Language and communication

As part of training in phonetics, students listen to 44 sounds in the English language at a college in Tiruchi. - S.R. RAGHUNATHAN

The majority of Indians will remain on the fringes of knowledge if they fail to master the modes of communication.

LANGUAGE is the development of the basic form of communication between human beings, and in a society. And just as it is the basic form, it is also the most developed. We cannot communicate in any real sense without language, other than through gestures; we do communicate through some non-verbal forms like the visual arts - painting and sculpture - and through dance, but the culmination of true, articulate, communication is through language. It could take a number of forms, of course. It could be unvarnished, workaday prose, it could be poetry, it could be drama; but all of these are forms of language, written, spoken and read.

You may wonder why I am spelling out what are elementary, basic and self-evident truths. It is for two reasons: one is that from time to time we need to reiterate to ourselves some truths that, without such reiteration, may well recede into the background of one's concerns; and the other is the present situation in which we find ourselves with regard to language.

Let us, for the purposes of this argument, set aside the question of English and the mother tongue. Let us limit our concern to English. It is this language that is used in the world of finance, commerce, education, research, and the dissemination of knowledge (though other languages play different roles in some of these areas as well). It is essential if one is to study medicine, for example; or if one is to become a pilot of a sophisticated fighter aircraft. And it is the language of management, indeed of government, in most parts of the country.

But the purpose is not to argue for or against the English language. It is there and we need to recognise that it will be there for many years to come, and play a vital role in the evolution of India as a major economic and political force in the world. And in other areas as well - creative writing, for example, in which Indian writers have won world renown and respect.

Given this situation, it is necessary to look at what is happening to the language, because it is, like all languages, the primary and most sophisticated means of communication between people. If communication is to be truly close and meaningful, if complex ideas are to be communicated with clarity and understood without any ambiguity, then it follows that the users of this language must be skilled in its use. They may not be Shakespeares or Miltons, but they must be familiar with what words mean, and what they do not.

"You should say what you mean," the March Hare told Alice in Alice in Wonderland. "I do," Alice replied, "at least I mean what I say - that's the same thing, you know." "Not the same thing a bit!" said the Hatter, "You might as well say that `I see what I eat' is the same thing as `I eat what I see.'" That is precisely the point. The way in which the language is being used more and more is making it pretty much what the Hatter said to Alice.

We are all aware that the young use colloquialisms, and slang, and that its use is considered to be very trendy - "cool", as they like to say, very "groovy". That is fine; it is what happens to language through the ages - it evolves and new words, expressions and usages surface. But these usually come about to make meanings clearer, not to confuse and blur them. I was told that at marketing meetings, where professionals hold forth on the success of their strategies, it is more "the market's rocking, man" than specific information on what the nature of their triumph is. Again, the phrase, as phrases go, is innocuous enough, a little curious, but understandable. But it teeters on the brink of obscurity; its use does not indicate anything other than the fact that they are doing well.

And what is happening is, to a very large extent, because of the fact that people who are now coming into fairly important marketing and management positions are using language in this manner - a manner that reveals their inability to express themselves in it clearly, in precise terms. It reflects in the kind of advertisements one sees, where a debased form, supposedly loved by the young, is used. Its basis is bad English. Now, when this sort of thing is dinned into the heads of young people through television and the kind of programmes that appear to fascinate them, some of the corruption creeps into the everyday speech and indeed, the writing of the young.

Recently I had to point out to the editor of a well-known journal that a young reporter had used the phrase someone or the other had "whetted" the Prime Minister's speech, when she meant "vetted". It obviously was not a typographical error, but what was truly disturbing was that this absurdity had passed through various levels in the journal and been cleared for publication in that form. One person can be careless; but a whole hierarchy of editors? It reinforces just what I am saying: the language is being used - at times deliberately, at other times out of ignorance - in a manner which can lead finally to a situation when communication, its prime function, will break down. The bright young things writing advertising copy can play with language only if they are sure that those who read their distorted absurdities actually know the correct forms and are, consequently, diverted by such antics.

But it would be less than fair to blame the advertising and marketing world alone. The primary cause for the near-breakdown in communication is the appalling nature of English language teaching. In most States, even in private schools, there are teachers whose knowledge of English is atrocious. Some cannot spell correctly; others have only a vague idea of what grammar means; and most have a pitifully small vocabulary. This is what they communicate to their students. Small wonder, then, that these students come out of schools, and then carry into college the wreckage of a form of communication that is covered up for a time by being passed off as college slang - "fundas" and "fatchas" are prime examples - but then they have to face the big bad world of work. And that is where the poor grasp of English brings with it standards which can only go down, never up.

There are those who learn to write and speak the language well, true; but how many are they? We are talking of the English speaking class in general; if this class is the class which produces managers, professionals in different fields and experts, how on earth can levels of knowledge be retained? I have heard doctors who speak an English that is barely recognisable as such, and yet they have impressive professional degrees. How did they get them? That, really, is the kind of question that is worrying.

It is time that some serious thought is given to this, and the subject looked at shorn of any political baggage. If we are to take a major place in the world of international finance, commerce, industry, research and education, we cannot depend on the skills and knowledge of a handful of gifted individuals. There are just that many Amartya Sens and Jagdish Bhagwatis. What after them? As the world evolves and grows, we need to grow with it, and we will if the modes of communication are mastered by most of our bright people. Otherwise we will remain on the fringes of knowledge and academics and international management.

There are British or U.S. nationals of Indian origin who are doing well, true enough. One is not, frankly, interested in them. One is interested in, and concerned about, our young people, about Indians; they are among the brightest, and most intelligent of their generation. It would be a terrible tragedy if their inability to express themselves were to blight their future.