ICSSR-SF-2019-603

26th July 2019 05:36:58

Senior Fellowship Application

Board research
Discipline as per Social Linguistics
ICSSR list
Personal Information
Name of the Applicant Subramanian Alagappan

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Address: 532-1, 2nd Street, Sakthi

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Nagar, Surveyor Colony, Madurai

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625007
Address for

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Mobile: 7904818247

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communication :
E-mail: [email protected]

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State: Tamil Nadu

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Pin625007
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Permanent Address : Same as Communication Address
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Date of Birth
18/02/1957
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(DD/MM/YYYY) :
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Age as on last date of

62 years 5
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application :
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Category : OBC Male No

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Madurai Kamaraj University The Registrar Madurai Kamaraj University

Affiliating Institution
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Palkalai Nagar Madurai 625021 Tamilnadu India Tamil Nadu 625021

Details :
4522458471 mkuregistrar@rediffmail.com mkuniversity.ac.in
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Type of affiliating
State University
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institution :
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Whether received any

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assistance/project
from ICSSR or any
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other institution e.g.
UGC, ICAR, CSIR,
ICPR, ICHR, etc. :
Applying Under
Pay Protection
Scheme :
Contingency (without
pay protection) :
Regular Fellowship
Regular Fellowship Scheme at Fellowship rate
Scheme :
Educational Qualifications
Name of the Year of % of
Name of Degree Division Disciplines
University Passing marks
Graduation Madurai University 1978 60 First Chemistry
Madurai Kamaraj
Master's 1981 72 First Linguistics
University
M Phil 0

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Ph D. Annamalai University 1988 0 Awarded Linguistics

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Title of PHD

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Description of Modern Tamil - A Tagmemic Study
Thesis

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Title of the Project
Lexicons of Tamil Dialects - A Sociolinguistic Study
Proposal :

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Study Implications
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 How far the selection and gradation of headwords of a dictionary and
dialects of Tamil correlate? Crea's Contemporary Tamil Dictionary is
one of the well known dictionary among the Tamil literates. It was
funded by Ford Foundation and compiled by a group of lexicographers,
linguists and subject experts. It is published in 1992 and reprinted 12
times (two times as a monolingual dictionary) It was revised in 2008. The
first edition is available online also. It claims that some spoken Tamil
words are being used in written Tamil, so, they are marked with the label
Spoken Tamil; some other headwords are marked as Regional Dialect
Words because they are from some dialects of Tamil and being
understood in all the Tamil dialect areas. In the same way the Social
dialect words, Christian Tamil words, Muslim Tamil words and Srilankan
Tamil words got their respective labels in the dictionary. However, the

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data for these words were not taken from the spoken Tamil. They were

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collected from written Tamil literature. The usage of these words were
confirmed just checking with the members of the dictionary team and

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with some volunteers. No field work was undertaken to check whether a
particular word is being used in the specific region or community. The

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proposed work assumes that the headwords which are not marked with

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no label is common to both Written and Spoken Tamil. It would verify
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this hypothesis through direct interviews with the selected informants.
Major Research
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The proposed study will collect the spoken variants from the suitable
questions with
informants across the dialect regions and present them in a
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proposed methodology
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comprehensive way. The detailed questions the proposed study would

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like seek answers are: 1. What are the regions that understand or use the
words which are marked as Spoken Tamil word and Regional Dialect
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word? 2. What are the different forms of regional Tamil dialect words?
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3. If the given word is not found in a dialect, what are the equivalents in
that dialect? 4. What are the senses in which the given words are being
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used in different dialects? 5. Are the Srilankan Tamil words are found in
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main land Tamil dialects? 6. What is the Common Core Vocabulary that
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exists common to all the Tamil Dialects? 7. Are the unlabeled headwords
and labeled as Spoken Tamil words of the dictionary forms Common
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core vocabulary of Tamil Dialects? 8. Are the published works in the

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name of dialect dictionary for Tamil dialects are really dialect

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dictionaries? 9. What is a dialect dictionary? How the the words for if

should be collected, selected and presented in a dialect dictionary?
Methodology: First Crea's Dictionary of Contemporary Tamil would be
studied critically and lists of words with different labels and without any
label would be prepared. Secondly, all the published and unpublished
works in the name of dialect dictionary, glossaries theses and
dissertations would be collected, compared and indexed to find common
words of all dialects and special words of specific dialects. Lastly,
selected informants would be interviewed to find out missing equivalents
that are attested in one or more dialects..
 India is a linguistic area and it has hundreds of languages and dialects.
Language is an important element of culture. This proposed study would
reveal the structure, content, perception and beliefs of Tamil society. It
would remain as a model to study the dialects of all Indian languages.
Relevance of the study Other Indian languages may be studied in the same way or keep this as a
for the society : model for the study of dialects. This study would throw light on the
concept of Standard Spoken Tamil, which is the need of the hour for
many purposes. It would be helpful in the fields of education, teaching,
newspaper publishing, advertisement creation, judiciary, translation to
name a few.

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 It is relevant to decide the medium of instruction in schools and in higher
education institutions Language is a medium to gain knowledge and
education. There is not much difference between knowledge and
education. They are co-related. Knowledge can be self driven, but
education leads to knowledge. Education needs proper planning and
policy which set out a set of rules, regulations and curriculum. Education
in the process of socialization molding the character and personality of a
person. The main problem is of deciding which language will be used as
the medium of instruction. Education brings national integration in a
multilingual nation like India. It also maintains multilingualism and
national integration. Language is not just a medium of instruction, but it
is also a subject matter of education. In the beginning due importance
was given to language instruction and the literary languages were

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considered fit for imparting education. The regional languages or dialects

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were neglected. New findings say that instructions in schools through
local dialects give good results. So, in the west educationists are planning

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to use local dialects for classroom instructions. According to the
UNESCO findings, "It is through his mother tongue that every human
Expected Policy

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being first learns to formulate and express his ideas about himself and

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Implication/s of the
about the world in which he lives." The national language policy of 1968
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provided a strong justification for the use and development of Indian
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languages. "The key program will be to develop all Indian languages and
to adopt them as media of education at all stages. Unless this is done, the
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creative energies of the people will not be released, standards of

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education will not improve, knowledge will not spread to the people, and
the gulf between the intelligentsia and the masses will continue to grow."
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(Dua, 2001:185) It is right time as the draft proposal has been published
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for review. This proposal says that children's education should start at the
age of three. This is the age children are in middle of learning their
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mother tongue, more precisely their dialects. Planner may think of

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teaching dialects and give instructions in children's dialect which is being

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acquired by the children. Otherwise the child leave out his/her local
dialect since the classroom instruction intercepts in the early stages of
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language acquisition. Future generation may not acquire their local

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dialect if the classroom teaching is in standard language and it will lead to

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eradication of a dialect which is the source of culture and tradition. This

study would record and register the many facets of Tamil culture that
should be preserved for future generations.
 Books: Coauthor: Usage Manual, Mozhi (Ford Foundation), 02 –04
Assistant Editor, Style Manual, Mozhi (Ford Foundation), 91 – 2001.
Researcher - Word Combination Dictionary and Prose Reader, Mozhi
(Ford Foundation),1998 – 2005. Research Associate (University Grants
Commission, Govt. of India), Worked on "The Nature of Polysemy in
Tamil" 1190 - 1995. Conference Participation: "Gender differences in
Code-mixing and code-switching in Tamil language," Linguistics
Conference, University of Airlangga, Surabaya, Indonesia, August 23-24,
2014. "Backwash and Language Testing," Dept. Linguistics, Madurai
Details of published
Kamaraj University, March 15 & 16, 2011. "Concordance -- Minimizing
articles / papers /
the human work" National Seminar on Cross Language Communication
publications (Max.10)
Tools (Machine Translation) for Indian Languages, Feb. 25-27, 2004.
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"Metaphorizaton and Extension of Lexical Meaning", Indian Congress on

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Knowledge and Language, CIIL, Jan, 11-17, 96. “Extension of Lexical

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Meaning”, Indian Linguists Conference, CIIL, Jan, 5-7, 95. “Use of
Computer in Dictionary Making “ All India Linguists Conference, CIIL,

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Jan., 5-7, 95 “Polysemy and Case Relations in Tamil,” International
Seminar on Lexical Semantics, Telugu University, Hyderabad, Feb. 1- 2,

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1991. “Defining Superodinate and Hyponyms in Dictionary,” Seminar on

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Definition and Meaning Discrimination in Dictionaries of Indian
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Languages, CIIL, Mysore, Nov. 24-26, 1988.
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Declaration
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• I am not a defaulter of any previous ICSSR grant.

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• I have not availed ICSSR pay protection scheme previously.

• I have neither been subjected to any disciplinary action nor found guilty
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of any criminal offence in my career.

I hereby declare
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• The Research Proposal and its contents are entirely original and as per
that:
the standard practice.
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• I have not concealed any information in my application. If ICSSR finds

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any contrary information at any stage, it may cancel my project out

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rightly.
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Place : Madurai
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Declaration Date : 26/07/2019

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Signature :

Annexure/Checklists (Send along with printout of the application)

( ) Abstract of the Proposal (About 500 words).

( ) Detailed Research Proposal (in about 3000-4000 words in the format as indicated in the
guidelines).

( ) Brief academic CV (not more than five pages including (1) educational qualifications Post
Graduation, M Phil and Ph. D research (2) list of ten best publications in the form of
books/research papers/reports with bibliographical details).

( ) Those, applying under salary protection, should attach a certificate of Last Month’s Gross
Drawn Pay.
( ) Forwarding letter from the Head of the affiliating Institution duly stamped and signed on the
letter head.

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( )Self-attested SC/ST certificate or certificate of disability issued by the competent authority.

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( ) Self-attested Matriculation / Ph. D Certificates

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