Report on the Two- Day International Seminar- ‘Language, Communication and Conflict in South and South-East Asia’

Aliya Halim Chowdhury,

Sr Research fellow, Department of Linguistics, Calcutta University

The Two- Day International Seminar on ‘Language, Communication and Conflict in South and South-East Asia’ was organized by the Asiatic Society and the Department of Linguistics, University of Calcutta on the 14^th and 15^th of November, 2019 at the Vidyasagar Hall, the Asiatic Society, Kolkata. The main significance of this International Seminar was to engage in stimulating and enlightening dialogues between the distinct cultures of South and South-East Asia and bring out and discuss the different challenges and prospects they face in their diversity. The focus of this seminar was on language and linguistic diversity. The main objective was to reach a clear understanding of the root of the problems faced in this area and the best possible ways of handling them.

The seminar was attended by a wide range of delegates from across the country as well as abroad. The first day of the seminar began with the Inaugural Session where the Moderator was Professor Mina Dan, Professor, Department of Linguistics, University of Calcutta who welcomed the esteemed guests on stage. The Welcome Address was delivered by Professor Satyabrata Chakrabarti, the General Secretary of the Asiatic Society. The Introduction to the seminar was delivered by Dr. Aditi Ghosh, Associate Professor, Department of Linguistics, University of Calcutta. The Inaugural Address was delivered by Professor Rafiqul Islam, National Professor of Bangladesh. He is a renowned educationist and taught in the Department of Bengali in the University of Dhaka. He was also the former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Liberal Arts, Bangladesh. The keynote address was delivered by Professor Pabitra Sarkar, Former Vice-Chancellor, Rabindra-Bharati University. He is a well known name in the field of Linguistics and has also been a Professor of Bengali at Jadavpur University. He has also been the Vice-Chairman of West Bengal State Council for Higher Education. The Presidential Address was delivered by Professor Isha Mohammad, President of the Asiatic Society. The Address of the Chief-guest was delivered by Professor (Dr.) Sonali Chakravarti Banerjee, Vice-Chancellor, University of Calcutta. This session concluded with the Vote of Thanks which was delivered by Dr. Sujit K. Das, the Treasurer of the Asiatic Society.

The Inaugural Session was followed by two Academic Sessions. The first Academic Session was chaired by Professor Mina Dan and the speakers were Professor Maya Khemlani David, former Professor of Socio-Linguistics, University of Malaya, Malaysia. She is also an Honorary Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Linguists, United Kingdom, a member of the International Advisory Board of Linguapax and is the Adjunct Professor at Jaipuria Institute of Management, Lucknow. Professor Maya David is currently a Master Trainer with Asia Europe Institute, University of Malaya. She has received the Linguapax Award in 2007 for her work on communities experiencing Language Shift. Professor Maya David gave a presentation on ‘Language- a contentious issue in multilingual Malaysia?’ The second speaker was Dr. Ritu Jain who is a lecturer in the Language and Communication Centre of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. She is currently working on the large scale shift to English among the Indians in Singapore. She is also editing a volume on the languages of Singapore for the Routledge series, Multilingual Asia. The first Academic Session concluded here. Dr. Ritu Jain gave a presentation on ‘Contentious consensus: challenges of diversity to identity based language policies.’

After lunch began the Second Academic Session in which the chair was Professor Pabitra Sarkar. There were three esteemed speakers for this session. The first speaker was Professor Sandagomi Coperahewa who is a Professor of Sinhala and the Founder Director of the Centre for Contemporary Indian Studies, University of Colombo. He has also served as a consultant to the Presidential Task Force for Trilingual Sri Lanka, Department of Official Languages, Department of Educational Publications, National Institute of Education and the Information Communication Technology Agency of Sri Lanka on various language projects related to Sinhala. He gave a presentation on “ ‘Sinhala-only’ Policy Revisited: Pre-independence Discourses on Official Language.’ The second speaker was Dr. Selvyn Jussy, Associate Professor in the Department of Linguistics, University of Calcutta. He acted as a Board of Governors, Institute of English, Government of West Bengal. The third speaker was Professor B.N. Patnaik, former Professor at IIT Kanpur who unfortunately could not be present for the seminar presentation due to some unavoidable circumstances. His paper on ‘ Recent Language Protests in Odisha: Some Observations’ was read out by Dr. Sunandan Kumar Sen, Assistant Professor in the Department of Linguistics, University of Calcutta.

The third Academic Session began the second day. The session was chaired by Professor Krishna Bhattacharya, Former Professor, U.G.C Emeritus Fellow, Department of Linguistics, University of Calcutta. There were also eminent speakers for this session. The first speaker was Professor Tista Bagchi, former Professor of Linguistics at the University of Delhi. She gave a presentation on ‘Language contact in North- Eastern India: Some traits.’ The second speaker was Professor Sonal Kulkarni Joshi who is a Professor in Marathi Language and Philology, Deccan College (Deemed University), Pune. She gave a presentation on ‘Negotiating borders: The sociolinguistics of linguistic reorganization of states in India.’ The third speaker was Professor Probal Dasgupta, an Honorary member of the Linguistic Society of America and former Professor in the Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata. He is the president of the Akademio de Esperanto and the president of the World Esperanto Association. He spoke on ‘Originality and plagiarism: some issues at the communication-academia interface.’ The fourth speaker was Professor Rajesh Sachdeva who is the former director of Central Institute of Indian Languages and former Head of the Department of Linguistics in Nagaland Central University and North Eastern Hill University. He unfortunately was unable to be present at the seminar but his paper on ‘On being in Northeast India: inner stirrings; Some insights and a few lessons for thinkers and planners’ was read out by Aliya Halim, Senior Research Fellow of the Department of Linguistics, University of Calcutta. All the speakers presented their papers on a wide range of topics which carried a mix of theoretical articulations and reflections.

After lunch there took place a Panel Discussion on the theme ‘Communication and Conflict in Multilingual Situation: the Task of the Linguist.’ The Moderator was Dr. Aditi Ghosh and the Chair was Professor Rafiqul Islam. The participants present were Dr. Samir Karmakar, Director of the School of Languages and Linguistics, Jadavpur University; Dr. R. Nakkeerar, Research Officer (L) and Head of Office, Language Division, Kolkata, Office of Registrar General, Government of India and Professor Maya David. The seminar ended with the Vote of Thanks which was delivered by Dr. Sunandan Kumar Sen.

These two days of the International Seminar was an amazing learning and an awareness raising experience for all the participants present. The audience consisting of faculty members, research scholars and students got a chance to discuss, understand and internalize the practical problems and solutions related to language, communication and conflict in South and South East Asia not only through the discussions after each of the Academic Sessions but also over Lunch. The seminar was comprehensive facilitating scope for future research in this area. The two days International Seminar concluded with reflections and feedback from the participants followed by the distribution of certificates among the student participants.

[further details about the seminar, abstracts,addresses, seminar photos etc. can be found at https://sites.google.com/view/languagecommunicationconflict/About-the-Seminar ]