Embed Size (px)
DESCRIPTION
ফাইল
Citation preview
Tiasha Chakma
Lecturer
Department of Bangla
Islamic University
Kushtia, Bangladesh.
e-mail: [email protected]
Contact: +8801770439186
An abstract For
4th INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF BENGAL STUDIES 12th – 13th December, 2015
Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, Tokyo, Japan
Problems of second language acquisition of Chakma-speaking students in present education system in The Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh: An overview
Different people from distinctive communities have their existence in the periphery of Peoples’ republic of Bangladesh. Under the Constitution (Article 3) of Bangladesh, Bangla is the state language. But the communities have their languages of their own like Chakma, Marma, Tripura, Santal, Khasia, Monipuri and so many others. Chakma is the second largest community among them considering their population according to the statistics of Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics 2011. Their mother tongue Chakma is now presenting a different aspect in a multilingual situation. The national language Bangla is to be learnt. Besides they intend to know necessary communicative discourse to make themselves comfortable in the current world of international society. As a result, students fall into multi-language learning situation in educational institutions and have to face different linguistic problems. These have a great effect on both Bangla and Chakma language as they use these languages at the early stage of life without having proper linguistic knowledge.
The question of this research lies behind the present education system in the mentioned locality. In this study I have tried to gather an overall observation on how the mainstreaming language (Bangla) is influencing a non-major language (Chakma) in a special society where different languages stay together. Why this is happening is another relative question of the exploration.
There are two kinds of educational institutions in Bangladesh regarding medium of instruction. They are English medium and Bangla medium schools. Every government schools are designed with the later one. When a Chakma speaking student comes to these schools, Bangla becomes his second language. Mohammad Daniul Haq gives us some direction how we can differentiate mother tongue and second language in his Language Acquisition and learning: The Primary Concepts. And the national language Bangla stands as a second language for these reasons:
x Being used to with mother tongue (Chakma) when the child learns antoher language in schools (Bangla).
x When the child has to use another language in government level although she/ he uses mother tongue in his/ her community.
Acquisition of Bangla language and its learning process is a precedent course of second language acquirement for the Chakmas.
Tiasha Chakma
Lecturer
Department of Bangla
Islamic University
Kushtia, Bangladesh.
e-mail: [email protected]
Contact: +8801770439186
As Chakma have the largest number in population in both Khagrachhari and Rangamati districts people try to communicate in Chakma language. Its resemblance to Bangla is also another reason of other community’s Chakma language acquisition. Afterwards 1971 the CHT faces changes in socio-cultural environment with the fluctuation in economics and politics of that Bangladesh. One of the changes is increasing Bangla mother tongued people. They use a different dialect. Thus standing side by side of these two languages becomes the most important phenomena for their inter-cultural communication in this locality. In this way contacts for social relation among two different traditional people gives an impact on languages.
Here I have taken an attempt to identify the problems of second language acquisition of the Chakma-speaking students they face phonetically, morphologically, semantically and in over all in their applied language they use. In this section similarities and dissimilarities of Chakma phonemes with Bangla is presented. Various categories of data are analyzed to complete this discussion. An overview of the contiguous aspects that plays role in this situation is added at the end. Bangla language and linguistic history of Chakma language regarding socio-cultural perspectives has become the historical background of the study.
This is mainly a survey research with analytical approach. Procedures of Applied Linguistics study is used as the main method. Percentage of Chakma-speaking students in schools is used as supportive data. Some case studies are also included in this analysis. Our field area is Khagrachhari, a district of the Chittagong Hill Tracts.
We hardly find researches that speak about the problems of second language acquisition of Chakma-speaking students in a multilingual society. Most of them only speak about the existence of the language. Here is a look:
The Hill Tracts of Chittagong and the Dwellers Therein with Comparative Vocabularies of the Hill Dialects by Catain T.H. Lewin, Linguistic Survey of India by George Abraham Grierson, Kirata-Jana-Kriti the Indo-mongoloids: Their contribution to the history and culture of India by Dr. Sunitikumar Chattapaddhayay, The Tribal Languages of Chittagong Hill Tracts are the oldest research on Chakma Language. But these works only shows that there is a language that lives in the mentioned area not the problems the speakers face in their second language learning. Later Maniruzzaman’s ‘Notes on Chakma Phonology’ in 1984 (published in Tribal cultures in Bangladesh by Mahmud Shah Qureshi, IBS, RU, Bangladesh) and more than two decades after that Shourov Shikdar’s Bangladesher Adivasi Bhasa in 2011 add an academic ground of the language with its primary standardization. But there are specific field studies on it which are clearly relevant to this work. The Chakma and Tanchangya Communities of Bangladesh (compiled by: Loren Moggard, Mridul Sangma and Sayed Ahmaed, SIL Bangladesh published in 2007) is a significant addition. ‘A Comparative Study of Vowels in Chakma and English’ by Shanta Rakshit Tanchangya (Department of English and Humanities, BRAC University,
Tiasha Chakma
Lecturer
Department of Bangla
Islamic University
Kushtia, Bangladesh.
e-mail: [email protected]
Contact: +8801770439186
Bangladesh) is done in December 2013. ‘Present linguistic situation of Chakma language: A socio-linguistics Analysis’(published in Bangla Gabeshona Patrika, vol. 6, 2013, a departmental journal of Department of Bangla, Islamic University, Kushtia, Bangladesh) is another work of Tiasha Chakma to add. Present situation of the language and the mentioned research ground create a situation to find out the problems and reasons of the native speakers and the effect of both Bangla and Chakma language as Chakma people are emerging in the national life with their own linguistic situation.
Some phonetically resembled vowels and consonants between Bangla and Chakma language confuse Chakma-speaking students how to do accurate pronunciation of both languages. This study will raise a question about the risk of both languages in the mentioned society that what our next suitable step should be to continue with distinctive features of both languages. The sorted out problems and resolution in this research will help the government and any organization willing to introduce a multilingual teaching system in the Chittagong Hill Tracts in near future while we are concerned that the government intends to do that soon.
