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Social Science Research Network Working Paper Series (12 March 2012)
posted to no-tag
by debaprasadbandyopadhyay
on 2013-04-27 07:27:01
Abstract
This paper is on the refutation of “scientific” notion of creative speaking/hearing subject with zero history a la Chomsky or rather on the falsification of this metanarrative of “ideal” speaker-hearer. The counter-hypothesis, in a nutshell, describes the correlation between empty linguistic organism and human malleability -- that is, creative speaking subject is a myth (in the Bartheian sense of the term). The idea is to investigate the traces of outside sociality in the mental linguistic algorithm as non-contaminated Language Acquisition Device ...
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Social Science Research Network Working Paper Series
posted to no-tag
by debaprasadbandyopadhyay
on 2013-04-16 15:52:24
Abstract
In the great Indian epic Mahabharata, the legendary hero with so-called “tribal” origin, Eklavya, after being refused by the royal preceptor Dronacharya, the military-trainer, made himself well equipped in the art of archery through dedicated practice in front of a clay-model of Dronacharya. However, he had to pay gurudaksina (‘paying the preceptor’, from whose absence he learnt the techne of archary) to Dronacharya by cutting his right thumb that acts as a liver to shoot the arrow. In this way, ...
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posted to no-tag
by debaprasadbandyopadhyay
on 2012-10-30 12:21:51
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Social Science Research Network Working Paper Series (2010)
posted to no-tag
by debaprasadbandyopadhyay
on 2012-09-22 00:29:50
Abstract
Without giving any relative importance to locally controlled (by the syndicate) illegal unorganized retail market (that disrupts government-controlled rationing system) in West Bengal and neo-colonially installed mall culture, this paper tries to show the lacunas of both the mercantile systems. In doing so, (a) the author surveyed structural patterns of both the systems; (b) used local terms to understand the local economy with a goal to eradicate fiat money-sign based economy. The author’s proposals are as follows: green economics of ...
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posted to no-tag
by debaprasadbandyopadhyay
on 2012-09-03 05:09:16
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posted to no-tag
by debaprasadbandyopadhyay
on 2012-09-03 05:08:46
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Social Science Research Network Working Paper Series (25 August 2012)
Abstract
This monograph is an edited collection of papers on the condition of academiocracy in West Bengal, India under the pseudo-communist regime of 34 years. The editor of this collection, in the prologue, from his subjective position of glocal sub-altern research-activist (a) described the long colonial legacy of Scientific Imperialism by reiterating Galtung’s arguments; (b) criticized Model Theoretic Approach with the analogy of fashion models, who are suffering from anorexia nervosa or bulimia (c) in connection with that, he emphasized on the ...
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posted to no-tag
by debaprasadbandyopadhyay
on 2012-08-24 21:01:14
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posted to no-tag
by debaprasadbandyopadhyay
on 2012-07-28 08:32:44
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posted to no-tag
by debaprasadbandyopadhyay
on 2012-07-28 08:30:43
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posted to no-tag
by debaprasadbandyopadhyay
on 2012-06-27 16:06:35
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Social Science Research Network Working Paper Series (5 July 2012)
Abstract
The author of this paper, as a member of the committee, constituted by the then Government of West Bengal with the help WHO, on Life Style Education for teens (secondary level) in West Bengal, India, under the regime of pseudo Communist party (2004-05), faced a strange situation. Culture-specific taboos, Victorian legacies prevailed rather than modern scientia sexualis. Even the section 377 Indian penal code that talked about indefinable “carnal sex” could not be combated in the committee. The ...
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Social Science Research Network Working Paper Series (2007)
Abstract
Long before the eradication of Section 377 of Indian penal code, the author of this paper analyzed the text with a special emphasis on these key terms: carnal intercourse, sodomy, LGBT rights, perversions, homosexuality, unnatural offences and the expression “against the order of nature”. The author questioned, (a) the opaque polysemy of 'carnal intercourse'; (b) the nature-culture binary (Derrida) and lastly (c) the demands for LGBT rights that legitimate the sovereign in a form of synthetic hegemony. This Bangla ...
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Social Science Research Network Working Paper Series (31 May 2012)
Abstract
This dialogic paper on Kalkut’s (Samaresh Basu) two novels was related to Konark's Sun Temple (cf. http://ssrn.com/abstract=2032556) . These two novels ( Nirjan Saikate, “Lonely Seashore”, 1961 revised version,1972 and Samba, “Son of Krishna, a mythical character”, 1977/78, Academy –winner novel) were two types of travelogues — first one was a physical travel from Puri Jagannath temple to Konark with five widows and the second one was a mental travel to the Sun temple. In the first one, Kalkut as a ...
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Social Science Research Network Working Paper Series (6 June 2012)
posted to no-tag
by debaprasadbandyopadhyay
on 2012-06-12 10:19:03
Abstract
This was a short review of an autobiographical account of Niranjan Bhowmik, a so-called ruthlessly marginalized man, who was categorized as 'insane'. The book was transcribed and edited by Amit Ranjan Basu (published by the Bibhasa (2004) and distributed by the Progressive Publishers, Kolkata.) The reviewer mentioned that this book was an exceptional publication as the editor, a professional Health Care Provider, (a) preserved the so-called (mis) spelling and non-well-formed non-standardized syntactic constructions of Bhowmik, thus Basu did not play ...
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Social Science Research Network Working Paper Series (16 June 2012)
Abstract
The author of this paper questioned the linear chronological overdetermined history of Indic language and its subsequent genealogical classification by deploying following methods :(a) David Hume’s Regulatory Theory; (b) pratyavijna (roughly ‘retrospection’) darsana;(c) Althusser’s concept of historicism; (d) the Buddhist concept of jataka. Buddha himself did not believe in rebirth. Proofs are cited in the paper, the semantics of which was like this: non-reified existence of human being (jataka) with continuous flux (ksnikatavada). (d) primary repression caused by ...
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Social Science Research Network Working Paper Series (18 June 2012)
Abstract
The author, as a member of linguist community, of this paper had tried decipher one song of Fakir Lalon Shah (1774–1890 A.D.), one of the line of which is like this “When silence would swallow non-silence” by deploying various methods of Mandyukoponisad, Bhatrihari’s three stages of languages (baikhari, madhyma, pasyanti) and Abhinavagupta’s paravak. Different body-parts, according to Tantrika world-views, were also illustrated to understand silenceme. The author also incorporated Kabir (1440–1518 A.D.) and Dadu’s (1544–1603 A.D.) epistemological concepts of silenceme, ...
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Social Science Research Network Working Paper Series (24 May 2012)
Abstract
The English version of this paper can be found at http://ssrn.com/abstract=2015741.Existing literature on gauging intonational contours in Linguistics, mainly depends on the three parameters (High, Mid, Low) to be determined by the trained ears of the professional Phoneticians. Though there are software and machines for analyzing sound waves, those software do not provide us with a generalized picture of intonational contours with varied and specific reference points with calculated intervals. Parameters like “High, Mid, Low” (as they are used in Linguistics) ...
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Social Science Research Network Working Paper Series (2005)
Abstract
This paper is a Bangla translation/elaborated version of the two English papers: Abstract ID: 2024842, and abstract ID: 2015951. The India census reports since 1871 were put to show the lacunas of statistical survey techniques that helped to construct genealogical fantasy and nation statist boundary. Secondly, the tensed relationship between Laksminath BejBarua, an Asamiya writer, and Rabindranth Tagore was shown to understand the impact of extra-linguistic variables at the moment of a birth of nation in the ...
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Social Science Research Network Working Paper Series (22 May 2012)
Abstract
Feminism is working and the male space was almost deleted within the Bengali imagined community. Since 19th C., super-males were spending calories for woman emancipation. What is the psychological status of such super-males? The semantics of some condemned public-sphere-words ( anti-language a la Halliday; antonyms of super-males) that targeted against testis-poisoning were discussed to understand the misandrous (imagined) Bengali-bhadralok-mindset, the worshipers of the goddesses at the crossroads and at a time exploiters of woman and that is a long history from ...
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Social Science Research Network Working Paper Series (17 May 2012)
Abstract
There are five parts in this booklet on non-conventional environmental science: [a] A prologue written by Bandyopadhyay on the issues of image processing and remote sensing techniques by means of which the wealth of the earth is ruthlessly extracted by hedge account holders by using satellites and surveillance helicopters with rudders that emit gamma-rays, infra red etc. According to Bandyopadhyay that type of planetary–corpo[rate]real politics led to anthropogenic climate change. He also cited Lila Majumdar’s prediction from ...
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Social Science Research Network Working Paper Series (20 May 2012)
Abstract
The author of this Bangla paper had showed here the nature of linguistic imperialism as evident in the terms like “dialect”, “folk-language” or “standard language”. He had also showed the illegitimacy of Folklore and Anthropology as these subjects reflect colonial disciplinary technology as they surrogate whiteMAN’s History and Sociology. By analyzing the dichotomies like Folksong/Classical song, Folk drama/theatre, Folk Art/Art, the author had also illustrated the fuzziness of such boundaries (folk/non-folk) that reveal the nature of subsumption through subjectification as well ...
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Social Science Research Network Working Paper Series (09 May 2012)
Abstract
Debaprasad Bandyopadhay and Avishek Ray talks about the [in]commensurability between religion and popular culture. The discussion kickstarts with engagement of ethics with religion. Bandyopadhay talks about the dichotomy between perceiving religion as spirituality, as converse to secularism and dharma in the non-western thought. He sees religion as a site to buttress the insecurity faced by the Truth-seeking post-Enlightenment subject and shows how the ‘traditional’ practice of Sati (widow immolation) in Bengal was being debated with argumentations - both for and against ...
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Social Science Research Network Working Paper Series (09 May 2012)
Abstract
What does it mean by the word “our”/”my-ness”/“my-dentity” or possedness(svatva) in the context of four Ls: Language, Labour, Land and Love ? The author of this paper has dealt with only two Ls: Language and Labour taking his cues from Raghunatha Siromoni and Karl Marx. My-dentity as a category does not depend on the exchange value as ascribed by the market economy, therefore the author has paraphrased “fit for use” (viniyogayogyata) as “use value” and it eradicates the self-other ...
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Social Science Research Network Working Paper Series (04 April 2012)
Abstract
What does it mean by the word “our”? The author had anticipated the incidence of the secret moments of eco-enemy primitive accumulation and thus he acted with his theoretical weapons before Singur-Nandigram incidences in West Bengal, India. He started with these two quotations from Karl Marx: “From the standpoint of higher economic form of society, private ownership of the globe by single individuals will appear quite absurd as private ownership of one man by ...
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Social Science Research Network Working Paper Series (25 April 2012)
Abstract
The representation of linguistics as a human disciplines, here in this book, does not fully match with the mainstream representation as little has been discussed on the formal model theoretic linguistics, especially intricacies of analytical procedures, instead the book offers an 'other' linguistics, which, by forgetting its stipulated autonomy, takes its recourse to many other disciplines, viz., psychoanalysis, economics, sociology etc. and proposes a plurimethodical approach just like a bricoleur. Therefore, the readers, the new initiators in linguistics, who do not ...
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Social Science Research Network Working Paper Series (20 April 2012)
Abstract
This dissertation is on the 'origin' and 'development' or constitution of an object called 'Bangla Grammar', though all the epistemes within the single quote were questioned in this narrative, i.e., two signifies (they are ultimately signifiers) involved in this project ('Bangla' and 'Grammar') were also scrutinized. The problematic questions, which were involved here: A. What is this metaphysical totality called 'Bangla'? What were its changing (diachronic) geo-political boundaries? Who, based on certain allegedly defined homogenous modular form, are imagined within 'our' ...
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Social Science Research Network Working Paper Series (14 April 2012)
Abstract
Being unnecessarily disturbed by the schooling system of the West Bengal, India and consulting the statistical reports of National Crime Bureau on the bleak scenario of schooling, a father withdrew his son from the Ideological state Apparatus (a la Althusser) and followed the Illichian methods of deschooling. Based on this particular narrative, the author of this paper mounted to the pros and cons of de-/un-/home-schooling society by taking cue from Rabindranath Tagore, M.K. Gandhi, Ivan Illich, Paolo Friere, Basil ...
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Social Science Research Network Working Paper Series (12 April 2012)
Abstract
This paper is an account of pre-colonial symbolic distributions of imagined boundaries in the geo-political construct called "India" and it is also a response to the Chatterjee-Sen polemic regarding the pre-colonial (non)existence of Indian model. Chatterjee raised the following question: "If nationalism in the rest of the world have to choose their imagined community from certain modula forms already made available to them by Europe and the Americas, what do they have left to imagine?" (Chatterjee, 1993:5, emphasis added.) ...
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Social Science Research Network Working Paper Series (2 April 2012)
Abstract
By quoting a part of song of Lalan Fakir, (“When silence would swallow non-silence…”), the author enters into a particular discourse of Jean Paul Sartre with a goal to understand linguistics of silenceme (author mentioned it as Silence Studies). The author mainly analyzes the first chapter of Sartre’s book, “What is Literature?” (1948), where a type of meta-verse was assumed by breaking the signifying chain (as presumed in linguistics as signifier-signified relationship) and which was, latter on, ...
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Social Science Research Network Working Paper Series (3 April 2012)
Abstract
In case of interpreting the Konark sun temple’s architecture (Orissa, India), there are two divergent as well as antithetical views. Nirmal kumar Bose (1926, 1932) interpreted the outer body of this temple and Stella Kramrisch (1946) was searching the inner body. The main point of their disagreement might be posed as : Were the bodies of the Hindu temples constructed on the basis of physiological corporeal or meta- physiological conjecture of body? Bose reviewed Kramrisch’s book (1947) and alleged that Stella ...
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Social Science Research Network Working Paper Series (30 March 2012)
posted to no-tag
by debaprasadbandyopadhyay
on 2012-03-30 07:38:08
Abstract
At the end of 19 C, there was an epidemic demand for autonomous grammar for newly born nation state: Bangla. Though there was a demand from the nationalist elite, there was also an anti-epistemic critical parody of this demand. In this first section of this paper on the Socio-history of Bangla grammar, this anti-epistemic concept of Anti-Grammar was described by showing instances from Bangla literature. The literary works of Sukumar Roy (the play “bhabuk SObha” and the narrative “HO jO ...
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Social Science Research Network Working Paper Series (9 May 2012)
Abstract
The investigator, out of his severe guilt feeling as he is a member of the leisure class, executed some self-funded projects related to socio-economic conditions of West Bengal. One of them is jute industry in West Bengal, India. He had surveyed jute cultivation and industry (59 Factories). Methodologically speaking, he had not followed any statistical sample survey techniques as he wished to reject state-statistics unholy nexus following Foucauldian paradigm; secondly, under the deployment of scheduled survey techniques, subjects were objectified and ...
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Social Science Research Network Working Paper Series (28 March 2012)
Abstract
If Chomskian hypothesis of Universal Grammar is to be believed, there is no way to accept epiphenomenal genealogical classification based on the substantial arbitrary signs. One may also link the non-discursive political gaze, as Said did in his 1978 book, with the discursive formation of EL-centric “genealogical” order of things. However, critical apprehension or negation of such discipline, strategically (not epistemologically) speaking, is too difficult even after the two revolutions in Linguistics (Saussure and Chomsky) or after Derrida’s critical ...
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Social Science Research Network Working Paper Series (27 March 2012)
Abstract
This paper is on the Bangla verb type and especially on compound verbs, the rule of selectional restrictions of which is discussed here. The purpose of this paper is to ‘describe’ to understand the ontology of each Bangla Verbs (BV) type by drawing its factual existence in the world of Bangla discourse. There are four sections in this paper. Section-I is on the order of the Bangla Verb in a sentence. In the Section-II, predictability of Bangla simple sentence by identifying ...
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Social Science Research Network Working Paper Series (25 March 2012)
Abstract
This is a paper on the problems of writing a Bangla dictionary on societal terms. Writing a lexicon by fixing a stable meaning with compositional function to something called 'word' (citation form) is always a problem as the area of meaning is a slippery area and cannot escape fuzziness. Sometimes the term and its network with other terms within the imagined speech community conveys just the opposite meaning of the lemmatized term, e.g., the values ascribed to the network of some ...
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Social Science Research Network Working Paper Series (27 March 2012)
Abstract
This paper questions the culture-specific concept of “development” as it is deployed in mainstream Linguistics or in Economics. What is developed language and what is under/un-developed language? The popular notions of “good” “standard” language vis a vis dialect, patois, Pidgin, Creole, Folk-language etc., which are used in the classroom discourse also, are contested here following Phillipson (1992). The author tried to show that the cultural convention of using these terms in an epistemological discipline is approximated by the extra-linguistic socio-economic condition. ...
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Social Science Research Network Working Paper Series (26 March 2012)
Abstract
This paper provides an account of Satyajit Ray’s (An Oscar-winner Bengali Filmmaker, musicologist, painter, and writer) calligraphic techniques. Satyajit Ray designed two English typefaces, viz., Ray Roman and Ray Bizarre. This paper concentrates on Ray’s artistic playing with the Bangla graphemes as it is revealed in the cine posters and cine promo-brochures’ covers (This paper excludes book-cover designs by Ray).The authors of this paper found deep impact of:(a) Artistic pattern of European staff notation in the graphemic syntagms; (b) Alpana ...
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Social Science Research Network Working Paper Series (26 March 2012)
Abstract
Before the publications of two papers (2001.”Codon Distribution in DNA” Physical Review E, Vol. 63, Issue 5, 051908 and 2001. “Identification of Human Proteins Using Linguist’s Tools” Indian Journal of Biochemistry and Biophysics, Vol. 38, pp. 124-127, February and April) on the deployment of Transformational Generative grammar and Zipf’s law in the strings of nucleotides, the authors of the paper presented a poster to elicit responses from academic community regarding their addition of new exponent alpha-values in the Zipf’s law. Their ...
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Social Science Research Network Working Paper Series (2005)
posted to no-tag
by debaprasadbandyopadhyay
on 2012-03-25 06:14:20
Abstract
This is a paper on the problems of writing a Bangla dictionary on societal terms. Writing a lexicon by fixing a stable meaning with compositional function to something called “word” (citation form) is always a problem as the area of meaning is a slippery area and cannot escape fuzziness. Sometimes the term and its network with other terms within the imagined speech community conveys just the opposite meaning of the lemmatized term, e.g., the values ascribed to the network of some ...
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Social Science Research Network Working Paper Series (25 March 2012)
Abstract
This paper argues that there are different types of time, (a) technological time as it is followed by watching the watch by selecting a norm (GMT); (b) grammatical time as it is revealed in the textbooks of Grammar; (c) perceptual time as it is perceived by the speaking subjects of a given speech community; (d) Scientific time as it is calculated by the locus of the perceived by deploying Tensor Calculus. The author showed that the prescriptions of grammatical time do ...
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Social Science Research Network Working Paper Series (06 March 2012)
Abstract
The book under review is on sexuality (act-pleasure-desire), or rather on the corporeal - or on the language of a specific counter-hegemonic ”marginal” sexual behavior, that struggles to show the concerned community's visibility as a (non-) mirror of ”other”, though this marginalized ”other”'s imagination is also a dominant mainstream communal imagiNATION. The book is searching a/many standpoint/s of lesbians in the given spatio-temporal constraints of England, Germany (partly), and the United States. The module of imagined state (of affairs) here is ...
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Social Science Research Network Working Paper Series (21 March 2012)
Abstract
In response to the questionnaire posed by the journal-editors on the issues of politico-economic situations of India, the present author answered by emphasizing on the following points: Redefining identity with new type of politico-economic negotiations: India had never expressed their identity as a member of nation state depending on some modules like language in the pre-colonial era, instead they were interested in our margas or panthas (ways of life—these metaphors are very important for understanding the geopolitics of ...
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Social Science Research Network Working Paper Series (4 March 2012)
Abstract
If Chomskian speaking subject would be misplaced from its “ideal” locus by the outside behavioral manipulation, threat or violence, there are two possibilities: (a) the linguistic creativity would be crippled; LAD might be inactive and dialogue without manipulation may end its course or (b) One can bypass this IL-problem and could still be linguistically creative. The extreme case of “end of dialogue” - situation was the ultimate termination of Socrates or a case of foreclosure, i.e. the rejection (rather than repression) ...
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Social Science Research Network Working Paper Series (21 March 2012)
Abstract
The paper was written after the experimental nuclear explosions by the two neighboring nation states, India and Pakistan by reiterating gospels, anecdotes, movies etc. The purposes of the paper were to (a) criticize the euphemism “nuclear deterrence” (that is an aporia); (b)promote the principles of ahimsa or non-violence by shunning off xenophobia; (c) protect this planet from anthropogenic climate change (testing weapons has the deep impact on the bio-diversity). Thus the different puranas (mythology) were told along with ...
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Social Science Research Network Working Paper Series (22 March 2012)
Abstract
This pedagogical article is meant for the primary as well as primary Bengali school-teachers, who are introducing Bangla alphabets to the children below six years. The strategy adopted here for introducing target language graphemes to the Bengali children is altogether different from the usual cultural practice of introducing Bangla alphabet with sequential Sanskrit phonetic order of things that creates ambiguities and confusion in the mind of learning-subjects as there is no strict one-to-one correspondences between Bangla speech sounds and traditional graphemes. ...
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Social Science Research Network Working Paper Series (4 March 2012)
Abstract
The Bengali version of this paper can be found at http://ssrn.com/abstract=2066132.Existing literature on gauging intonational contours in Linguistics, mainly depends on the three parameters (High, Mid, Low) to be determined by the trained ears of the professional Phoneticians. However, there are software and machines for analyzing sound waves, that does not provide us with a generalized picture of intonational contours with varied and specific reference points with calculated intervals. Parameters like 'High, Mid, Low' as reference points for intonational contours do ...
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