“I don’t understand what you’re saying!”: My (In)capability to Perform the Standardized English Language

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this critical postcolonial autoethnography, I share my lived experiences growing up as a subordinate middle-class Indian who was (un)able to perform the language of English despite his exposure to English medium education and hence, was deemed (in)capable of any future aspirations. In this paper, I use my body as a site of struggle to analyze how the performance of the standardized English language which was initially encouraged by British colonizers to ensure systemic manipulation of the colonized has now been normalized as an absolute necessity that automatically ensures upward mobility. In this process, I also examine how the hegemony of the foreign language regulates and disciplines the societal aspirations of the Indian middle class. Ultimately, I use this paper to reflect on my journey – from my (in)capability to perform the English language to embracing my subordinate Bengali middle-class identity and how I negotiate my (in)capability as my critical intersectional identity.