How English has become a language of the people in India-one that enables the state but also empowers protests against it

Against a groundswell of critiques of global English, Vernacular English argues that literary studies are yet to confront the true political import of the English language in the world today. A comparative study of three centuries of English literature and media in India, this original and provocative book tells the story of English in India as a tale not of imperial coercion, but of a people's language in a postcolonial democracy.

Focusing on experiences of hearing, touching, remembering, speaking, and seeing English, Akshya Saxena delves into a previously unexplored body of texts from English and Hindi literature, law, film, visual art, and public protests. She reveals little-known debates and practices that have shaped the meanings of English in India and the Anglophone world, including the overlooked history of the legislation of English in India. She also calls attention to how low castes and minority ethnic groups have routinely used this elite language to protest the Indian state.

Challenging prevailing conceptions of English as a vernacular and global lingua franca, Vernacular English does nothing less than reimagine what a language is and the categories used to analyze it.

About the Author
Akshya Saxena is assistant professor of English at Vanderbilt University.

Reviews
"Shortlisted for the ASAP Book Prize, Association for the Arts of the Present"
"Winner of the First Book Prize, Modern Language Association"
"Saxena stretches out her net to bring in not just everyday Indians but all those assailed by a brutal state and needing a medium to express their pain."---Peggy Mohan, The Wire
"

The focus on a vast and understudied archive, nuanced textual readings, and sustained attention to the sensory modes of engaging with language allows [Vernacular English] to prise open the political and affective terrains of English in India.

"---Navaneetha Mokkil, South Asia
"Saxena's study of different domains toward the co-optation of English as an instrument of empowerment makes the concept of 'Vernacular English' a good alternative to the accepted mindset that English is a language of the elites in India."---Soni Wadhwa, Asian Review of Books
"One of the most fascinating studies on translation andextra-translational ways of perception. . . . Saxena succeeds to offer a relatively deeper and fresher view on theconstruction of the Anglophone that has lately become a homogenous term for global politics."---Ayan Chakraborty, Journal of Comparative Literature and Aesthetics
"A notable addition to existing historical, cultural, and literary scholarship that problematises the singularity of the English language and pays attention to the blurriness between the local and the global."---Shwetha Chandrashekhar, South Asian History and Culture
"Vernacular English . . . is crucial scholarship in the continuing resilience of the perspectives afforded by researching postcoloniality beyond the strict space-time of historical colonialism"---Saronik Bosu, Cambridge Journal of Postcolonial Inquiry



Book Information
ISBN 9780691223131
Author Akshya Saxena
Format Paperback
Page Count 232
Imprint Princeton University Press
Publisher Princeton University Press