With an aim to work closer with various disciplines of sciences and social sciences, the Jawaharlal Nehru University's (JNU) Centre for Linguistics has put forward a proposal to set up a separate School of Language Sciences.

"Linguistics is the science of language. It has larger significance than just an instrument of understanding human creativity in terms of the text it produces. The early '70s was the time when the primary interface of linguistics was considered to be with the areas such as social sciences and humanities. With the passage of time, however, the discipline's interaction with bioscience, computer science, forensic science, neuro science, natural science and mathematics have transformed linguistics itself. Now, linguistics has become empirical science to which disciplines of social sciences, philosophy, human and evolutionary biology, genetics and genomics, and neuroscience are integral and integrated," said Anvita Abbi, chairperson, Centre for Linguistics. "We at the Centre have been working with doctors to solve the various cognitive disorders or hearing and speech impairment. It is our observation that such disciplines rely on linguistics to say anything conclusive. So we proposed to create a separate school," she added.

According to the proposal, there will be eight different centres under the school. They are — Centre for Biolinguistics, Centre for Cognitive Neuroscience of Language, Centre for Evolutionary Linguistics, Centre for Areal Typology and Geolinguistics, Centre for Tribal and Endangered Languages, Centre for Computational Linguistics, Centre for Language Documentation, Centre for Sign Language Research. "We strongly feel that we cannot grow and contribute further in the academic environment of the country unless we are allowed to pursue each of these sub-disciplines in an extensive space," she said.

On the academic programmes that the school will offer, Abbi said, "We are still in the process of designing programmes but they will be offered at the postgraduate level with MA, MPhil and PhD. The larger aim would be to make the research and findings more applicable to society." Explaining further, she said, "For example, sign language is an important area of social concern. Further investigation of its structure, preparation of instructional materials, lexical and the like are needed so as to enable people with hearing impairment to access higher education. We would like to develop this area in the coming years by instituting a sign language research and education programme at the Centre for Sign Language Research. The programme will investigate research and archive of Indian Sign Language, through fieldwork-based MPhil and PhD dissertations."

While elaborating on the current status of the proposal, she said, "A team from the University Grants Commission (UGC) has already visited us and appreciated the proposal. UGC will have to approve it for the funding."

"JNU's Board of Studies has already approved the proposal and we would like to take it further to help implement it," said Varyam Singh, dean, School of Language, Literature and Cultural Studies (SLL & CS). The Centre for Linguistics currently is a part of SLL & CS.