Vernacular English : : Reading the Anglophone in Postcolonial India / / Akshya Saxena.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter EBOOK PACKAGE COMPLETE 2022 English
• VerfasserIn: Saxena, Akshya,
• Place / Publishing House: Princeton, NJ : : Princeton University Press, , [2022]; ©2022
• Year of Publication: 2022
• Language: English
• Series: Translation/Transnation ; 46
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (232 p.) :; 15 b/w illus.
• Other title: Frontmatter --; Contents --; Acknowledgments --; Preface. On the Grounds --; Introduction. Vernacular English: Reading the Anglophone --; Chapter 1 Law: Democratic Objects in Postcolonial India, or India Demands English --; Chapter 2 Touch: Dalit Anglophone Writers and a Language Shared --; Chapter 3 Text: A Desire Called English in Indian Anglophone Literature --; Chapter 4 Sound: The Mother’s Voice and Anglophonic Soundscapes in Northeast India --; Chapter 5 Sight: Cinematic English and the Pleasures of Not Reading --; Coda. Radical Anglophony, or The Ethics of Attunement --; Notes --; Index
• Format: Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
• ISBN: 9780691223148; 9783110993899; 9783110994810; 9783110993752; 9783110993738; 9783110749731
• DOI: 10.1515/9780691223148?locatt=mode:legacy
• Access: restricted access
• Hierarchical level: Monograph
• Statement of Responsibility: Akshya Saxena.

How English has become a language of the people in India—one that enables the state but also empowers protests against itAgainst a groundswell of critiques of global English, Vernacular English argues that literary studies are yet to confront the true political import of the English language in the world today. A comparative study of three centuries of English literature and media in India, this original and provocative book tells the story of English in India as a tale not of imperial coercion, but of a people’s language in a postcolonial democracy.Focusing on experiences of hearing, touching, remembering, speaking, and seeing English, Akshya Saxena delves into a previously unexplored body of texts from English and Hindi literature, law, film, visual art, and public protests. She reveals little-known debates and practices that have shaped the meanings of English in India and the Anglophone world, including the overlooked history of the legislation of English in India. She also calls attention to how low castes and minority ethnic groups have routinely used this elite language to protest the Indian state.Challenging prevailing conceptions of English as a vernacular and global lingua franca, Vernacular English does nothing less than reimagine what a language is and the categories used to analyze it.