Hi, Jessica.
Jessica Chandra's and the title of the paper is language ideologies as urban industrial infrastructure associated with spatial analysis of identity,
belonging and multilingualism, including Maharashtra.
Take it away. Thank you. No.
Thank you for attending. I know it's getting late in India, so I appreciate seeing the numbers of of attendees.
It's great. So in this paper, I'm trying out some new methods and analysis and anthropology.
Ultimately, I'm trying to map language to identity to space, so I'm going to read a bit and then also present on the slides.
So let's see if I can share my screen.
Here we go. OK, so taking you to Brunei today, I'm going to share with you some implications of navigating an urban Indian linguistic context,
and I'm so happy to present as part of this panel because I think it's been
really interesting to hear different aspects of identity and language so far.
I argue in this paper that language contributes to subjectively experiencing where we go.
Yes, language contributes to subjectively experiencing WHO spatial organisation.
I present what I'm calling a linguistic infrastructure or the socio spatial linguistic boundaries of the city from data I collected
using ethnographic and mapping methods and linguistic analysis from my dissertation and dissertation research and from 2016 to 2018.
I ground this discussion of multimodal semiotics in language ideologies as beliefs about language that motivate behaviour.
I do this to expand an understanding of the ways language ideologies are enacted and circulated.
Language ideologies are a useful platform to explore subjective experiences of belonging
through language and spatial navigation because they reflect politically charged,
purposeful and directed ways of using language, as well as representing shared beliefs about language.
In this paper, I'll explore multilingual practises as code switches between distinct and marked language
varieties due to language and evidencing placemaking and socio spatial boundaries.
I also define code switching within a context of trans language or an integrated communication repertoire,
as code switching is a hegemonic linguistic practise that upholds socialised language
hierarchies by considering different communicative and ideological domains,
mainly in this paper and in my research amongst English, Hindi, Marathi and in the study.
So understanding the city's infrastructure and spatial organisation through language guides,
one's experiences of the city and role within it by bringing out overlapping similarities in navigating social space and
socially constructed understandings of identity and belonging as language plays an important role in our daily interactions.
And as as you all know, it is common for people in India to speak and understand more than one language or dialect.
I gave this paper actually as to a an American audience, so some of the things I explain are a little bit far beyond what you may need.
But communication can often entail different scripts as well.
In multilingual settings such as ideologies about languages can index various aspects of identities and language.
Ideologies play a role in this index process.
Languages and the aesthetics of languages communicate meaning and also index identities and in-group belonging, including.
My goal in this paper, then, is to expand on and link a discussion of language ideologies to experiencing physical space
through visual language modalities as an analysis of identity categories and belonging,
and to evidence the circulation of language ideologies and to explain a bit more of the social and linguistic landscape,
I'll explore signs, their scripts and placements.
Second, I will share hand-drawn maps that illuminate subjective experiences of the signed scripts and languages as semiotic identity markers.
I used a form of map drawing called mental mapping and language on signs throughout three neighbourhoods to show
distinctions and linguistic communities that order experiences of movement in daily life through linguistic resources.
The result, when considering these examples of signs and maps, is an analysis of how language,
how knowledge of meanings attached to languages and scripts circulate amongst
residents and contributes to social stratification through identity categories.
So important to note that while Mumbai is the capital of Maharashtra,
Pune commonly referred to as the cultural capital and the long history attached to this is sort of separate from my argument.
But what's important to note is that I draw upon for my immediate argument the strong history
of Marathi language use and greenery tied to traditional ideals of cultural Hindu orthodoxy.
So to explain examples of ways that linguistic expectations play out in visual language on science,
I'll share the collection of science here and explain their significance.
It's important to note that there's I'm drawing also on the provision of the 2001 and
2008 amendments to the Maharashtra Shops and Establishments Act of Nineteen Sixty One,
which states that all signboards and name plates of commercial establishments must be in the script.
It is common to see assigned words of English names and words in the Roman script and
the vernacular script usually transliterated and sometimes translated into Marathi.
And so here the the signs. I think we're really interested almost across the street from each other on City Road in the central area of.
So no parking on the right in in English and three different scripts and then no parking.
And then they got it's got yellow.
Translated into an aggregate in Marathi.
So many establishments in newer areas of the city have responded to this act by having their names prominently displayed in the Roman
script and then include a small transliteration of the name in the script usually displayed under or to the side of the English one.
So I provide here typical signboard located in three areas of the city and demonstrated on the map.
There, I draw these examples from around the more cosmopolitan and ethnically socioeconomically mixed neighbourhood Deccan Gymkhana,
a more conservative Hindu Brahmin neighbourhood. And finally, from the Old City in ship to our pet, which is on the next couple of slides.
So important to note also that while these are distinct neighbourhoods in Pune,
they're not as exclusively homogenous as I've described them here, but I use the glasses that my interlocutors explain in them to me with.
So in this slide, these are from as the the X is on the map show.
They're from ound and deccan and you have kind of a typical scene.
Many of you are probably familiar with this from Pune and from other cities as well,
but the names in the Roman script are their English words or or words like fasttrack.
And then this script, written in India, inaugurate the the names written in Devon Augury and to the side,
the dental tree one was really interesting because it's also transliterated dental tree, but then also rich in that.
And so I can't now. So a translation as well in Devon.
And then the recipe signed from Deccan, almost a mirror image, which I thought was really interesting in size,
colour, the size of the sign, size of the script colour as well, but the English word recipe transliterated.
So the next slide then shows. We go next.
Ampoules from Chicago. I pick and you see in the in the bottom sign, they're almost the flipped aesthetic of English.
So Green Bakery. But The Menagerie transliteration very, very large and then English in Roman script small beneath it and other signs around it.
Also having very different aesthetics and endeavour, augury and the sign on the right as well, showing Charlie silks.
So some English words, but all in not great wholesale direct resale, and we create an interesting kind of interchange of English and Marathi.
OK, so the signs and scripts I bring them here to represent you will examples of what I then go to the maps with of the
linguistic landscape of these three central neighbourhoods that many of my interlocutors then navigated daily.
Linguist Ron and Susanne Skogland referred to the study of social meaning of placements of material science as geo semiotics.
And I consider geo semiotics in the materiality of signage here,
along with the modalities of representing language as an additional element of my analysis.
The feminist geographer Doreen Massey states that social relations always have a spatial form and spatial content,
so the conventions of signage here from each neighbourhood show social relations of residents and
neighbourhood identities in connexion with other neighbourhoods and prevailing consumer cultures.
I'd like to say a lot more about the semiotics of language and scripts in these signs, and I will, as I try to adapt this,
talk into an article I'd like to hear maybe some comments on like working out this,
this component of this talk for an article, but I'll move on to show how this has been evidenced.
The materiality of language here is evidenced and picked up and incorporated and circulated in defining the linguistic infrastructure of the city.
So here I move to the products of mental mapping, and in this method,
I asked my interlocutors to to illuminate language as mapped onto social space in the city.
So mental mapping asks individuals with insider knowledge of a place to draw a map from memory of particular
areas to create an intimate view of locations based on their layering of subjective experiences within a place.
I had experienced movement in the city with some of my interlocutors and saw how our movement throughout different
neighbourhoods resulted in their use of different languages as we travelled through regions of the city.
So this brought about that movement brought about my interest in using maps.
I asked my interlocutors then to draw a mental map of Puni.
However, they defined it through the lens of languages, scripts, linguistic communities defined by their interactions and movements through the city,
through the geography of the city, and the results are drawings.
I ended up with 12 maps, and I am going to share four with you here.
Drawings that highlight a socio spatial element of language experiences.
What this tells us is not just about language, ideologies and identity,
but also about commonly understood forms of social segregation and puni, and perhaps something about language clusters, too.
So before they begin drawing,
each individual had included in my study they were already sort of interested and knew about my broader research on language and education.
Each of the people I asked to draw maps had lived in CUNY for at least four years, many more.
For most of their lives, and they could label whatever they wanted in English and Marathi and the Roman script,
and they would not agree whatever they saw most comfortable or indicative of the city to them.
And many wrote in English, but not all, and I have a feeling this is because most of my interactions with them was in English.
So overall, their maps show the experiences of Puneri residents in regard to how they know and perceive the city intersecting with space,
time, language, ethnicity, religion and socioeconomic class.
And I'll explain some of the signs here. I included this one because the author had a very nice.
This was actually the first map I solicited and I.
It has a very nice key for us. So you have the names of different neighbourhoods that this author decided were important to include a spatial element,
kind of like you're looking at a map that you would see of Opuni.
And he's also included some examples or explanations of his reasoning for language.
So in green, you can see some elements relating to religion, so language defined by then religious groups,
religious clusters, and also a little bit to do with some labour and commercial activity.
So in the far left hand under Walker, you can see because of IT companies.
So continuing on this map shares also a geographic element, a major defining feature in the city,
the reverse and how the other forms of space and language are mapped around the rivers.
So this author also has some very longstanding intimate experiences moving
throughout different neighbourhoods living in different neighbourhoods in Punam,
and she includes an interesting temporal element to this map.
So there's again, sort of a key.
And she includes changes that she's seen in her life, for example, again in the Walker area, up in the top left hand corner.
There's the temporal element of new residence, perhaps in her understanding, speaking English, bringing English to the area around.
Perhaps she defines original locals as Marathi speakers.
And there's some other interesting things that stood out to me.
So another part of this was that I asked my drivers to speak to me as they drew,
or in this case, actually she wanted to go home and draw this on her own time.
And when she brought it back to me, I talked through the elements with her.
So I was really interested in the camp area in the lower right hand quadrant of the map Hebrew.
And that was that was new to me, and she enlightened me to the the existence of the largest Asian synagogue.
So that was something that I think reflected than a religious linguistic social aspect of the geography that was new.
OK, the next map. As I briefly mentioned, my main dissertation focus was on language and education and this author.
He had moved to today to pursue his master's degree. He then asked if he could define the stages through language used in educational institutions,
so he mapped out the as he understood main education institutions being an educational hub in India as well.
And in each institution, he identified some core aspects of language and identity that he used to classify the institutions.
I thought this was fascinating because it shared a lot more than just about education.
There's strong perhaps elements this there's two or three minutes left.
OK, thank you. Yeah. So there's elements here that speak to broader aspects of identity,
such as the inclusion of write English, speak Marathi under the agricultural college, for example.
So the final map was drawn.
Here we go by an author who divided the plane into more strict quadrants,
and he himself lived in the lower or his family is from the lower right hand quadrant.
He's from a Muslim background, and you could see the further development of that quadrant than perhaps in the other maps.
So that's an interesting aspect, too, of the intimacy of spaces and understanding, again,
different language clusters in these spaces based on one's familiarity and backgrounds.
So moving on, then these convergence is amongst the different maps show some shared and marked
knowledge about the city amongst different residents who are all middle class,
mostly Hindu Brahmins. With the exception of this author who is from a Muslim background and the previous one from the Marathi caste,
which is also then I didn't need to explain the caste system to this audience.
When I approached these interlocutors to draw maps for me,
all of them were already familiar with identifying different neighbourhoods by language use,
even if they also often used other identity markers to classify geographic space such as religion class.
Even veteran non-veg neighbourhoods, which is a whole other topic,
as they were all in the middle classes and had experience moving around to different parts of the city for work or pleasure.
The maps they draw indicate that there are specific aspects of their understanding of known as middle class, upper caste and mostly Hindu residents.
Some of my interlocutors clearly preferred parts of the cities to other parts of the city, to others, and tried to avoid some areas.
Language was the main distinguishing factor in the preference for space and was used as a gloss for feelings of either belonging or alienation.
Along the lines of other aspects of identities like religion and class.
While these maps are mostly similar to each other, they also show some divergences amongst interlocutors conceptions of the city.
And each map shows that experiences are subjectively based on the personal experiences and identities of their experience and their specific authors.
So, as you can see, many drew the same neighbourhoods,
and these commonalities show that there is a consensus on which areas must be represented when discussing
space and language and pruning and different areas coincide with ethnicity and language as well.
Let's see. Moving on. Morality becomes an old and longstanding feature of the city,
and all interlocutors indicated that the highest concentration of morality would be found in the city centre.
So in conclusion, the city's spaces are not merely dwelled in,
but they're constructs of belonging and social relatedness incorporated into understanding one's own identity within
a located space and place identity categories socially position oneself and others within interactional contexts.
And as these contexts change, identities are similarly dynamic.
Bridging this argument further language identities is seen as seen in science or in a subjective understanding of communities
divided by language in different areas or a linguistic infrastructure becomes a matter of linguistic and cultural capital.
This also illuminates meanings attached to differences between categories of identification based on linguistic backgrounds and speech proprieties.
Thank you.