ABSTRACT
After a brief description of the contacts between English and India, this chapter tackles the notion of Indian English as a recognised diatopic variety in the field of World Englishes, focusing on its linguistic and stylistic peculiarities, such as lexical innovation, influences from vernacular languages, and non-standard syntax. It then illuminates the capacity of the language to shape some loaded issues such as identity, society, and power through the fictional domain, including works by diasporic Indian authors. The chapter also provides a synthetic review of the current scholarship on Indian English studies and a background of the contemporary Indian English literary context.
