Language in Indian Writing in English

Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things, a twisting tale seemingly centered on a case of family tragedy, unravels to form a critique on rigid social structures. This renders Iser’s quote significant to a huge extent, as proven by the novel’s fragmented narrative. By building the narrative around a crucial lack of information, readers are pushed to engage thoroughly with the text, as they have to piece together the jigsaw pieces that make up the story, so as to make complete sense of it, henceforth enabling a better understanding of the ‘explicit’ when the ‘implicit’ comes to light. In doing so, “the meaning of the text comes alive in the reader’s imagination” (Bennett 1682) - through the readers’ realization that the seemingly irrelevant,

Indian English Literature is defined as the contribution of Indian writers to the Literature in English. With the consolidation of the British power in India, English, the language of rulers also began to exercise its influence on the intellectuals of the country. To the educated people, English language is a gateway to western knowledge. English provided a window for the Indian intellectuals to have a look at the wide world.

Language is a means of communication. There are two main types of communication, viz., everyday communication and literary communication. The language of literary communication differs markedly from the language of literature or literary communication. The language of everyday communication is called the ‘common verbal exchange’. As opposed to everyday communication, there is the special use of language in literature. The literary language, therefore, is the special variety of language very much distinct from the everyday language.

When one thinks about the country India the first thing that will come to their mind is their rich, colorful clothes and animals that are part of their culture. Most do not think of the literature in India, and how life is incorporated into their writing. A common theme throughout Indian literature is life, and literary elements were used to reveal themes throughout their writing. A theme of pain in the narrator 's life was explained more to the reader through the use of personification, repetition, and irony. These literary elements make the narrator 's pain become more prominent and have more of an impact on the reader.

Her genius lies in her application of humour even while describing grave issues that perturb the society. The tone of the entire novel is melancholy, infused with a sense of dejected prudence. Though Roy writes the novel from the children's perspective, the older characters reveal their vulnerabilities as the story proceeds. Even though the pace of the story is slow, the author fabricates her story delightfully and it proves to be a predominantly pleasurable experience for its readers. The God of Small Things consists of two primary interlinked storylines. One is that of the family in Aymenem and their day-to-day affairs. The other concerns itself with the protagonist's first meeting with her fraternal twin after a gap of twenty-three years. In between, there are other secondary plotlines chronicling the stories of the other characters. The God of Small Things is an ambitious novel that portray universal theme ranging from religion to biology. Roy stress throughout the novel that small and big things are interlinked. The novel is able to comment on the issue simultaneously on, abstract themes, universal and a wide variety of ideas relating to the individual and family history of the members of the Kochamma family as well as the wider concerns

English in Bollywood frequently takes the form of code-switching. In a bilingual speech community, speakers tend to mix words, phrases, clauses and sentences when they communicate with others. They are able to switch linguistically built upon different situations. When two languages are expressed in this way, they differ remarkable from the same languages as spoken in their separate social systems. This kind of interference on the discourse level is known as code-switching (Malhotra, S. 1980). Since 1957, English was spoken by upper and middle social class in India for social and economic reasons and then it gradually became a symbol of higher social status. Consequently, a handful of upper middle class North Indians can speak both Hindi and English and use

A Passage to India entails various social criticisms and political matters that are among the human race. The setting of the story takes place in India where the British have colonized the city of Chandrapore. The British had no respect for the native culture and race that inhabit this region even thought they were the original inhabitants.

The God of Small Things is a family saga taking of a remote village in central Travancore region of South Kerala, the rustic idyll set in the author’s childhood and told endearingly through the stream of consciousness of a small girl. The story is purely autobiographical. In the novel, the writer breaks the regular sequence of events and allows them to the sad fate of Ammu shared by her two egg twins, Rahel and Estha. The theme of doomed love between Ammu, the Syrian Christian, Velutha,

It's the smallest things in life which are most often overlooked and sometimes completely ignored. In the novel “The God of Small Things”, Arundhati Roy presents minute details about each character and how their lives are changed based on the societal norms in India. Not only does Roy address the importance of “small things”, but she also gives the title “The God of Small Things” to Velutha, an untouchable who is amongst the lowest social class of India according to the caste system. Although Velutha’s social status is practically worthless, him being given the title, “God of small things” represents all the small things within the story that are overlooked. In a society where big things such as information about social caste system, wealth, religion, political standings, and marriage are important, Roy repeatedly emphasizes the small things having the most impact on the characters within the story. Take Baby Kochamma, Comrade Pillai, and Velutha for example, the society they live in are mostly concerned on social status and politics as opposed to important minute details that shape the way they think. By making Velutha the god of small things, someone who’s at the bottom class structure in India, Roy shows that it is wrong to live accordingly to the ideas confined by society.

The constitution of India (Article 343) recognises Hindi as the official language of India. Hindi is also the main language in many states of India such as Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Uttaranchal/ Uttarakhand, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Chhatisgarh and Himachal Pradesh. It is spoken by more than 437 million people in the world. The other dialects of Hindi are Brajbhasha, Bundeli, Awadhi, Marwari, Maithili, Bhojpuri, to name only a few.

India and the west, is a very common theme in Indian literature. This struggle is evident

Language is a means for an end and that end is literature. Literature moves in language as a medium, but that medium comprises of two layers— content and experience. The flamboyancy of the author’s state of mind is expressed by the style of writing used by the author. The linguists all over the world come to a single opinion that if style is the man, the language used by the author represents the entirety of his mind. As, language analyses the inner cores of human perspective, it is certainly has connections with the facts of utterance to see the patterns of sound, grammar and vocabulary. For analysing the properties of language, it is important to represent the concern of writer with the revelation of inner mental facts and the inner properties of human psyche. Therefore, simplicity is the hallmark of all the modern languages. The simple language has the

Word borrowing is a common linguistic phenomenon. However, there is no denying the fact that for most lexical borrowing a socio-cultural and linguistic interaction between two or more linguistic communities is essential. The contact with Arabs and Islamic culture had exercised an immense impact on the socio-cultural life of the Muslims in Indian subcontinent. The interaction of Muslim army: Arabs, Iranian, Turks, Afghans resulted into arrival in the Indian Territory which later became the basis for an emergence of a language like Urdu that etymologically means an ‘army’. The political, social, and religious events over these centuries had not only affected Urdu speakers but also had a recognizable effect of their language culture. The socio-cultural contact between the Muslim soldiers speaking different languages including Arabic and the local population of the Indian sub-continent resulted in the development of Urdu. The Urdu language of today reflects the growth and development over the past few centuries. Consequent upon this sustained contact between the languages of the soldiers and the dialects spoken by the local population, the process of linguistic amalgamation started. Lexical borrowings into the Urdu vocabulary may be considered as the outcome of the socio-cultural impact of Arabic and Persian on various groups of people of the Indian sub-continent and their culture. The presence of groups of lexical borrowings from different languages

In the book ‘The New Woman in Indian English Writers Since the 1970’s’ Vijaylakshmi Sheshadri charts out the history of women’s writing and how it was compared to standard (patriarchal) ideals of the Pativrata image of women influenced by Classical Indian literature. Those that deviated from the established code were either marginalised or severely criticised.

Indian writing in English has a comparatively short but highly stimulating history. In 1793, Sake Dean Mahomed wrote conceivably the first book by an Indian in English, called The ‘Travels of Dean Mahomed’. However, most early Indian writing in English was non-fictional work, such as biographies and political essays.