English language as a medium of instruction was introduced in India in the nineteenth century by Lord William Bentick, the then GOVERNOR general of India, for imparting western education system. Even English played a great role in our freedom movement. It served as a lingua franca among the Indians belonging to different religions and provinces. Again, it was through this language that India became aware of great strides made by the western civilisation, science and culture.
English is no longer the language of the British. The journey which started with the Anglo – Saxons gradually spread over the world. Needless to say that use of English in all functional domains has become inevitable. India being a colony of the Britishers is still carrying forward the language legacy. In India the English language has earned the status of the official language as well. The today’s population of India specifically the young generation are more inclined towards English language.
It is a well known fact that the advanced knowledge of science, technology, space research, nuclear field, medicine, engineering etc is abundantly available in English language. By learning the language the Indians have been able to gain access to this vast treasure of knowledge in the field of science of technology.
English has become a part and parcel of an educated Indian , be it academics, be it business English has become a need. Well, some social scientists even claim that rapid growth of English in India is somehow causing vernacular or indigenous languages lose its own communicative domain. However, considering the hasty escalation of the use of English in India it will not be an exaggeration to say that the future prospect of English in India is really high and the speaker strength of English language can reach the pinnacle point in the up coming years.
LINGUISTICS- study of language
Language is the mode of communication through which one can express his/her thoughts, feelings, opinions etc. Language has been defined in various ways by various scholars. However, the study of language rather the scientific study of language is termed as linguistics. Language is a multi dynamic and complex system, which is rule governed and comprises meaningful messages. The primary form of language is always spoken. Linguistics can study languages in general or a language in particular.
A language can be studied from different aspects. Phonology and phonetics deal with the sounds of language , morphology studies words. Where as study of sentences or syntactic structures of languages is termed as syntax. Interestingly, meaning of languages is studied in two different ways i.e. pragmatics and semantics.
Language is an exclusive human property and humans are social animals. It is quite obvious that society influence language use which works the other way as well. The study of language in relation to the society is termed as socio-linguistics. Studying language from historical perspective is termed as historical linguistics. The domain of applied linguistics comprises computational linguistics, stylistic, lexicography, psycholinguistics, clinical linguistics, forensic linguistics etc etc.
Perhaps, language is the only quality which differs humans from animals. As, rightly claimed by the veteran linguist Noam Chomsky , a human child is born with a language faculty , as he/she grows old he/she keeps on acquiring languages unlike the animals.
