Can Indian English be an Alternative to Standard British and American English for Academic Purposes?

Abstract

For colonial and historical reasons, Indian academia has been following British English since Independence. Though American English has become the norm internationally due to the global status that it is currently enjoying, Indian academia has not yet recognized this new emergent phenomenon. Of course, Indian learners of English are increasingly exposed to American English outside of the curriculum. Meanwhile, Indian English has evolved as a distinct, literary and non-native, national variety over a period of 400 years because of its peaceful co-existence with Indian languages and cultures. Code-mixing and code-switching, phonological and morphological mix and syntactic and grammatical features have made Indian English a distinct variety. It is high time that Indian academia focussed its attention on Indian English as an alternative to the decayed (Received) British English. This paper focuses its attention on the description of Indian English as a distinct variety and the feasibility of exploring possibilities to make it prescriptive for teaching-learning-testing purposes.