9789382993964

Page 1

NEW NEW NEW NEW Size : 150mm x 230mm • Pages : 236pp

• Year : 2014 • Binding : Paperback • ISBN : 9789382993964 • Price ` 495.00 only

Hindi is Our Ground, English is Our Sky Education, Language, and Social Class in Contemporary India Chaise LaDousa Chaise LaDousa teaches at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York. His publications include House Signs and Collegiate Fun: Sex, Race, and Faith in a College Town (2011) and articles in a number of peer-reviewed journals such as American Ethnologist, Journal of American Folklore, Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, Journal of Pragmatics and Language in Society. His research focuses on language and culture, particularly on the ways in which institutions serve as loci for cultural production.


Hindi is Our Ground, English is Our Sky Education, Language, and Social Class in Contemporary India Chaise LaDousa A sea of change has occurred in the Indian economy in the last three decades, spurring the desire to learn English. Most scholars and media venues have focused on English exclusively for its ties to processes of globalization and the rise of new employment opportunities. The pursuit of class mobility, however, involves Hindi as much as English in the vast Hindi-Belt of northern India. Schools are institutions on which class mobility depends, and they are divided by Hindi and English in the rubric of ‘medium’, the primary language of pedagogy. This book demonstrates that the school division allows for different visions of what it means to belong to the nation and what is central and peripheral in the nation. It also shows how the language–medium division reverberates unevenly

and unequally through the nation, and that schools illustrate the tensions brought on by economic liberalization and middle-class status. CONTENTS List of Illustrations • Foreword Krishna Kumar • Preface • Acknowledgments • List of Abbreviations • Transliteration Conventions • Transcription Conventions • Introduction Chapter 1. On Mother and Other Tongues: Language Ideology, Inequality, and Contradiction Chapter 2. Disparate Markets: The Uneven Resonance of Language-Medium Schooling in the Nation Chapter 3. Advertising in the Periphery: Modes of Communication and the Production of School Value Chapter 4. An Alter Voice: Questioning the Inevitability of the Language-Medium Divide Chapter 5. In and Out of the Classroom: A Focus on English Conclusion References Index Foundation Books is an imprint of Cambridge University Press, India.

Available from:

India Private Limited www.cambridgeindia.org Cambridge House, 4381/4, Ansari Road, Daryaganj, New Delhi-110002 Tel.: +91 11 43543500 Fax: +91 11 23288534 Email: cupdel@cambridge.org C-22, Brigade M.M., K.R. Road, Jayanagar, Bengaluru-560070 Tel.: +91 80 65593388, 26764817, 26762764 Fax: +91 80 26761322 Email: cupbang@cambridge.org Cambridge House, Plot No. 80, Service Industries, Shirvane, Sector-1, Nerul, Navi Mumbai-400706 Tel.: +91 22 27709172, 27713810 Fax: 91 22 27709173 Email: cupmum@cambridge.org The Cambridge Centre, 10, Raja Subodh Mullick Square, 2nd Floor, Kolkata-700013 Tel.: +91 33 22259976, 22250046 Fax: +91 33 22250327 Email: cupkol@cambridge.org The Cambridge Centre, 21/1 (New No. 49), 1st Floor, Model School Road, Thousand Lights, Chennai-600006 Tel.: +91 44 42146807, 28291294 Fax: +91 44 28291295 Email: cupchen@cambridge.org House No. 3-5-874/6/4 (Near Fernandez Hospital, OP Block), St. No. 5, Hyderguda, Hyderabad-500029 Tel.: +91 40 23244458, 66101126 Fax: +91 40 23244459 Email: cuphyd@cambridge.org Agarwal Pride, A Wing, 1308, Kasba Peth, Near Surya Hospital, Pune-411011 Tel.: +91 20 24575767, 24575768 Fax: +91 20 24575768 Email: cuppune@cambridge.org T.C. 25/2732, Lukes Lane, Ambujavilasam Road, Thiruvananthapuram-695001 Tel: +91 471 4064404, 4064405 Fax: +91 471 4070093 Email: cuptvm@cambridge.org Representative Office: Monzeera House, Om Bhawan, 2nd Floor, Panbazar, Guwahati-781001 Telefax: +91 361 2735336 Email: nkakoty@cambridge.org Follow us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/cambridgeindia

Twitter: www.twitter.com/cambridgeindia

07/2014


Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.