DATA ANAYLYSISDOMAIN ANALYSISThe survey included statements related to domains such as family, friendship, neighborhood, transactions, education, and employment. The informants' duty was to fill in the language he/she most often uses for each occasion. The aim was to analyze the use of English in India in different domains.

The domains used in the study could be divided into formal and informal domains: education and employment are formal; family, friendship and neighborhood are informal domains.

THE FAMILY DOMAINAlthough some informants seem to be quite polyglots, even in the family domain (such as Tamil, who reported the use of English and mother tongue just as common).

All in all, mother tongue was, as could be expected, the most common language used at home (for 79% of the informants).

English was the second most common reported language (English 21%).

It was, perhaps surprisingly, most popular (17%) when "discussing a personal matter/problem",Discussions with family members at dinner are usually carried out in the mother tongue (90%).

Among Tamils, they mentioned English most often (even though as a secondary option after the mothertongue) thus, here, too, we can see the preference of the people of Tamil Nadu to English, rather than Hindi.

Hindi does not seem to be very popular among Tamils. The reason to this is fairly obvious, since Hindi has traditionally not been very popular in the south; Hindi is not one of the languages spoken in the area.

FRIENDSHIP DOMAINIn this domain, the responses are divided more evenly between different languages than in the family domain, and many, too, reported use of several different languages in the same situation.

English was clearly quite popular (53% of all the situations).

English seems to work as lingua franca in india.

People are introduced to each other most often in English(51%) if u take the informants who said they used English also then it is raised to 58%.

86% of people say they use English in social media conversations with friends

NEIGHBORHOOD TRANSACTIONSAs expected only 4% people say they use English in local shops. All others say that either they use the regional language or their mother tongue.

EDUCATIONIn education, English is the most common medium (96% of all the situations). At school, friends who spoke the same language usually talked in mothertongue (75%), although English comes next (15%), and Hindi third (10%). English was considered the best medium of communication in the instances in which the languages of the parties in question differed (69%; Hindi 27%).

ATTITUDE SURVEYThere were 10 questions related to attitudes towards different languages of India. The informants were asked to grade the statements from one to four, depending on how much one agrees/disagrees with a given statement.

The attitudes of Indian informants towards the use of English (and other languages) are studied from mainly two different perspectives:

Affective/integrative dimension

Pragmatic/instrumental dimension

I have also reserved one perspective for the attitudes towards native languages

AFFECTIVE/INTEGRATIVE DIMENSIONStatement 3 ("I like speaking English") is related to affective/integrative dimension.

Statement 1 2 3 4

"I like speaking English." 1 16 57 26

83% of the informants like speaking English; 17% report not to. Those 17% seem to consider speaking English not as a matter of option or willingness; it is just plain reality.

PRAGMATIC/INSTRUMENTAL DIMENSIONSpeaking English is considered an advantage by 96% of the informants (with 41% strongly agree). Nobody strongly disagrees with the statement.

Statement 1 2 3 4

"Speaking English is an advantage" 0 04 55 41

Statements number 6 had to do with the role of English with employment opportunities. Most of the people admitted (94%) that it is useful to know English when looking for a job. Only two people strongly disagreed with the statement.

Statement 1 2 3 4

"English offers advantages in seekinggood job opportunities."

2 04 33 61

Only 7% of the people feel that knowing mother tongue is less useful than knowing English

Statement 1 2 3 4

"Mother tongue is less useful to knowthan English."

61 32 4 3

Most (92%) of the informants think all children should learn English at school (however, some acknowledged the illusion of that statement:"Wish, but I don't think it's possible"). Only eight people disagree with the statement

Statement 1 2 3 4

"All children should be required to learn English at school”

1 7 38 54

ATTITUDES TOWARDS HINDI AND OTHER NATIVE LANGUAGESThe informants would prefer using their mother tongue in most situations, whenever possible (83%; 48% strongly agreeing). 17% disagree with the statement with 2% of then strongly disagreeing, however (maybe because they use different languages according to the situation and the people they are with).

Statement 1 2 3 4

"I prefer using my mother tonguein most situations,whenever possible.”

2 15 35 48

61% of the people say that they prefer to be in a group of people who speak my mother tongue. The reason one informant gave was "I strongly identify myself with my mother tongue and the group that speaks it."

Statement 1 2 3 4

"I prefer to be in a group of people who speak my mother tongue”

13 26 34 27

OTHER FINDINGSThe clear majority of the informants considers speaking both Hindi and English an advantage(94%). Both the languages are thus considered important, they are important in different domains and for different purposes.

Statement 1 2 3 4

"Speaking both Hindi andEnglish is an advantage”

1 5 35 59

English is considered important to India as a whole. Only 9% strongly disagreed with the statement

Statement 1 2 3 4

"English is important to Indiaas a whole.”

9 19 37 35

The majority (72%) would like to see English always on public signs, notices and ads, although, as one informant adds: "along with regional languages".

Statement 1 2 3 4

"English should be used on public signs,notices and adverts, always.”

6 22 31 41

POSSIBLE PROBLEMS AND VALUE OF ATTITUDE SURVEYS The most relevant for our study are that people may, consciously or unconsciously, give socially desirable answers.

To eliminate this, I have used a questionnaire which consists of two parts, all of which are independent, though closely interconnected.

With this we wanted to ensure that it would be more difficult to try to give, for instance, "politically correct" answers.

Also, to eliminate the effect of knowing the purpose of the research, it was not specified to the informants that their attitudes towards English were being studied.

Although attitude scores are imperfect representations of individuals' attitudes, if the attitude test has been constructed well, its' results can be relatively reliable

The study was, indeed not wholly unproblematic: some people clearly wanted to give socially desirable answers, the kind of answers they thought would be expected from them, or maybe the kind of answers they ideally would like the language use to be like. In my opinion, however, domain analysis helped to minimize this problem, because ambivalencies in people's language use in different domains and their

claimed attitudes could be compared with each other. Some informants, argued, for instance, that English was not at all important to them when, e.g. looking for a job: in the domain analysis, however, it turned out that the same people claimed very high frequencies for the use of English in that particular situation.

FINDINGSAccording to the present study, different languages are definitely being allocated different roles in India.

Languages are used differently according to the domain in question. We were especially interested in the role of English, but as languages can not exist in a vacuum, also the uses of other languages in the society have to be taken into account.

English in India has, indeed, come far from its original uses in the colonial times when it was mostly used as the language of the government.

Nowadays, English has spread into many new domains, also the more personal ones, such as the family and friendship. English has, also, acquired new functions, including the self-expressive or innovative function.

Today, in fact, it is hard, almost impossible to think of English as it is used in India only simply as another foreign language.

English in India is a diglossically high language. The reasons for this lie in the colonial times when the power was attributed to English. From then on, English became a symbol of political power.

English, today, represents the scientific knowledge, modernization and development.

The use of English clearly increases in the more formal domains. Also, the more formal the situation is, the bigger the number of languages possible for each occasion.

In the domains of education and employment it is, without doubt, the most preferred medium.

It is, however, making its way to more informal domains, as well: about 53% of the informants claim to speak English with friends.

People get introduced to each other most often in English. In the neighborhood domain English is the most preferred option when people's languages differ. Thus, the usefulness of Hindi as a lingua franca seems to be regionally limited as in some areas few people know it or they dislike speaking it.

In the domains of education and employment English shows itself, without doubt, as the most preferred medium.

In the domain of transactions, L1 is used more often than English at both the market place and in shops and at the railway station. This is quite natural when one is reminded that English is, really, a language of the educated: quite possibly the people selling goods and food in the market place do not often know a word of English.

Attitudes about a language are important, for they more or less determine its place in the multilingualism of a country.

English has traditionally been the language of the government and other domains with prestige .

It is considered important and an advantage to the country as a whole.

People's motives for supporting English are mostly instrumental: the results of the study reveal that English is perceived as a useful language to know mostly because of job opportunities: English is considered necessary would one want to have a job.

Education is an important proof of the status of a language in a society, and if this is true, in the case of English its status seems quite secure: over 92% of the informants are of the opinion that all children should learn English at school.

Whereas English was considered important to India in most of the responses (72%), the informants strongly identified themselves with their mother tongue and the group that speaks it.

This is important for the maintenance of the native languages of the country: especially in the case of varieties with less official acknowledgement group solidarity becomes very important. The maintenance of a group's language makes one part of it.

English is clearly perceived as a more useful language to know.

People reported, on average, that they know three different languages.

As we can see from the results of the study, English has become more nativized in the Indian environment: it seems that English now belongs to India's linguistic repertoire in a very natural way. English, however, is still clearly a language of "ideas, not of emotions", as one informant put it.