Chaora Bhaora

Literary translation can be a political act with immanent failure. It may want to restorethe ‘original’ into the target language only with the consciousness of the impossibility todo so. One has the desire for translation because the ‘untranslated’ is absent in the targetlanguage

Introduction: : Asian Perspectives on Semiotics

Broadly speaking, semiotics is the study of sign systems and the process of signification. Viewing the world of meaning in terms of systems of signs and attempting to understand the manifold ways in which we interpret those signs has been the concern of philosophers since ancient times. As the study of philosophy became further subdivided in the modern era, the study of semiotics contributed to the establishment of various disciplines, notably anthropology and linguistics, and later, cultural studies and its offshoots. The study of semiotics now spans what we call the humanities and the social sciences and, importantly (though peripherally), has even branched out into the natural sciences in the field that is termed ‘biosemiotics’

Scripting Autonomy: Script, Code, and Performance among Santali Speakers in Eastern India.

This dissertation examines the role of script in the politicization of literacy among the Santals, an indigenous Austro-Asiatic language community in eastern India. Santals are spread throughout numerous states in eastern India and are subject to those states’ official linguistic-graphic regimes, always in the dominant Indo-European vernacular. Most Santals are therefore multilingual in Santali, the different Indo-European vernaculars (Hindi, Oriya, Bangla, Assamese, Nepali, etc.), and other local varieties. Santali is also written in multiple scripts, including the dominant Brahmi scripts associated with Indo-European, a Romanized alphabet created by missionaries, and Ol-Chiki, a visually distinct script developed this century for Santali writing. The multilingual, multiscriptal situation reveals a complex discourse in which ‘literacy’ cannot be associated with a single script or code. Rather, it emerges as a constellation of disparate graphic and linguistic repertoires that variably align as part of larger social and political networks. It is through the linkages constructed between social and political ideologies, material and graphic form, linguistic repertoires, and performance practices that particular graphic-linguistic constellations become icons of sociopolitical difference and are mobilized in political assertions of autonomy. This dissertation charts the range of social and political networks among Santali speakers and analyzes their co-constitutive relationship with constellations of graphic, referential, and performative features of language use. In emphasizing the ways Santali speakers and writers variably deploy these constellations in public spaces, schools, and media; the analysis challenges fixed, identity-based theorizations of indigenous social movements, while at the same time showing how fluid script-code alignments allow Santals to contest their social subordination and vie for control over resources in a social landscape marked by caste domination and exclusion. Reconceiving questions of writing and literacy in light of the nexus between script, performance, and politics, the dissertation addresses several issues within anthropology, linguistics, and social and cultural theory more broadly, such as the question of ‘genre’ and its relation with literacy and graphic practice, the concept of ‘public’ as constituted by graphic circulation, the spatial and temporal dimensions of language, and the role of literacy projects in political mobilizations in indigenous and postcolonial contexts.PhDAnthropologyUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/110402/4/nishaant_1.pd

Semiotic Travels: An Interview with Harjeet Singh Gill

Gill's use of Abelard to critique dominant trends in European semiotics finds its parallels in his extensive work on Buddhist philosophers Dignāga and Dharmakīrti, who posed an alternative notion of the sign to that developed by the more celebrated earlier grammarians from the Sanskrit tradition, Pāṇini and Bhrtihari. He places these heterodox Indian and French traditions of semiotics in creative dialogue to cultivate a semiotic theory that is at once universal in its applicability while also allowing for multiple, non-dominant forms of thought and creativity to emerge. Consequently, his ideas provide a new way for semiotics that would be particularly relevant for scholars working in postcolonial Asia. This interview is an abridged and edited excerpt taken from an interview conducted with Gill by Nishaant Choksi and Arka Chattopadhyay at a virtual seminar held at IIT-Gandhinagar on 31 March 2021. The entire recorded interview can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jb6fG3_hvqg. A special thanks to Shruti Nair for her assistance in transcription

Ethnography, Superdiversity, and Linguistic Landscapes: Chronicles of Complexity by Jan Blommaert . Bristol : Multilingual Matters . xiv + 125pp.

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/107381/1/jola12041.pd

From transcript to 'trans'-script: Romanized Santali across semiotic media

by Nishaant Choks

Chaora Bhaora

Literary translation can be a political act with immanent failure. It may want to restore the ‘original’ into the target language only with the consciousness of the impossibility to do so. One has the desire for translation because the ‘untranslated’ is absent in the target language

Toward a Typology of Concern : A Reanalysis of the Ethical Dative in Relation to Possession

This paper proposes a typology of 'concern'as a solution to the problem of the "ethical dative" in European languages. Examining 'ethical dative'phenomena from the perspective of both argument structure and relations between discourse participants, it suggests that ethical datives as a form of affective possession, or what is termed here 'concern.'In addition, the paper argues that concern phenomenon may be found in very different languages, such as Santali, an Austro-Asiatic language spoken in eastern India. By considering 'concern'cross-linguistically, and as encompassing a range of different phenomena with both pragmatic and semantic functions, the paper outlines a new area for further research.本論文はヨーロッパ諸言語にみられる「倫理与格」(ethical dative）問題の解決策として、「関心」(concern）の類型論を提示する。項構造および談話参与者間の関係という観点から「関心の与格」現象を考察することによって、本論文は関心の与格が感情を伴った所有（affective possession）ないし本論文の用語における「関心」の形式として捉えられることを主張する。加えて、本論文は関心の現象が様々な言語、例えば東インドで話されるオーストロアジア系言語であるサンタル語などにおいても観察されることを論じる。「関心」を通言語的に考察し、語用論的・意味論的機能をもった様々な現象を包括することによって、本論文は更なる研究に向けて新たな分野を提示するものである。論文 Article