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]

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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.

******

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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

David Crystal @ British Council, Chennai

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!

Excerpts from his speech:

"English has become a tool to get a job done, and a standard that ensures mutual intelligibility", David Crystal said, to a gathered crowd of intellectuals and scholars from the Teaching community of Chennai.

David Crystal spoke about three revolutions that have impacted the English language in the last ten years:

1. First of all, the emergence of a global language, a phenomenon wherein English has diversified into as many forms as the countries it is spoken in.

2. The second revolution, according to Crystal, that greatly affected the world today, was the language crisis. "Half of the 6,000 languages in the world will be seriously endangered or are likely to die out in the course of this century", he lamented. That means, one language is dying out every 2 weeks!" Reeling out statistics to authenticate his claim he said that, "96 per cent of the languages in the world are spoken by only 4 per cent of the population."

3. The third development in the revolutionising of language, was the advent of electronic communication, opined Crystal. In 1997, English comprised 80 per cent of the total content on the Web. In 2000, it was 70 per cent and for the first time in 2004, it fell to below 50 per cent."

For Language Enthusiasts, he had this to say: (Excerpts):

Wright wrote a novel without any word containing the letter 'e', a challenge indeed.

Making a sentence where every word has the same vowel in it, can be quite a challenge. You can write a story in which every word of the story startswith the same letter. Every word, for example, should start with the letter 'a'.

He also read out the first chapter of Genesis in "The Bible" using the same parameters - all words starting with the letter 'a', much to the delight and applause of the audience.

"You are paid for playing with language, and advertising - SLOGANS - are the new punchy expressions of today," said. In one news report in a prestigious newspaper, it was reported in the Sports Column: 'Pain stops Play' Unless you are a part of the culture, you cannot understand it. The real professionals in language play are the poets and dramatists etc. according to Crystal. Any function that literature has can be conveyed beautifully through a play on language.

"Thus, Literature is the most sophisticated use of language that we have," opined the great scholar of our times.

Language teaching should be a humanizing experience, and if it isn't, then it is a waste! The closeness of language to literature can be illustrated through a game. You can have a conversation wherein every sentence has to be in a question form.

Show the use of adverbials like 'fortunately, although, sadly, however, frankly, etc and words that link phrases and clauses together, and on the over-used word 'and'!

He then spoke on the issue of Cultural Specificity in Language Play. Like for example, in Japan there's a reluctance to express one's feelings in public.

He focussed on how word play enhances language acquisition in the L2 context.

We round our lips only on three occasions, according to Crystal.

Firstly, for baby talk (which he mimics to a bemused crowd)

Secondly, Animals, and

Thirdly, with your most intimate associate! (here, his enunciation had the audience in splits!)

The ethos of the classroom should be a playful one, opined Crystal.

To conclude, Prof Crystal said that, ‘‘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’’. Signs of which, he says, are now all over the place!"

And that remark indeed augurs well for Indian English!

[PS: The scanned image is an autographed paper for the writer of this blog post! by the great David Crystal. Really a memorable lecture and autograph too!] :-)