DATA ANAYLYSIS

DOMAIN ANALYSIS
The survey included statements related to domains such as family, friendship,
neighborhood, transactions, education, and employment. The informants' duty was
to fill in the language he/she most often uses for each occasion. The aim was to
analyze the use of English in India in different domains.
The domains used in the study could be divided into formal and informal domains:
education and employment are formal; family, friendship and neighborhood are
informal domains.

THE FAMILY DOMAIN

Although some informants seem to be quite polyglots, even in the family domain
(such as Tamil, who reported the use of English and mother tongue just as
common).
All in all, mother tongue was, as could be expected, the most common language
used at home (for 79% of the informants).
English was the second most common reported language (English 21%).
It was, perhaps surprisingly, most popular (17%) when "discussing a personal
matter/problem",Discussions with family members at dinner are usually carried out
in the mother tongue (90%).
Among Tamils, they mentioned English most often (even though as a secondary
option after the mothertongue) thus, here, too, we can see the preference of the
people of Tamil Nadu to English, rather than Hindi.
Hindi does not seem to be very popular among Tamils. The reason to this is fairly
obvious, since Hindi has traditionally not been very popular in the south; Hindi is not
one of the languages spoken in the area.

FRIENDSHIP DOMAIN
In this domain, the responses are divided more evenly between different languages
than in the family domain, and many, too, reported use of several different
languages in the same situation.
English was clearly quite popular (53% of all the situations).
English seems to work as lingua franca in india.
People are introduced to each other most often in English(51%) if u take the
informants who said they used English also then it is raised to 58%.
86% of people say they use English in social media conversations with friends

NEIGHBORHOOD TRANSACTIONS
As expected only 4% people say they use English in local shops. All others say that
either they use the regional language or their mother tongue.

EDUCATION
In education, English is the most common medium (96% of all the situations). At
school, friends who spoke the same language usually talked in mothertongue (75%),
although English comes next (15%), and Hindi third (10%). English was considered
the best medium of communication in the instances in which the languages of the
parties in question differed (69%; Hindi 27%).

ATTITUDE SURVEY
There were 10 questions related to attitudes towards different languages of India.
The informants were asked to grade the statements from one to four, depending on
how much one agrees/disagrees with a given statement.
The attitudes of Indian informants towards the use of English (and other languages)
are studied from mainly two different perspectives:
Affective/integrative dimension
Pragmatic/instrumental dimension
I have also reserved one perspective for the attitudes towards native languages

AFFECTIVE/INTEGRATIVE DIMENSION
Statement 3 ("I like speaking English") is related to affective/integrative dimension.

Statement
"I like speaking
English."

1 2
1 1
6

3
5
7

4
2
6

83% of the informants like speaking English; 17% report not to. Those 17% seem to
consider speaking English not as a matter of option or willingness; it is just plain
reality.

PRAGMATIC/INSTRUMENTAL DIMENSION
Speaking English is considered an advantage by 96% of the informants (with 41%
strongly agree). Nobody strongly disagrees with the statement.

Statement
"Speaking English is an

1
0

2
04

3
5

4
41

advantage"

Statements number 6 had to do with the role of English with employment

opportunities. Most of the people admitted (94%) that it is useful to know English
when looking for a job. Only two people strongly disagreed with the statement.

Statement
"English offers advantages in seeking
good job opportunities."

1
2

2
04

3
3
3

4
61

Only 7% of the people feel that knowing mother tongue is less useful than knowing
English

Statement
"Mother tongue is less useful to know
than English."

1
6
1

2
3
2

3
4

4
3

Most (92%) of the informants think all children should learn English at school
(however, some acknowledged the illusion of that statement:"Wish, but I don't think
it's possible"). Only eight people disagree with the statement

Statement
"All children should be required to
learn English at school

1
1

2
7

3
3
8

4
54

ATTITUDES TOWARDS HINDI AND OTHER NATIVE

LANGUAGES
The informants would prefer using their mother tongue in most situations, whenever
possible (83%; 48% strongly agreeing). 17% disagree with the statement with 2% of
then strongly disagreeing, however (maybe because they use different languages
according to the situation and the people they are with).

Statement
"I prefer using my mother tongue
in most situations,
whenever possible.

1
2

2
1
5

3
3
5

4
48

61% of the people say that they prefer to be in a group of people who speak my
mother tongue. The reason one informant gave was "I strongly identify myself with
my mother tongue and the group that speaks it."

1
Statement
"I prefer to be in a group of people 1
3
who speak my mother tongue

2
2
6

3
3
4

4
27

OTHER FINDINGS
The clear majority of the informants considers speaking both Hindi and English an
advantage(94%). Both the languages are thus considered important, they are
important in different domains and for different purposes.

Statement
"Speaking both Hindi and
English is an advantage

1
1

2
5

3
3
5

4
59

English is considered important to India as a whole. Only 9% strongly disagreed with

the statement

Statement
"English is important to India
as a whole.

1
9

2
1
9

3
3
7

4
35

The majority (72%) would like to see English always on public signs, notices and
ads, although, as one informant adds: "along with regional languages".

Statement
"English should be used on public
signs,
notices and adverts, always.

1
6

2
2
2

3
3
1

4
41

POSSIBLE PROBLEMS AND VALUE OF ATTITUDE

SURVEYS
The most relevant for our study are that people may, consciously or unconsciously,
give socially desirable answers.
To eliminate this, I have used a questionnaire which consists of two parts, all of
which are independent, though closely interconnected.
With this we wanted to ensure that it would be more difficult to try to give, for
instance, "politically correct" answers.
Also, to eliminate the effect of knowing the purpose of the research, it was not
specified to the informants that their attitudes towards English were being studied.

Although attitude scores are imperfect representations of individuals' attitudes, if

the attitude test has been constructed well, its' results can be relatively reliable
The study was, indeed not wholly unproblematic: some people clearly wanted to
give socially desirable answers, the kind of answers they thought would be
expected from them, or maybe the kind of answers they ideally would like the
language use to be like. In my opinion, however, domain analysis helped to
minimize this problem, because ambivalencies in people's language use in different
domains and their claimed attitudes could be compared with each other. Some
informants, argued, for instance, that English was not at all important to them
when, e.g. looking for a job: in the domain analysis, however, it turned out that the
same people claimed very high frequencies for the use of English in that particular
situation.

FINDINGS
According to the present study, different languages are definitely being allocated
different roles in India.
Languages are used differently according to the domain in question. We were
especially interested in the role of English, but as languages can not exist in a
vacuum, also the uses of other languages in the society have to be taken into
account.
English in India has, indeed, come far from its original uses in the colonial times
when it was mostly used as the language of the government.
Nowadays, English has spread into many new domains, also the more personal
ones, such as the family and friendship. English has, also, acquired new functions,
including the self-expressive or innovative function.
Today, in fact, it is hard, almost impossible to think of English as it is used in India
only simply as another foreign language.
English in India is a diglossically high language. The reasons for this lie in the
colonial times when the power was attributed to English. From then on, English
became a symbol of political power.
English, today, represents the scientific knowledge, modernization and
development.
The use of English clearly increases in the more formal domains. Also, the more
formal the situation is, the bigger the number of languages possible for each
occasion.
In the domains of education and employment it is, without doubt, the most
preferred medium.

It is, however, making its way to more informal domains, as well: about 53% of the
informants claim to speak English with friends.
People get introduced to each other most often in English. In the neighborhood
domain English is the most preferred option when people's languages differ. Thus,
the usefulness of Hindi as a lingua franca seems to be regionally limited as in some
areas few people know it or they dislike speaking it.
In the domains of education and employment English shows itself, without doubt, as
the most preferred medium.
In the domain of transactions, L1 is used more often than English at both the market
place and in shops and at the railway station. This is quite natural when one is
reminded that English is, really, a language of the educated: quite possibly the
people selling goods and food in the market place do not often know a word of
English.
Attitudes about a language are important, for they more or less determine its place
in the multilingualism of a country.
English has traditionally been the language of the government and other domains
with prestige .
It is considered important and an advantage to the country as a whole.
People's motives for supporting English are mostly instrumental: the results of the
study reveal that English is perceived as a useful language to know mostly because
of job opportunities: English is considered necessary would one want to have a job.
Education is an important proof of the status of a language in a society, and if this is
true, in the case of English its status seems quite secure: over 92% of the
informants are of the opinion that all children should learn English at school.
Whereas English was considered important to India in most of the responses (72%),
the informants strongly identified themselves with their mother tongue and the
group that speaks it.
This is important for the maintenance of the native languages of the country:
especially in the case of varieties with less official acknowledgement group
solidarity becomes very important. The maintenance of a group's language makes
one part of it.
English is clearly perceived as a more useful language to know.
People reported, on average, that they know three different languages.
As we can see from the results of the study, English has become more nativized in
the Indian environment: it seems that English now belongs to India's linguistic
repertoire in a very natural way. English, however, is still clearly a language of
"ideas, not of emotions", as one informant put it.