Abstract
This research is concerned about language as perpetrator, victim, or means of violence to minorities in multilingual countries. The analysis focuses on three aspects of mother tongues and official language conflicts in India under the perspectives of i) the special rights of vernacular languages to the detriment of other mother tongues, ii) illiteracy, and iii) the choice of Hindi as the language of unification. The objective is to answer how languages can assume these different roles and identify the types of language violence observed in modern India. The inquire if it is possible to talk about Indian minor literature and if English can be its language. The analysis seeks different forms of resistance, re-subjectification of the language, and immigrants’ conditions on the selected work of the poet Adil Jussawalla (1976) and the novelist Salman Rushdie (1991). The work of Deleuze & Guattari (2003), Bhabha (1994), Agamben (2008), Santos (2007 and 2009), and Lecercle (1990) provided the theoretical ground for the analysis of the contributions of language to conflicts, regulation, appropriation, and violence, distancing linguistic groups, despite the resistance.
Presenters
Graziela AresStudent, Ph.D. Candidate, Centre for Social Studies at University of Coimbra, Porto, Portugal
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
Civic, Political, and Community Studies
KEYWORDS
Linguistic minorities, Rights, In-betweeness, Minor literature
