Ramanathan, Vaidehi. (2005). The English-Vernacular divide: Postcolonial language politics and practice. Review by Jeffrey Bale

Ramanathan, Vaidehi. (2005). The English-Vernacular divide: Postcolonial language politics and practice. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters. pp. v-xii + 143 ISBN 1-85359-769-4 Review by Jeffrey Bale Arizona State University January 7, 2007 The academic fields of postcolonial studies and language policy and planning have intermingled for some time now. One result of this fusion has been greater attention paid not just to the effects of globalization within postcolonial language contexts, but also to how local practices and cultures in turn react to, resist and reshape the forces of internationalization (Canagarajah, 2005). Vaidehi Ramanathan’s latest work makes an invaluable contribution to better understanding these processes through an analysis of how local power structures in the Indian state of Gujarat conform to and confound the pressures of English as a global language. In particular, her book reflects an important shift in our understanding not just of constant pressures of English, but also of the dynamics of how such colonial languages have been nativized within postcolonial contexts. Of equal importance to this study is its focus on how individual actors negotiate this interaction, what Ramanathan calls “postcolonial hybridity” (p. vii), in ways that at once challenge and reinforce the deep social divisions that characterize specific countries. An particular strength to this research is that its author, now an associate professor at the University of California, Davis, was schooled in one of the institutions included in the study. Thus, we gain an important, if at times conflicted, perspective on the social dynamics at work in Gujarat of a simultaneous insider-outsider. The book is built around an ethnographic study the author conducted over the span of seven years of site visits in Gujarat, India primarily during the summer months. The focus of the study is what the author characterizes as a divide between English and Vernacular languages (here, Gujarati) and how specific language policies and social practices at once exacerbate and overcome this divide. Ramanathan situates her book thus: From particular vantage points, this book highlights the English-Vernacular chasm by focusing on particular social stratifications on the ground—class, gender, caste—where individual efforts are not necessarily foregrounded. But from other vantage points, the book is also oriented toward capturing local resistances by calling attention to how particular teachers and institutions engage in critical practice by negotiating with the larger labyrinth to mitigate English’s divisive role and to bridge the English-Vernacular gulf proactively. (p. 4, italics in original) The author focused on three institutions of higher education in Gujarat to explore these themes. One institution is a Vernacular-medium (VM) college for women who are predominantly low-income. The second is a private business college that uses English as its medium for instruction (EM), although it does admit a few VM students. The third institution is a co-educational Jesuit institution that is primarily an EM college, but that in recent years has taken active steps to create tracks to admit and educate low-income, low-caste VM students. Over the course of her study, Ramanathan conducted over eighty interviews with VM and EM students, as well as another 21 interviews with faculty members at the three institutions. Additionally, the author spent over 100 hours observing classes and other daily practices at the three colleges. The third and final source of data for this study came from documents found at the three institutions as well as in other educational contexts in Gujarat, ranging from textbooks used at the K-12 level to college circulars, newsletters, and internal documents. Before turning to the specific findings of her study, Ramanathan first situates her study against the backdrop of official language policies, both historical and contemporary, in India. She briefly traces the historical development of pro-Vernacular language policies from Ghandi to the Remove English Lobby to contemporary language policies in the state of Gujarat. Her discussion is on the one hand practical, identifying specific policies that mandate the manner and timing of how second language instruction is to be implemented in EM and VM tracks at the K-12 level. On the other, Ramanathan looks at the impact of these language policies on social practices, stressing how the history of language policies discussed has led to a specific assumption nexus (pp. 36-37) that explains what middle class, English-dominant Indians have come to expect both socially and educationally as a result of their command of the English language. Three broad themes emerge from the findings of Ramanthan’s study. The first concerns what she calls divergent pedagogical tools. The discussion is based on analysis of textbooks used for English language instruction in VM and EM schools at the K-12 level in Gujarat. While both sets of texts share a common framework of being structured around “minimal levels of learning” (akin to standards-based learning in the US) and of infusing language instruction with secular values, it is the divergences between these two sets of textbooks that stand out most starkly. English language instruction in the VM is described as focused on developing survival English by acquiring discrete grammatical skills by means of rote, patterned activities. In contrast, language and literature activities in the EM textbooks are centered around self-discovery, expressing the students’ voice in their writing and more creative and analytical responses to the texts they read. In addition, the texts in the VM books are almost exclusively of local themes and traditions, using native cultural constructs to teach English. The texts in the EM books, on the other hand, are works from the traditional British “canon” that challenge EM students not only to acquire and master the English language, but also to adopt a vision of culture that is framed by the British. The effect of these divergences in EM and VM English textbooks is to produce two very different types of literacy in English. The author identifies how the limited, survival-oriented approaches to English in the VM track of K-12 education precludes most VM students from acquiring advanced levels of English proficiency. This process acts as a gatekeeper, preventing VM students from passing the state-mandated exams that allow them to enter more prestigious EM institutions of higher education, or to study more prestigious EM majors, such as engineering and technology. The second theme in Ramanthan’s findings emerges from a comparative analysis of texts and practices at the VM women’s college and the EM private business college. Based on observations and interviews, the author finds English language instruction at the VM women’s college to be more focused on the acquisition of discrete grammar skills. She documents how local Hindu practices of choral reading and recall are infused in English-language instruction so that students have a familiar entryway into practicing English vocabulary and grammar. Because the Vernacular is used in instruction to translate almost word for word the English literary texts, the author argues that students feel distanced from the works they are learning. In both cases, emphasis is on finding the correct answer to problems posed to students. By contrast, English instruction in the EM business college is based on group work that emphasizes collective approaches to acquiring the language. Moreover, English is taught in context, using business themes that students are learning in their other courses. The author then analyzes specific attempts at critical practice by instructors at both institutions to bridge class, gender and caste divides. These efforts include student oragnizations at the women’s college to promote students’ ability to be confident actors outside of their traditional roles as women in low caste society, as well as tutoring programs at the business college for the few VM students who have matriculated. The third theme in this study’s findings addresses the consequences of tracking at the Jesuit college. The institution draws on four Jesuit conceptions of social justice to take active steps in encouraging low caste VM students to attend what otherwise is a predominantly EM college. Part of these initiatives comes in response to state mandates to track VM students in EM institutions. At this Jesuit college, this has meant in practice the creation of two programming tracks for VM students at the college, differentiated only by the number of years of English-language instruction the students have had. The faculty’s commitment to VM students is seen, however, in that one track for VM is reserved almost exclusively for low caste Dalit students. Ramanathan finds conflicting practices related to this tracking, some that maintain the EM-VM divide, others that attempt to challenge it. She approves of the bilingual approach to English language instruction for the tracked VM students, but finds that the focus is still on grammar, which limits the level of proficiency these students ultimately acquire. She also cites the frustration of some English faculty who feel their focus should be on literature, but who are most often expected to teach language. Finally, she cites the efforts of the new president of the college, trained at Georgetown University in applied linguistics, to use his training to foster a multilingual environment while creating English courses that better meet the needs of the institution’s students. Ramanathan’s findings enrich our understanding of the processes of linguistic imperialism (Phillipson, 1992), which often tend to focus exclusively on external pressures on postcolonial societies. The author affords the reader a fascinating look at how a colonial language has been nativized in such a way that local power structures now take on the role of policing society, linguistically and otherwise, to maintain those social divides. What makes the analysis even more insightful is the author’s commitment to identifying attempts to challenge the tremendous and constricting weight of power and social divides. Still, I am left with certain questions and concerns. Some of the strongest challenges to the class, caste and gender divides that characterize the society in which this study takes place are heavily influenced by outside traditions. That is, neither the Jesuit tradition nor the master’s degree that the president of the Jesuit college received at Georgetown University are indigenous to Gujarat. I wondered about the relationship between these “outsiders” and the commitment the author ascribes to them in challenging social divides in Gujarat. Are these other examples of nativized external experiences, or is there really a direct influence from the outside that helps explain the level of commitment to aiding low caste VM students? A second question concerns what appears to be an inconsistency in how Ramanathan analyzes the use of local cultural and literacy constructs in English language instruction for VM students. In her analysis of K-12 textbooks, she argues that the use of VM concepts is limiting for those students as compared to the British texts that empower EM students to acquire the type of English literacy that will later act as a springboard to a more prestigious college education. Yet in her discussion of the women’s college and the VM track of the Jesuit college, Ramanathan reflects a more approving attitude toward the use of the native language and native cultural and literacy practices in the teaching of English. It is unclear why infusing English language instruction with native cultural concepts and the native language is not a positive practice in all instances investigated here. My concern about this book is the impact of social theory on its construction. On the one hand, Ramanathan points out the limitations of post-modern conceptions of a fluid reality when they confront the deep social chasms she observed in Gujarat along class, caste, gender, and linguistic lines. I tend to think that the assumptions of post-modernism in its claims that reality is too constructed, too multi-faceted, too complex to be captured and analyzed systematically have led to almost nihilistic excesses that disempower us from understanding, confronting and overcoming oppressive social practices. Ramanathan suggests that the social divisions she observed in India are so profound as to challenge these post-modern assumptions. This theme could have been developed more explicitly throughout the text to a good end. Social theory serves to complicate the language Ramanthan uses at particular points. Her discussion of the findings of her study—as well as how those findings relate to any number of theoretical frameworks in applied linguistics, literacy and cultural studies interspersed brilliantly throughout the book—is lucid, clear, and moving, This discussion is framed, however, by two chapters that are more theoretical in stance. And it is here that Ramanthan goes astray. Her commitment to questioning the assumptions made about knowledge, society and research leads her to use a sort of language that leaves her readers behind. No amount of quotation marks, parenthetical affixes [e.g., (dis)empowering] and portmanteaus (e.g., s/he) can adequately capture the epistemological and social assumptions that guide this book. Instead, such wordsmithing is distracting and ultimately detracts from what otherwise is a powerful, meaningful study. I obviously do not agree with the assumptions behind post-modern ideologies; however, there are plenty of other studies that do share these epistemological perspectives that still manage to present their ideas and findings in crystal clear language (e.g. Kouritzin, 1999; Li, 2002; Tobin, 2005). References Canagarajah, A. S. (2005). Introduction. In: Reclaiming the local in language policy and pratice. A.S. Canagarajah (Ed.) Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum and Associates. Kouritzin, S.G. (1999). Face[t]s of first language loss. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum and Associates. Li, G. (2002). East is East, West is West: Home literacy, culture, and schooling. New York: Peter Lang. Phillipson, R. (1992). Linguistic imperialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Tobin, J. (2005). Scaling up as catechresis. International Journal of Research & Method in Education 28(1), 23-32. About the Reviewer Jeffrey Bale is a PhD student in education language policy at Arizona State University. His dissertation will focus on the ideological and practical consequences of linking language education advocacy to national security needs. As an intern with the Language Policy Research Unit at ASU, he also is investigating historical and contemporary efforts to maintain Arabic as a heritage language in the United States. A final strand of research takes a comparative look at the dynamics of globalization at institutions of higher education, in particular ASU's "New American University" initiative. He holds a Master's degree in German linguistics and literature from Georgetown University.