LangDev2015: Ajit Mohanty | Plenary - Multilingualism, education, English and development

The presentation interrogates the roles of English or other global/post-colonial languages in multilingual societies, including India, which tend to be hierarchical in nature characterised by a double divide: one between the elitist language of power and the major regional languages (‘vernaculars’) and, the other, between the regional languages and the dominated indigenous languages. The ‘double divide’ is associated with loss of linguistic diversity, marginalisation and progressive domain shrinkage of the indigenous languages. Inequalities in the place of languages in education contribute to capability deprivation, poverty and dispossession of linguistic capital disempowering many and empowering some. In India, as in most post-colonial societies, the privileged position of English in education has led to elite formation and social exclusion at different levels of schooling resulting in ‘a new caste system being perpetuated’. Our research on school practices in the teaching of English in India shows that the complex challenges of negotiating the linguistic double divide lead to divergent pedagogic practices and compromises in the standards of English in schools. While English has a role in multilingual structure, its promotion in education needs to foreground the development of mother tongues. For English to be a healer language and not a ‘killer language’ and to promote social justice, we need egalitarian language policy and practice, rethinking of the duality/multiplicity in
the system of school education and a shift from the current emphasis on democratisation of English to democratisation of quality in education.

Ajit Mohanty says ‘I am Founder Director and Chief Adviser of the National Multilingual Education Resource Consortium (NMRC) in Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). I have been Professor and Indian Council of Social Science Research National Fellow in JNU, a Fulbright Visiting Professor (Columbia University), a Fulbright Senior Scholar (Wisconsin) and a Killam Scholar (Alberta). I am Fellow of the Association of Psychological Science, USA, and of the National Academy of Psychology, India. I developed the Multilingual Education Policy for Nepal (with Tove Skutnabb-Kangas) and for Odisha in India.’