Resolving language-linked identities

One of the reasons that Indian professionals have an edge in the international job markets is their ability to communicate effectively in English, the lingua franca of today’s world, as well as the international language of business, science and technology. However, this very advantage has led to English being perceived as the language of privilege, and the ability to speak English fluently as an automatic passport into ‘high society’, both, within India and among Indians the world over. The consequent obsession among non-English-speaking Indian parents to give their children the ‘English advantage’, often drives them to try to alienate their children from their mother-tongue in a bid to ‘make them equal’. The result is a growing population of confused youngsters who are intimidated by the dragon that is English, and resentful of those who were ‘born to it’. How can parents resolve these budding cases of identity crisis which can wreak permanent damage upon fragile young minds?

A few years ago, when we moved to the United States on an expatriate assignment for my husband’s office, my then four year old suddenly stopped speaking English—a language she had grown up with along with our native language, Hindi. Homesick for her grandparents—with whom she was used to communicating in her mother tongue—and confused by the different accent (at home we spoke English with the clipped Indian-Anglicised ‘convent school’ accent—a far cry from the American drawl), she found a sense of security and identity in her native language.

However, as she found her feet in her Montessori school, among children who were mostly of Indian origin, her Hindi-speaking was productive of mixed reactions from the parents of her classmates. While most welcomed the fact that their own children had started speaking their mother-tongue to communicate with her, there were some who clearly dismissed us as ‘hicks who didn’t even bother to teach their child English before bringing her to America’. The latter, as I realized over time, were those who had not had the ‘English advantage’ while growing up, and for whom the fact that their children spoke English was literally, a very big deal. They were completely unable to see why I would let my child speak Hindi, or why so many parents were pleased with their children speaking Hindi, ‘even now that they were in America’!

The ‘English Advantage’

This mindset is not limited to expatriate Indians from non English speaking backgrounds. Within India too, especially in urban centres, this tendency is becoming increasingly pronounced. With ‘ownership of the English language’ being perceived as a hallmark of success as well as a passport into the upper echelons of society, there is literally a stampede amongst the ‘newly urbanized middle class’ to convert their offspring into English-speaking snobs who wouldn’t stoop to speak their mother tongue if their life depended on it! The glut of ‘English speaking courses’ proliferating India’s urban centres bears witness to this mania, as do the legions of confused youngsters who refuse to communicate in their mother tongue for fear of being labeled as ‘hicks’ and are unable to speak English, the language of their aspirations, with any level of confidence or competence.

Another factor that further aggravates the issue is that most such parents don’t realize that a language has to be ‘absorbed’, and not learnt by rote. So, not only do they need to start their kids early, but also to allow them a few years to learn the language at one place. Getting disenchanted with a succession of ‘coaching centres’ and shunting their kids from one centre to another only confuses the already alienated children and prevents them from getting any gain out of the whole process.

In fact, research suggests that while non-native speakers may develop fluency in a targeted language after about two years of immersion, it can actually take between five to seven years for these children to be on the same working level as their native speaking counterparts.

Justice Sumant Jindal (name changed) lives is an upmarket Delhi neighbourhood and has a ten year old son, Sushant, who attends one of the capital’s prestigious schools. The child is a good student and talented at sports and music—a source of pride and joy for any parent, you would say. Not so for Justice Sumant Jindal and his wife. The biggest sorrow of their lives is that young Sushant does not speak English fluently, in spite of all the advantages he has. “We have put him in the best school. We have also put him in so many English speaking classes and courses, one after another, but no one is able to help him,” they lament.

Justice Jindal hails from a small town in North India where he received his elementary education in the vernacular medium. Excelling at studies and achieving a position of power and prestige on the basis of sheer grit and determination, he was yet left with a feeling of inadequacy about handling English, the language of his profession and social interaction, as a second language. He wants his only child not to be similarly hampered, hence his anxiety that Sushant be at ease with English.

Nine year old Amayra Sharma, a student of the famous Julia Gabriel Academy in the last one month, has been regularly shunted from one English course to another by her anxious mother, who wants her daughter to speak English fluently despite the fact that theirs is an entirely Punjabi-speaking household. “All the courses are equally hopeless,” she says. “Even after a month in a place like Julia Gabriel’s she’s still speaking Punjabi at home!”

The Cultural Disconnect

Placing such enormous emotional premium on a language that is not part of their home environment, parents from non English speaking backgrounds are often unable to understand the kind of psychological damage they inflict on the very  children for whom they are ‘trying to get the best’.

Language is a communicative tool, related to thought and an instrument of literary expression. It is also a social institution and all human communities recognize the mother tongue as a fundamental element that identifies and shapes the personality of the child. The cultural and geographic environments in which children grow inevitably become inseparable elements of their personality. Thus, the first language is part of their personal, social and cultural identity, as well as a means of reflection and of learning social patterns of behaviour and speech.

When the mother tongue and the official and socially desirable language are the same, there is no contradiction in a child’s growing environment. Problems begin when the mother tongue is different from the official language or the language of social aspiration. Scientists believe that by about the age of seven, children acquire about 70 per cent of their environmental and natural knowledge, and thus, possess a deep understanding of the social and cultural conditions around them. Children whose mother tongue is different from the language they are required to use as they grow up feel they are entering a different world when they go to school.

If, in addition to this already fraught scenario, their mother tongue is banished from their lives—by parents wishing to give them a social leg-up, or by schools trying to mould them into the ‘English medium culture’—these children end up completely cut off from the environment in which they were born and had grown up so far. They face a new environment which is intangible to them. This absence of affinity with the new world doubles their stress because they feel cut off from their roots, adrift in a hostile world that frowns upon their accent and their very identity.

This childhood stress turns into a social problem for these children in later years and is often seen to develop into deep-seated discrimination issues that colour their social behaviour and even affect their personal lives in a negative way, turning them into oppressive, angry adults.

Parental Perceptions

For first generation English learners, the parents enter this ‘new world’ along with their children. As they witness the stresses and the socially disadvantaged status of their children, they often develop anger issues themselves. This further vitiates their children’s environment in this transformational phase of their lives, when they most need emotional stability and support at home.

My domestic helper has large aspirations for her children, Neelu, now aged twenty one and Rajan, eighteen. She and her husband have worked themselves to the bone all their lives to give their children the advantage of an ‘English medium’ private school education after their initial stint in municipal schools. The children too are extremely hard working and ambitious. However, despite their obvious capability and intelligence, they have been unable to land any but the most marginal jobs. Both good looking, well-groomed youngsters, in spite of having acquired the ‘right English accent’—thanks to television—have been repeatedly rejected at interviews for more prestigious jobs as their basic confidence issues come to the fore.

And then there are parents who have themselves experienced this phenomenon, having attended school and/or university in an environment that is far removed from their native environment and mother tongue. They themselves are among the angry people and try to vindicate their own social marginalization by raising their children according to the new world in which the children will find themselves when they grow up. They therefore engage in their own created alienation which, unfortunately, fosters misunderstandings between the generations and often results in distancing them from their children. Sushant Jindal and Amayra Sharma are classic cases in point.

Resolving the Conflict

There is no doubt that fluency in speaking and ease of understanding and writing English—the undisputed language of professional advantage the world over, and that of social advantage within most of the world’s communities—is a required skill in today’s world.

Further, balanced bilinguals perform significantly better in tasks that require flexibility and exhibit higher cognitive development and adaptability because they are more aware of the arbitrary nature of language and choose word associations based on logical rather than phonetic preferences.

However, the problem arises when children from non English speaking backgrounds are force-fed the ‘foreign language’ and alienated from their mother tongue, turning them into confused, emotionally uprooted misfits. The onus of easing their children into the second language and ensuring their healthy mental and emotional development is primarily on their parents.

Understanding the importance of mother tongue: These children, and even more importantly, their parents, need to be convinced that their mother tongue is as important in their lives as the official language that they are required to learn.

Integrating, not alienating: Parents need to get rid of their own insecurities and preconceived notions and help their children perceive English as something they need to master simply for broader social and official interaction in later life. Children who are not pressurized accept and learn new things much better. They have to be supported and helped to integrate English into their lives as an important skill, but not as something that overshadows every other aspect of their lives and alienates them from everything they have been born and grown up with.

Time and Acceptance: Expecting non-native children to master a new language, virtually overnight, is both unrealistic and unfair. Research suggests that children who have not been exposed to English at home from birth need to be given at least two years to be comfortable with it, and at least seven years to be at par with those who were ‘born to it’.

The ultimate need is to help these children develop into youngsters who can function comfortably in their academic and work environments using English, and are equally at ease in their family life and native social milieu using their mother tongues.

Tagged: communication, cultural, English, language, linguistic, mother tongue, official, personal, social, success.