Reading Working Papers in Linguistics 4 (2000) - The University of ...

S. KULKARNI
The main study includes eleven linguistic variables (seven
phonological, one morpho-phonemic, two morphological and one composite
lexical) which were identified in a pilot study. All the linguistic variables are
binary (referred to here as ‘standard’ and ‘non-standard’. Previous
researchers have tended to treat the linguistic divide as being between
‘Brahmin’ and ‘Non-Brahmin’ speech varieties).
The interviews were transcribed phonemically and percentage
standard scores were calculated separately for each linguistic variable. The
quantified linguistic data were tested statistically for the effect of the social
parameters listed under 1 and 2 under 3.3 above. The test Binary Logistic
Regression in the statistical programme SAS was used (the testing procedure
is briefly described under 4.1 below). A qualitative approach was used in
analysing the effect of the children’s school networks on their speech habits.
This approach helped to observe the ways in which children use speech to
re-position themselves with respect to their corporate social identities
(denoted by caste and class) in their school interactions.
Statistical analyses of the eleven linguistic variables revealed that
variation through the four caste groups is further superimposed upon social
class variation, gender distinctions and differences in parents’ formal
education generating patterns of sociolinguistic differentiation that are
necessarily complex. In the following sections I shall present the analyses of
three linguistic variables which yielded results that are relevant to the
discussion of caste and class influence on linguistic standardisation in the
Pune study. The three linguistic variables discussed here are:
1. (N)
This variable refers to the alternation between the standard retroflex nasal /T/
and the non-standard /n/. /T/ and /n/ are phonemically distinct in the standard
dialect. 2 The retroflex nasal has not only been discussed by previous scholars
as a prominent marker of high caste/educated speech, but is also overtly
recognised as such by the speakers of the language (i.e. by non-linguists).
The pronunciation of the dental nasal corresponding to the retroflex in the
standard has always been identified as a stereotype of non-Brahmin speech
and is heavily stigmatised. Brahmins commonly refer to non-standard
speakers as those who say /ani/, /pani/ and /loni/ instead of /aTi/, /paTi/ and
/loTi/ (glosses: ‘and’, ‘water’ ‘butter’ respectively). Thus from a folk
2 For a discussion of the historical development of this sound in Marathi see Bloch 1970: 142-6.
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