Mulk Raj Anand's Novels: A Sociolinguistic Study (Hardbound - 2017)

Sociolinguistic approach is a vital tool to study the effects of all the aspects of society, including cultural norms, expectations, and context, in the way language is used, and the effects of language use on society. It investigates the interrelationship between language use and society.

The Indian writers of the first generation such as R.K. Narayan, Raja Rao, and Mulk Raj Anand have skillfully used Indian English to describe and portray their characters.

Mulk Raj Anand, in his novels, describes situations and portrays his characters using the language that suits them.

Sociolinguistics differs from sociology of language. The focus of sociolinguistics is the effect of the society on the language, while the focus of the sociology of language is on the effect of the language on the society.

The social stratification of language is now a prominent feature of sociolinguistic investigations. Mulk Raj Anand’s characters come from different social background. Their use of language has the correlations with the social class, caste and gender of the study of sociolinguistics. Mulk Raj Anand is especially noted for introducing the quantitative study of language variation and change, making the sociology of language into a scientific discipline.

Mulk Raj Anand has a prominent place in the Indian writing in English as a writer who depicts the realistic portrait of the first half of the twentieth century. He is the major Indian English novelist who has made sociolinguistic experiments in his novels, which are linguistically significant.

Annasaheb B. Pawar born on 30 April 1962 in Pune has completed his M.A. (English), M.Phil., L.L.B., and Ph.D. Degrees.

His areas of interest are Drama and Sociolinguistics. He is an Associate Professor in K.R.A. College, Deola District Nasik (Maharashtra). He has thirty years of teaching experience at U.G. and P.G. Levels. He has published two books so far.