Linguistic shaming, the discourse of (sub)standard English, and religiolinguistic ideologies in Indian media

Abstract

This article examines linguistic shaming behaviors, focusing on the case of an Indian news media platform where newsreaders commented on and criticized a Muslim college lecturer for ‘errors’ in her handwritten resignation letter in English. We develop and bring together several concepts including (online) chronotopes, deindividuated voice, colonized/ing mind, and religiolinguistic ideologies as our theoretical lens to gain insights into the newsreaders' discourses and ideologies underlying their comments. Our analysis suggests that, in shaming the lecturer's linguistic idiosyncrasies in the resignation letter, the newsreaders held a colonized/ing mind which informed their belief in the existence of ‘correct’ English and their view that the lecturer's English was substandard. Some commenters expressed their religiolinguistic ideologies in relating the lecturer's English use to her religion, whereby they religionized her as a Muslim English-writing subject. Their discourse of (sub)standard English and religiolinguistic ideologies can be considered manifestations of the ‘religious Us-Them’ divide in Indian society. The article also illustrates how the Kachruvian project of Indianizing English fails to work for disenfranchised communities such as Muslims who have been discriminated in the context of the resurgence of Hindu nationalism in India.