About the seminar:

The countries of South and Southeast Asia share a common history as well as linguistic and socio-cultural issues. They are diverse in terms of religion, castes, and creeds, cultures and customs, languages and beliefs. This diversity may harbour different challenges as well as prospects for the countries. It may harbour discordant social patterns and conflicts. A most glaring example of language-related conflict in this area is perhaps that of the birth of Bangladesh from East Pakistan. At the same time, it may also stimulate engaging and enlightening dialogues between distinct cultures, because, in spite of, the many differences, the overall history of the area is that of harmony and interaction, not of continuous discordance and conflict. Besides most of these countries have been former colonies of developed countries. This brings in issues of the influence of a dominant culture and language, the pattern of resource distribution among linguistic and cultural groups, the role and choice of language in education, etc. In this scenario, it is of great importance to throw light on the nature of communication as well as areas of conflict in this region.

In this seminar, we wish to throw light on these issues with a focus on language and linguistic diversity. We bring together scholars from South and Southeast Asia working on language, communication and conflict for a productive interaction on related issues. Through the lectures and discussions on the given issue, we may get a clear understanding of the root of the problems in this area and the best possible ways of handling them.

Speakers :

Rafiqul Islam, National Professor, Bangladesh

Pabitra Sarkar, Former Vice-Chancellor, Rabindra Bharati University

Maya David, Former Professor of Sociolinguistics, University of Malay, Malaysia

Ritu Jain, Lecturer, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

Sandagomi Coperahewa, Professor, Department of Sinhala, University of Colombo, Srilanka

Probal Dasgupta, Former Professor, Indian Statistical Institute

Selvyn Jussy, Associate Professor, Department of Linguistics, University of Calcutta

Sonal Kulkarni-Joshi, Professor, Department of Linguistics, Deccan College, Pune

B N Patnaik, Former Professor of English and Linguistics, IIT, Kanpur

Tista Bagchi, Former Professor, Department of Linguistics, University of Delhi

Rajesh Sachdeva, Former Director, Central Institute of Indian Languages, Mysore.

Samir Karmakar, Assistant Professor, School of Language and Linguistics, Jadavpur University

R Nakkerar, Research Officer, Language Division, Kolkata, Office of Registrar General, India

Shyam Sundar Bhattacharya, Philological Secretary, The Asiatic Society