Experience of Literature - Internal Mark Statement

Department	Name	Average
History (R)	Prakash, V	31
Pol. Science	Chidambaranathan, P	32
	Murugavel, K.M	27
	Thanga Manikanda Prabhu, S	30
Economics	Lakshmi Vettom	36
	Jerry Sebastian	39
	Rakesh Kumar Reddy, L	35
	Sadhu Sathiaraj, J	33
	Savio Antony Bernard	38
	Sujoy Nath	39
Philosophy	Manikandan, A. K	30
Commerce	Prasanna, S	30
Commerce(V)	Deepu Jose	35
Mathematics	Jhenifer Sagaya Selvi, A.J	36
	Sarah Faith, J	38
	Shwetha, S	39
	Alfred Williams, J	35
Statistics	Mary Lucia, M.S	38
	Sruthi, S.R	36
Physics	Anu, A	37
	Jansi Rani, R	36
	Mahalakshmi, K	38
	Mercy Gunaseeli	36
	Roselin Jebakani, A	38
	Sharmila, K	37
	Sowmya Keerthi, A	36
	Uvarani, N	38
	Harris George W. Denver	39
	Jaya Prakash, P	32
	Ram Kumar, R	34
	Santhosh Chelladurai, A	35
	Subhakar, S.R	34
Chemistry	Anu Mathew	38
	Jansi Mary, V	37
	Lakshmi Reddy Yannam	22
	Leny Thomas	37
Plant Bio&PBT	Abishek Ebenezer	35
	Albert Selvakumar, M	32
	Perumal, S.M	33
Zoology (R)	Shanthini, C	36
	Barnabas Praveen, M	36
	Kalluri Melliusperemroge	34
	Kannali Jawaharjamaison	34
Zoology (V)	Bhuvanesware, B.G	34
	Rama Poornima, S	35

II BA Tamil Internal Marks - Nov 2005

	Name	Avg.
1	Anbumani, A	28
2	Anitha, D	25
3	Anitha, S	27
4	Antony Mary, G	27
5	Dhanlakshmi, R	19
6	Dhavamani, A	25
7	Geetha, S	22
8	Gomathi, C	24
9	Irene Jeya Mary, I	25
10	Jeba Mani, M	27
11	Jenila Mary, M	24
12	Joy Prabha, D	27
13	Kumudha, A	28
14	Manohari, P	28
15	Nithya, T	27
16	Prabavathi, N	28
17	Pramila, S	26
18	Priscilla, A	28
19	Pushpalatha, S	27
20	Rani, D	23
21	Salincy, R	28
23	Shargunam, N	24
24	Siyamala, S	20
25	Sofia, M	29
26	Sumitha, J	27
27	Swarnarathinam, S	27
28	Varalaksmi, V	26
29	Balakrishnan, S	26
30	Rajkumar, R	24
31	Ramesh, D	28

Department of English

Internal Mark Statement – Part- II English

Department: II B.A Tamil – Language Based – Level – II

Semester     : III - [November 2005]

For Quiz Buffs...:

Check out this link, if you are a quiz buff.

The Ancient Asian View of Man - Dr.S.Radhakrishnan

The Ancient Asian View of Man – Dr. S. Radhakrishnan

Introduction:

“The Ancient Asian View of Man” is an address delivered at Columbia University, U.S.A., by Dr. S. Radhakrishnan. It presents the peculiarly Indian view of the DIVINE IN THE HUMAN SELF, the realization of which will lead to the regeneration of man in the West, and thus save him from the destructive tendencies of scientific progress.

Influence of Indian Culture on the World:

All the living faiths of mankind have had their origin in Asia:
 China : Confucianism and Taoism
 India : Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism
 Palestine : Judaism and Christianity
 Iran : Zoroastrianism
 Arabia : Islam. Hence, the religions adopted by the western people are all derived from Asia, of which Indian culture has influenced a large part of Asia’s thought and art.

Doctrine of “tat tvam asi”:

Indian culture is best known to the outside world by the doctrine of tat tvam asi, which means, the eternal is in one’s self. The Bhagavad-Gita says that the spirit of man is immortal.

 Weapons cannot cleave the Self,
 Waters do not make him wet,
 Wind does not make him dry, and
 Fire does not burn him.

He is eternal, all-pervading, unchanging; he is the same forever.

Being vs. Having:

According to Dr. Radhakrishnan, we confuse Being with Having. Instead of using our houses, our wealth, and our other possessions, we allow them to possess and use us; so we become lost to the life of the spirit and are soulless. Our bodies are the Temples of the Divine; the Vessels of the Spirit; when we realize this, we outgrow individualism. We see that we and our fellow-men are the expressions of the same spirit. We are reminded of the death-bed statement of Socrates: “I am not an Athenian or a Greek but a citizen of the world.”

Religion: A Transforming Experience:

Carl Jung says, “Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakens.”
Similarly, religion is a transforming experience. It is insight into reality. When the individual withdraws his soul from all outward events, gathers himself together inwardly, he gets a sacred, strange, wondrous, and quickening experience within him. This experience is the proof of the reality of God.

The Common Ground of all Religions:

According to Dr. Radhakrishnan, at its depth, all religions express the same truth. The different religious traditions rest on a common ground. This common ground is base on the hope of the future. Both the Asian and Western outlook on life gives us the basic hope for the new world, which is on the horizon.

Loss of Faith: Spiritual Displacement in the Modern Age:

Modern scientists and technicians speak of man as a purely mechanical and material being. They seem to be blind to the higher sanctity, which lives in man. Hence, those who are born in this age feel the loss of faith; they are the spiritually displaced, the culturally uprooted, and the traditionless.

The Only Hope for Man: A Spiritual Recovery:

The only hope for man is a spiritual recovery, the realization that he is an unfinished animal, and his goal is the kingdom of God, which is latent in him. Without a spiritual recovery, the scientific achievements threaten to destroy us. We are living in days of destiny. Either the world will blow up in flames or settle down in peace. It depends on the seriousness with which we face the task of our age.

******

For Spell-binding Speeches...:

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Activism, drama and Environment

The Third World Conference and XI All India English Teachers' Annual Conference jointly organised by WASLE, IASCL and Department of English, MCC, got underway today. The third session was on Activism, Drama and Environment: Ongoing Struggles for Environmental Justice of Asian Immigrants in America, delivered by Kaori Mori, Shibaura Institute of Technology, Japan.

Excerpts from her Lecture:

"Environmental Justice" is relatively a new notion, first recognised officially by the United Nations' Environmental Summit in 1992. This notion seeks for environmental justice for all the people whose residential areas are environmentally unhealthy and dangerous. In an American context, those who need environmental justice are, for example, Native Americans whose residential areas are near nuclear waste processing facilities. African and Hispanic Americans also pursue environmental justice because some of their residential areas are notorious for crimes. We could see that environmental justice is intertwined with racism. However, is environmental racism a recent phenomenon?

If we read American minority literatures carefully, we can see how American minorities have lived in environmentally disadvantageous areas throughout history. Monica Sone, a second generation Japanese American writer, depicts how her family had undergone environmental racism in 1930's in Seattle, in her Nisei Daughter. Her family lived in Skidrow, "with shoddy stores, decayed buildings, and shriveled men" (8). When they looked for a better house in a white people's residential area, because of their race, they were told, ""I am sorry, but we don't want Japs around here" (114) by a white woman. Thus, American minorities had to live in environmentally problematic areas, and they had struggled for better living environment.

As a strategy to overcome environmental racism, Asian immigrants had tried to have better education. Harry Kitano and Roger Daniels report that Asian Americans "choose the so-called safer professions, where visibility is not as important as the quality of their education and credentials" (82).

DO-2

I HR: I BSc Pbt/Zoo: Taught the importance of stress and intonation in class.

Absentees

Pbt: Anitha Sh, Radhika, T, Shalini, S, Sheeba RD, Clynes Paul, Janardhanan, Kripan, Nithaniyel Sadanand, Sai Santhosh, Santharaj

Zoo: (R): Adline Jennefer, Anitha, P, Kalaivanai, N, Devasitham, Junior Chacko, V, Madhanraj, K, Shan, Sundaram, T, Shanmugarajan, Sheen, Sri Gowthaman, Thiyagaraja, K

Zoo (V): Srimathy, S, Himmat, Pravin,N, Ramasamy, N, Santhosh, C

The Doyen of English - David Crystal - Live in Chennai @ British Council, Chennai

The Three Revolutions in English 

Insights from the Legendary Prof. David Crystal in Chennai

A Report

12 October 2004

It's not always that one gets to sit face to face with the modern day Professor Higgins, the doyen of contemporary English language, a paradigm of excellence, a scholar beyond compare - David Crystal! and how! with two impactful and enlightening lectures with the legend - as we both were in rapt attention (buddy Prem and I, call us LASER babus if you may!) both at the British Council Premises, Chennai and at Anna University Auditorium, Chennai respectively. 

Well, again, we both, like many other curious bees on the audience, were able to raise a couple of pertinent questions on language, to appreciative and brilliant replies from this wizard of sorts!

 

David Crystal in Chennai: The Three Revolutions of English and the Art of Language Play

“English has become a tool to get a job done, and a standard that ensures mutual intelligibility.”

With these words, the legendary linguist David Crystal addressed a rapt audience of scholars and educators from across Chennai’s teaching community. His lecture offered a profound look at the evolving landscape of global linguistics, balancing sobering statistics with his trademark wit and deep appreciation for language play.

Crystal framed our current linguistic era around three major revolutions that have reshaped the English language over the last decade:

The Emergence of a Global Language: English has transcended its origins, diversifying into as many distinct forms and dialects as there are countries that speak it.

The Global Language Crisis: In a sobering reality check, Crystal lamented that half of the world’s 6,000 languages are critically endangered and likely to vanish this century. To put this into perspective, one language dies every two weeks. Authenticating this crisis, he noted that 96 percent of the world’s languages are spoken by a mere 4 percent of the global population.

The Advent of Electronic Communication: The digital revolution has fundamentally altered language dominance. Crystal pointed out that in 1997, English comprised 80 percent of all web content. By 2000, it had dropped to 70 percent, and in 2004, it fell below the 50 percent mark for the first time, reflecting a more multilingual internet.

Moving from macro-linguistics to the mechanics of the craft, Crystal offered fascinating insights for language enthusiasts and educators alike.

He championed the concept of “language play,” citing extreme constraints like Ernest Vincent Wright’s novel written entirely without the letter ‘e’, or the formidable challenge of crafting sentences where every word shares the same vowel. Much to the delight of the audience, Crystal even read the first chapter of Genesis using words that started exclusively with the letter ‘a’.

This playfulness, he argued, is not just for novelists. “You are paid for playing with language,” he noted, pointing out that modern advertising slogans are today’s punchiest linguistic expressions. Yet, true comprehension requires cultural immersion. Citing a sports column headline - ”Pain stops Play” - he explained that without cultural context, the layered meaning is lost.

Ultimately, he elevated the role of the writer: “Literature is the most sophisticated use of language that we have.” Any function of literature, he argued, can be beautifully conveyed through the intentional manipulation of language.

For those of us in the classroom, Crystal’s message was particularly resonant: Language teaching should be a humanising experience; if it isn’t, it is a waste. He illustrated how the closeness of language to literature can be bridged through interactive games, such as holding a conversation entirely in questions, or experimenting with structural markers like fortunately, although, sadly, and frankly to break the monotony of the over-used ‘and’.

He also touched upon cultural specificity in language acquisition, noting how a reluctance to express feelings publicly in cultures like Japan impacts the L2 learning context.

The lecture was not without its moments of brilliant levity. Discussing phonetics, Crystal noted that we round our lips on only three occasions: for baby talk (which he playfully mimicked), for animals, and for our most intimate associates—an enunciation that had the entire hall in splits.

The ethos of any classroom, Crystal concluded, must be a playful one.

He left the audience with a powerful prediction regarding our own linguistic trajectory: “The future of Indian English is the future of Indian power. After the US, India is the only country that can command the field of Information Technology. That will come from their power over Indian English.” According to Crystal, the signs of this shift are already all around us.

It is a remark that augurs incredibly well for the future of Indian English and the students we guide every day.

P.S. Featured below is a scanned image of a cherished keepsake - an autographed note from the great David Crystal himself. A truly memorable lecture, capped off by an unforgettable autograph!

Part II English Classes - News Bulletin:

The following students presented the News from today's Newspaper in the following order:

City News - Roy John
State News - Karthik
National News - Arun Stephen
International News - Prashanth
Sports News - Parthiban
Business News - Franco
Educational News & Weather - Prabhakaran

Part II English - I BSc Phy/Chem - Web log:

VI DO - Dictionary Day - Quick Word Reading - Competition - how to use a dictionary etc.
Calligraphy - the art of writing
chirography - the study of handwriting forms and styles
elision - omission of sounds and syllables or words in connected speech cup o' tea.
serif/ligature etc.