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The marginalization of social sciences and humanities is a phenomenon that transpires in almost every society whether advanced or developing at some point in time. It assumes diverse forms and results in consequences of far greater diversity and severity. For instance, the numerous forms that it takes includes a steady diet, often prescribed by parents and mentors at the initial stage of education, of comparisons and contrasts about subjects and their significance; or exclusion of topics, courses or departments related to humanities and social sciences in academia; or ignoring the social science aspect while dealing with ideas that may appear to be solely connected with other sciences like medicine, computer etc. However, identification of the resulting impact of this marginalization is likely to be quite an arduous and exasperating experience on two accounts. First, it is a seriously difficult task, even for the concerned and the experienced people, to comprehend the innumerable ways this absence of social sciences education will affect people in their personal and collective lives particularly the mindsets, beliefs, values, behaviours, thinking, decision making, problem solving, human interaction, and communication. Second, from the impacts that affect people individually to those that affect society at large become palpable only when these start emerging as tragic, embarrassing or violent incidents. An individual who misses out important training related with social sciences lacks understanding regarding the basic norms of a civilised society and fails to harmonise with the set up and systems of the society as a completely functional member. If more and more such members, who have not received adequate basic education in social sciences, are added to a society, then, the society is seen to become a volatile and coercive group instead. A situation that has gripped currently many countries across different continents; and a closer look would also reveal that this happens more often in countries where education has been compromised. One may link it to other geo-political or economic factors; nevertheless, even if the society is being disturbed by individuals connected with political, economic, or any other activity, it is probably because of their lacking in social sciences and humanities that they could not become beneficial members of a civilised society.
Considering the local context, the marginalisation of social sciences and humanities has been a routine happening something that is ongoing, despite efforts by social sciences professionals and advocates in bringing realization that before making people doctors, engineers, architects, scientists, designers, computer and business experts, they must be made good and useful citizens of the society. This should be achieved through a broad based education emphasizing on humanities and social sciences before transitioning towards core subject areas. Later, specific humanities and social sciences courses should continue to be offered alongside professional degrees. This needed step will make people blend in well with one another as a cohesive group, and help societies overcome the challenge raised above.
Using this as preamble, I would highlight one such marginalization that is of the language education. It is important to note that there is no particular language focused here rather language education in general. Our education system does not focus on the language development during initial stages and fails completely in equipping individuals with the necessary language skills in order to function effectively in different spheres of individual or societal lives. This is true for all languages be that native, lingua franca, or foreign languages spoken in Pakistan. This situation deprived the masses of opportunities wherein language was an essential requirement, besides having reduced their understanding and functionality. Instead of focusing on languages as means for communication and for developing thought and consensus, it has been transformed as a political issue.
Language development is a crucial human activity. Learning multiple languages makes a person affiliate with different cultures, regions, groups and organizations for a variety of social, political, economic reasons. Besides their core function of articulation, languages enable the users in shaping their identity and in comprehending the world around them. Moreover, using it as a tool, language users may enhance their performance considerably on formal tasks connected with education or career. Linguists and others interested in language studies are left frustrated and wondering that why it is difficult for people to realize what significant role language competence plays in our individual lives and that how conveniently people have ignored the fact that language constitute the social semiotic system, the well acclaimed systemic functional linguistics model. This model suggests that languages perform four meta-functions namely ideational, interpersonal, textual and poetic. Ideational purpose allows us to conceptualize the world for our own benefit and that of others by using language as a symbolic code to represent the world around us, or as an instrument of thought, or to provide a record. Under the interpersonal function, we use language to enact our personal and social relationships. This function facilitates in establishing identity, social status and roles, and communication rules for the individuals during in interaction. When we use language to organise discourse and create continuity and flow in our texts, it is termed as the textual function of a language. Whereas, the poetic function emphasizes on the eloquent and aesthetic use of language. If put simply, it is the use of language for pleasure and delight as manifested in jokes, riddles, humor, poetry, songs etc.
It should not come as a surprise, then, that the continuous and systematic marginalization of language education has resulted in making us raise questions like: Why do people have such a poor understanding of the world around them? How can we eliminate or reduce conflict from our interpersonal interaction? How to help our scholars in developing coherent and influential oral and written discourse especially connected with research and technical agenda? How to ensure that the language used in social context stays tasteful as befitting for a civilized society without offending people? These questions that are in fact serious challenges may be addressed only when instead of an emotional stance about languages we resort to a logical approach towards language education. The recent initiative of launching an Applied Linguistics Research Programme is an effort in this direction. Already, JSSIR is acting as a platform for discussing issues, ideals, and insights that probably would pave the way to address the marginalization of languages as well as of social sciences. I would be extremely pleased to receive critical insights and suggestions from intellectuals and researchers who are concerned about the issue of the marginalization of social sciences discipline.
Sajida Zaki . (2013) Editorial, Journal of Social Sciences & Interdisciplinary Research, Volume 2, Issue 2.
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