LINGUIST List 17.1755
Fri Jun 09 2006
Diss: Historical Ling: Bandyopadhyay: 'Archaelology of Bangla Grammar'
Editor for this issue: Meredith Valant
<meredithlinguistlist.org>
Directory
1. Debaprasad
Bandyopadhyay,
Archaeology of Bangla Grammar
Message 1: Archaeology of Bangla Grammar
Date: 09-Jun-2006
From: Debaprasad Bandyopadhyay < bandyoisical.ac.in>
Subject: Archaeology of Bangla Grammar
Institution: Pattabhi Sriramalu University, Hyderabad
Program: Ph.D.
Dissertation Status: Completed
Degree Date: 1996
Author: Debaprasad Bandyopadhyay
Dissertation Title: Archaeology of Bangla Grammar
Linguistic Field(s):
Historical Linguistics
Subject Language(s): Bengali (ben)
Dissertation Director:
B. Ramkrisna Reddy
Dissertation Abstract:
This dissertation is on the 'origin' and 'development' or constitution ofan object called 'Bangla Grammar', though all the epistemes within thesingle quote were questioned in this narrative, i.e., two signifieds (theyare ultimately signifiers) involved in this project ('Bangla' and'Grammar') were also scrutinized. The problematic questions, which wereinvolved here:
A. What is this metaphysical totality called 'Bangla'? What were itschanging (diachronic) geo-political boundaries? Who, based on certainallegedly defined homogenous modular form, are imagined within 'our'nation, and who are the 'outsider'? This question triggers theinclusion-exclusion factor of the imagined nation.
B. Are the 'insiders' of this nation homogenous complex? The mediators (inthis case, Language Managers, Language Judges and Language Police ofcolonized civil society) of the civil society were trying to homogenisethem by standardising, appropriating, codifying, grammaticalizing oneselected variety (religious or linguistic) for the sake of one metaphysicalumbrella called 'Bangla'. Here comes the question of standardization andgrammaticalization of chosen module. Inside 'others' (the constructs like'dialects', 'folk-language') were to be considered under such standardgrammatical module.
C. Is such standard grammatical/sastrika module a classic language?Searching (constructed) classical heritage entails enumerated and fantasticdeterministic history and a retrospective tribute to the predecessors, bywhom the private property of the selected module was to be transmitted tothe inheritors, the present inhabitants of the nation.
The whole project of projecting A, B, C needs institutional managerialsystem within the civil society-- where a group of, language-judges(grammarians),language-managers (language policy makers) and languagepolices (teachers of Ideological State Apparatuses) were operating tocontrol and appropriate a chosen "good" language. They were engaged inbuilding an 'Autonomous History' or an 'Autonomous Grammar' simultaneouslyas there was a growing need for national identity (the imagination of whichwas a colonial derivative) among the elite in the context of 19 CIndustrial Capitalism. The whole hi(story) of such institutionalization oflanguage-selection and grammaticalization of the selected variety wasnarrated in the dissertation in the context of colonial period of Bangla.This thesis argues that the discursive formation of Bangla grammars, thecategoremes of grammar, order of things - all of them reflect the colonialstatist constitution as well as domestic order of things in a form ofhierarchical taxonomy. In the hybrid space of a colony, the categories ofgrammar were epistemologically amalgamated—some categoremes were borrowedfrom donor Sahibs' domain and some were from Classical Sanskrit Grammar,which was also donating in the formation of Linguistics. Thus,epistemological amalgamation was a certain kind of reciprocal role-reversalof donor-receptor. Lastly, a question was raised on the utility of grammarin the pedagogical purpose. If we can create infinite set of sentences outof finite sets of words, why should we endorse something, which is nothingbut meta-symbolic order (grammar) over the symbolic order of language? Theconcept of Anti-grammar(=GrammEr) was proposed with a goal to achieveideology of deschooling. Anti-grammar is a biologically constitutedalgorithm/scheme for language. However, this biological competence was alsoquestioned in this thesis by introducing a hypothesis. The hypothesis,concisely, describes the correlation between empty linguistic organism andhuman malleability.
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