Welcome to Jawaharlal Nehru University

Research Interest:
Areal typology of South Asian Langauges,
Linguistics Convergence, Multilingualism,
Sematics, Grammers of Lesser Known Langaugges of India
anvitaabbi@gmail.com

Prof. Abbi is a zealous field linguist, who has researched on languages spanning the whole subcontinent, from the Himalayan languages of the northernmost districts to the southernmost represented by the languages of the Andaman Islands. In the last 30 years, she has worked on every language family of India. An author of eleven books and approximately 50 articles in various reputed research journals, she is currently engaged in a mega documentation project entitled ‘Vanishing Voices of the Great Andamanese’, funded by the HRELP, SOAS, University of London, UK. www.andamanese.net

She was a Visiting Scientist at the Max Planck Institute, Leipzig, Germany in 2000 and 2003 and was nominated as a Distinguished Fellow of 2001 by the La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia. She has been nominated an honorary member of the Linguistic Society of America for life. She has been nominated as one of the members of the Advisory Board of Terralingua, and advisor to the UNESCO on language issues. She received the Rarashtriya Lokbhasha Samman 2003 for her contribution towards the study and encouragement of the tribal languages of India.

Her research findings on the language isolate Great Andamanese established its status as the sixth language family, distinct from the other tribal languages of the Andaman has been corroborated by the latest genetic research identifying two distinct haplogroups M31 and M32 in the region. Available online at www.sciencedirect.com

Prominent recent publications include: (1) Endangered Languages of the Andaman Islands. 2006. Lincom Europa GMBH, Germany and (2) A Manual of Linguistic Fieldwork and Structures of Indian Languages. 2001. Lincom Europa, Germany.

Professor Vaishna Narang has completed thirty five years of teaching in the year 2008. She taught Applied Hindi Linguistics and Hindi as a foreign language in Central Hindi Institute from 1973 to 1985.

In JNU since 1985, initially as Associate Professor, and as Professor since 1996, she supervised research and taught courses in the area of General and Applied Linguistics, in Language Pedagogy, and in General & Applied Speech Sciences.

For the past 10 years or so she has focused on Neurocognitive linguistics, application of linguistics in speech and language pathology, and in various other aspects of biolinguistics.

She has introduced and developed several new courses in these areas in the last 10 years. As Director of a five year project sponsored under UPOE scheme of the UGC, she conducted a number of empirical studies under the general rubric of Biolinguistics. The full report of the project is under publication. This project work also included a one year pilot study on heritability of voice which is under publication as “Voices and Genes”.

Pramod Kumar Pandey is Professor at the Centre for Linguistics, and holds a Ph.D. in Linguistics, an M.Litt. in English, an M.A. in Linguistics and an M.A. in English. He has been engaged in teaching and research for the past 29 years.

He was awarded the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Residency Fellowship, Bellagio, Italy, 2003, and Guest Scientist, Department of Linguistics, Max-Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, 2003, in the Fifth Plan period.

His professional activities include: Member, Editorial Committee, Indian Linguistics, 2006-08; Member, Committee on Publications in Linguistics, Indira Gandhi National Open University, New Delhi, 2006-08. He has served on the Advisory Committees of U. G. C. and MHRD on some universities in the past.

His research interests include Phonetics and Phonology, Morphology, Linguistic Theory, English Language Teaching, Writing systems, and Research Methodology.

Prominent forthcoming publications include books with the proposed title “Sounds and their Patterns in Indic Languages”. [Based on a U. G. C. Major Research Project entitled, `Phonological Database of Indian Languages’, M. S. University of Baroda, 1998-2000. The book contains phonological sketches of 133 languages of India, with bibliography and generalizations. Expected length: 500 pages.].

Manjali

Prof. Franson D. Manjali
M.A., Ph.D.

Research Interest:
Ethics, Aesthetics and Linguistics
Semiotics of Narrative
Philosophies of Discourse
Poetics and Politics of Language
Metaphors in Language and Culture
Philosophy of Image
franson.manjali@gmail.com

Franson Manjali has been teaching in the university since October 1989. Prior to that he taught for a year at the University of Delhi (1986-87) and did post-doctoral research at the University of Paris-4, Sorbonne, Paris (1987-89). He was awarded a Ph.D. in Linguistics at Jawaharlal Nehru University in 1986. Since 1987 his research and teaching have consistently focused on theoretical issues in linguistics and related field of study. During the early years of his career at JNU, the emphasis was on Semantics, Semiotics and Cognitive Linguistics. His research monograph, Nuclear Semantics – Towards a Theory of Relational Meaning (1991) was published during this period. However, since 1999 after a one and a half year stint as a Research Fellow at Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, his research and teaching have veered towards broadly philosophical and narrowly post-structural approaches to language, literature and culture. His monograph, Literature and Infinity (IIAS, Shimla) attests to this intellectual shift. His more recent publication, Language, Discourse and Culture – Contemporary Philosophical Perspectives (Anthem Press, New Delhi, 2007) involves a more mature treatment of questions of ethics and aesthetics in relation to language.

Research Interest:
Generative Syntax & Semantics, Philosophy of Language, Morphology
ayesha.kidwai@gmail.com

Dr. Ayesha Kidwai's (Associate Professor) research interests include linguistic theory, with particular reference to the (generative) syntax and morphology of Indian languages, philosophy of language, gender and language, the politics of English, and language evolution. After completing her PhD in 1995 from Jawaharlal Nehru University on scrambling and binding in Hindi-Urdu, she has worked on diverse morphological and syntactic phenomena in languages of all the four-language family of India, as well as Indian Sign Language. Her current research interests include the syntax of finite complementation and the properties of adjunction in natural language. Under her supervision, students of the Centre have worked on descriptive grammars of lesser-known languages, explored aspects of the syntax and semantics of the Indo-Aryan and Dravidian language families, and investigated the interaction of gender with linguistic behavior.

Research Interest:
General Linguistics, Morphology, Phonology
harijnu@gmail.com

Hari Madhab Ray (Assistant Professor) has completed his M.A. in Linguistics from Jawaharlal Nehru University in 2006. He has been involved in teaching for the last one year. His research interest includes General Linguistics, Morphology and Phonology.

Research Interest:
General Linguistics, Sociolinguistics, Tibeto-Burman Languages
yankeemodi@gmail.com

Ms. Yankee Modi (Assistant Professor) has been in the field of teaching for the last three years. She has been awarded the degree of Master of Philosophy from Jawaharlal Nehru University in 2005. Her research interest includes mainly in the Tibeto-Burman Languages of North East, India; General Linguistics and Sociolinguistic areas.

Mr. S. Rawat or Mr. Naveen
Centre for Linguistics
School of Language, Literature and Culture Studies
JNU