Vernacular English: Reading the Anglophone in Postcolonial India

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Description

How English has become a language of the people in India one that enables the state but also empowers protests against it.

Against 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 peoples 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 analyse it.

Reviews

"Vernacular English is a book that grows on you as you read, especially because of the way Saxena stretches out her net to bring in not just everyday Indians but all those assailed by a brutal state and needing a medium to express their pain."---Peggy Mohan, The Wire
"Saxenas study of different domains toward the co-optation of English as an instrument of empowerment makes the concept of Vernacular English a good alternative to the accepted mindset that English is a language of the elites in India."---Soni Wadhwa, Asian Review of Books

Author Bio

Akshya Saxena is assistant professor of English at Vanderbilt University.