WHAT IN THE WORLD IS LANGUAGE?
With the MOI issue popping up its ugly head ever so frequently it might be a good idea to take a closer look at the one-eyed monster: language. For most politicians it appears to be no more than a political issue in search of a political solution. No more, no less, leaving me with a feeling of déjà vu. No need to debate or discuss what is the nature of language? When the Roman Catholic Church swayed in favor of the BJP prior to the election in Goa no one accused the Church of communalism then for obvious reasons. If anything the Church showed how much they were against corruption and wanted a change away from the corrupt Congress. The political party they supported formed the government with their significant contribution and won; but over a period of three years and more the Church and its supporters feel terribly let down as the BJP has made a series of U-turns leaving their voters surprised and dizzy. The MOI issue has struck an emotional chord with all the poor parents from the various communities in Goa which in English or Konkani or Marathi means the voters who are poor have had enough, more than enough and refuse to trust the government anymore or be taken for a ride! Why ride? After a number of U-turns trust in the government is at an all time low. How do you trust someone who is untrustworthy? How can voters trust a government which has made several U-turns on major issues? Has the trust in the government been misunderstood by the people in power as having fooled the people who supported them? The government has a choice with regard to the MOI issue. If the principle of primary education is universal and learners have to be taught in the mother tongue then ALL schools in Goa - government and private - need to allow each and every learner to be able to study in English or no one. In short, no more private English medium schools. There cannot be two contradictory and valid learning linguistic principles, one for government school learners and the other for private school learners. Now let's take a look at language. Every language in the world appears to have at least four dimensions and in no particular order of importance since all are necessary. This is, by the way, how I view language and others no doubt will see it differently! Live and let live? While thinking of the problem of what is intrinsic to language it might it be useful to keep in mind the four dimensions which are discussed briefly below apply to written as well as spoken language. So let's begin anywhere, and a good place is the obvious, the building blocks of language — grammar — nouns, verbs, syntax, punctuation, and so on which is a part of written and spoken language. Then, of course, there is the content which is ordinary or specialized. Next, the forms of the language. Just as a temple is designed differently from a house or restaurant — its function is different — so is a poem different from a business letter, a short story from an essay, and so on. Finally, let's take a look at the aesthetic aspect of language which involves choices, for we choose to speak or write in a certain way. The artistic value of poetry, drama, fiction, and so on is to write in a way so the meaning is not literal, it is the language of metaphor. A sage once observed, 'the problem of literature is that the meaning is not on the page.' And, we might add in this age of the Internet nor is it on the screen. To decipher this non-literal type of language, an aspect of what I like to label the aesthetic dimension, the king and queen of the literal meaning of words - the dictionary and computer - are able to take us only so far, which is sadly not far enough. But not to include this type of text or seriously limit it in the curriculum for whatever reason is to prevent our students, particularly at the university level, from developing their aesthetic faculties in regard to the study of language. We need to provide them with the whole of language. Literature, from the aspect of the aesthetic dimension, is simply the high point of language and is not, and cannot be separated from the study of language at a higher level. Oscar Wilde once had this to say of literature, 'It's not what you say but how you say it.' University students need to be taught a language in all its four dimensions. Not to do so is to have a language curriculum at the university level which is something less than what language is, and I suspect is the main cause of re-invention of the wheel every decade or so in the field of language teaching at the tertiary level. We need to go beyond the usual approach of what teachers would like to teach and also enquire into the nature of language itself, so we can offer university students the whole of language, and not bits and pieces which change every few years with the changing winds of linguistic fashion. To do anything less than this is to rob our students of the richness of language and for language teachers to live in a world of self delusion.
