A sociolinguistic study of language use and language attitude among the Bodo people of Udalguri district of Assam

Abstract

Language is an integral part of society and the individual's identity. We often tend to judge a person's background, character and intentions based simply upon the person's language. Thus people's attitudes towards a language have strong effects on their status within a community. Human perceptions have a profound effect on their attitudes towards various aspects of life including people, society, culture, tradition, ways of behaviour in different situations, use of language etc. Richards (1985) defines language attitude as the feeling that speakers of different languages or varieties of a language have towards each other's language or their own. The way people look around things around him/ her with certain perspectives, which may differ from one another. People hold different views about different situations/ things which surrounds him/ her. Accordingly, people have different feelings or opinions towards different language(s) or their own. In a community where different language groups co-exist, language attitude plays an important role in the lives of the user of those languages. In the case of Bodo, which is surrounded by many other language communities, the study of language use and attitude of the speakers towards their language remains highly unexplored. The proposed research intends to undertake this task to test the attitude of the speakers of Bodo towards their language vis-a-vis other language or languages they know. With this objective, the proposed study is undertaken in the district of Udalguri where the dialect of Eastern Bodo (EBD) is spoken. The district is surrounded by Bhutan and West Kameng district of Arunachal Pradesh.