MA Tanisha Pandey
Tanisha Pandey is fluent in English, German, and Hindi and wrote her MA thesis on how elite upper-class speakers in Delhi and Mumbai vary their speech across topics and interactions as a means of strategically navigating the current socio-political dynamics in India. Tanisha examines the variable use of English (versus Hindi) and of retroflexion (in English), showing how retroflex forms are used by elite speakers to navigate evolving ideas of nationhood and belonging in India.
Tanisha’s PhD focusses on the sociophonetics of queer national belonging in contemporary India. The project examines how queer speakers in India use subtle phonetic and linguistic cues to signal group membership (or lack thereof) in everyday life. Her research ethnographically examines competing narratives of queer belonging in India that draw on ideas of “authentic” Indianness. She analyzes how linguistic practices both reproduce and resist dominant notions of nationhood within these narratives.
Title
Sociophonetics of queer national belonging in India
