Hinglishisation of English: Hinglish, The Language of 21st Century

Abstract

Abstract

Sociolinguistics is one of the central branches of modern linguistics which deals with the place of language in human societies and used to describe the connection between social behavior and the language. It examines the interplay of language and society, with language as the starting point. It is the descriptive study of the effect of all aspects of society, including cultural norms, expectations, and context, on the way language is used. Variation is the key concept, applied to language itself and to its use. It studies how language varieties differ between groups separated by certain social variables, e.g., ethnicity, religion, status, gender, level of education, age, etc. The basic premise of sociolinguistics is that language is variable and changing. As a result, language is not homogeneous. It studies language in its social context, and analyses the actual language use by different speakers in order to explain language variation and language change. Contact is an important concept in sociolinguistics ? social contact and language contact. Domination of one language is not a thing of today. All languages have developed through contact and mixing with other languages. Hindi and English are themselves examples of languages that have grown out of massive admixture through contact. Language change spreads through networks of people who talk with one another. Contact between languages brings about variation and change. Situations of language contact are usually socially complex, making them of interest to sociolinguists. Bilingualism or multilingualism is another response to language contact. Sociolinguistics investigates language attitudes on different levels of interpersonal communication: local and global. Language use and language variation affects every language user in a unique way. In the present communication-based society, no natural language seems to have been left untouched by the trends of code-mixing. For different communicative purposes, a language uses linguistic codes from other languages. This gives rise to a mixed language which is neither totally the host language nor the foreign language. If we don?t add the tadka (seasoning) of our own linguistic mix, the curry wouldn?t be spicy enough. Here linguistic purity is not very much considered. While reviewing the book Balwinder Kaur says, ?all present-day languages have evolved from old ones and all languages are born and thrive on hybridisation?. (The Tribune,2011) G.J.V Prasad cites his own childhood in Delhi as an example where the rainbow of Indian languages blended beautifully and communication took priority over lingual purity. Shannon Anderson-Finch believes that Hindi-English mixing is a linguistic resource and bilingual speakers use it to express themselves strategically and creatively. Equally intriguing is the concept of the multilingual mind by Tej K. Bhatia, which involves both language separation and integration termed ?code mixing? and ?code switching?. Also examined by Devyani Sharma is the infiltration of Indian languages into British English and how this cross-cultural exchange has led to ?mixed code? and ?hybrid identity?.(2011)