Journal of English Language Teaching

Why Not Indian English as an Alternative to British English for Pedagogical Purposes?

J. John Sekar

Head & Associate Professor, Research Department of English, Dean, Academic Policies & Administration, The American College, Madurai

Keywords: Standard British English, Standard American English, Indian English, Code-mixing/-switching, National Standards of English, Native & Non-Native English

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Abstract

For colonial and historical reasons, Indian academia has been following British English since Independence.  Though American English has become the norm internationally due to the global status that it currently enjoys, Indian academia has not yet recognized this new emergent phenomenon.  Of course, Indian learners of English are increasingly exposed to American English outside of the curriculum.  Meanwhile, Indian English has evolved as a distinct, literary and non-native, national variety over a period of 400 years because of its peaceful co-existence with Indian languages and cultures.  Codemixing and code-switching, phonological and morphological mix and syntactic and grammatical features have made Indian English a distinct variety.  It is high time that Indian academia focussed its attention on Indian English as an alternative to British English.  This paper focuses its attention on the description of Indian English as a distinct variety and the feasibility of exploring possibilities to make it prescriptive for teaching-learning-testing purposes.

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