LINGUIST List 17.1731
Wed Jun 07 2006
Diss: Historical Ling: Mukhopadhyay: 'Archaeology of Bangla Languag...'
Editor for this issue: Meredith Valant
<meredithlinguistlist.org>
Directory
1. Sibansu
Mukhopadhyay,
Archaeology of Bangla Language and Literature
Message 1: Archaeology of Bangla Language and Literature
Date: 07-Jun-2006
From: Sibansu Mukhopadhyay <sibansu_mukhopadhyayrediffmail.com>
Subject: Archaeology of Bangla Language and Literature
Institution: University of Kalyani
Program: Ph. D.
Dissertation Status: Completed
Degree Date: 2002
Author: Sibansu Mukhopadhyay
Dissertation Title: Archaeology of Bangla Language and Literature
Linguistic Field(s):
Historical Linguistics
Subject Language(s): Bengali (ben)
Dissertation Director:
Debaprasad Bandyopadhyay
K.S. Ghatak
Dissertation Abstract:
This thesis is primarily on the 'origin' 'birth' 'genesis' of a language'Bangla', revealed in the discursive formation of a subject, The Historyof Bangla Language and Literature, written in the colonial andpost-colonial period.
The thesis shows that the imagination of territory 'Bengal' was subscribedby the disciplinary technology of ideological state apparatuses as it wasconstituted in the colonial period. As an imagined nation, Bangla had tohave a definite territory with a centrally controlled standard language and'other' variations. The 'other' speakers under the umbrella of Bangla,though captivated by the standard language, got the status of Banglathrough the epistemology of linguistics. As a nation, then, it needs adefinite history with deterministic linear development. History of Banglalanguage and literature is no exception. The discourse of Bangla languageand literature produces a linear deterministic periodiztion of languagesand literatures. There are three certain periods in Bangla language as wellas literature: Old, Middle, Modern. This thesis argues that this is merehistoricism and a mimicry of colonizers' periodization. Not only that, thehistory of language overlaps history of literature, as if changes inexternalized language determines the changes of literary content.
In the first chapter of the thesis, the methodology of research wasdiscussed. In this chapter the key words are: archaeology, non-discursiveformation, historical a priori, episteme, genealogical fantasy, mimicry ofover-determination, etc. The second chapter, explores and questions theessential geopolitical construction of a nation (in this case Bengal) andits totalizing effect on the subjects. The term 'Bangla' is liable tosemantic change. However, in the process of constructing history per se,whatever is diachronically constructed as Bangla ultimately subscribes theconstruction of heritage in a form of genealogical fantasy. The thirdchapter of the thesis is on the 'History of Bangla literature', which as anationalistic enterprise was framed on the basis of Hindu-Bangla equation.On the other hand, this equation was pervaded by a different discourse,where the discourse of Islam was foregrounded. To define Bangla, the Hinduintelligentsia emphasized: 1. Bangla is equal to Hindu, so, the Muslimsshould be excluded from the history; 2. for the sake of fantastic genealogyBangla had to be proved as a classical entity, therefore, the categorieslike 'folk' 'tribe' had been marginalized but were not excluded and wereput into a different bin; 3. history was considered as a biological processof monolithic and linear 'development'. In the fourth chapter, the birth ofBangla as a discipline in the colonial period was elaborated. And the lastchapter concentrates on the Bangla diaspora and Bangla as a hyper-reality.
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