Agentive responses: a study of students’ language attitudes towards the use of English in India

This study investigates language attitudes expressed by public university students in India at various layers of agentive positionality as an integral part of their dynamic language ecologies. This is achieved through the qualitative analysis of three focus group interviews conducted at three public universities in India with the object of eliciting the students' language attitudes towards English and its use in India. This research perceives students as agents and explores their attitudes in the context of a language ecology Such an enquiry into language attitudes forms a part of a broader exploration into the nature of agency, agentive responses and their situatedness in an LPP context. It adds to existing scholarship on LPP by reinterpreting the meaning(s) of agency with a critical focus on 'ground-up' descriptions of language experiences. In this study, the researchers argue that invisible language planners' as Pakir describes,and interested stakeholders such as university students, provide a critical basis for the study of LPP in context. The authors argue that agency is multi-layered, and that agentive positionality is relative to agentive foci. Such reconfigurations of agency mark a shift from the view that language policies are the starting point for understanding an LPP ecology.