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