S. N. Sridhar (State University of New York, Stony Brook)

Shikaripur N. Sridhar
Professor of Linguistics 
and Director, Center for India Studies
State University of New York, Stony Brook
East 5350, Melville Library
Stony Brook, NY 11794-3386  USA

phones: 631-632-1730 (Center)
        631-632-9742 (Center)
        631-751-1810 (residence)
fax:    631-632-9731 (office)
        631-751-7050 (residence)
email:  ssridhar@sunysb.edu
url:    http://www.sunysb.edu/indstudy

Description of work:

Research Interests:  
Languages and Linguistics of South Asia; 
Dravidian Languages and Linguistics; Kannada; 
Bilingualism and Multilingualism in South Asia; 
Language Mixing, Modernization, and Sociolinguistics; 
Second Language Acquition and Applied Linguistics in South Asia; 
Status and Grammar of Indian English.

Professor S.N. Sridhar was born in Shimoga, Karnataka, in 1950, educated
in India (M.A., Bangalore University) and U.S.A. (Ph.D., University of
Illinois, Urbana).  He has been a member of the faculty at the State
University of New York, Stony Brook, since 1980. He is currently is
Professor of Linguistics and Director of the Center for India Studies.

Professor Sridhar is author of three books, editor and co-editor of six
others, and author of numerous articles in scientific journals and
chapters in books.  His authored books are:  Indina Kannada:  Racane
mattu Balake [Contemporary Kannada: Structure and Functions] (Kannada
University 1995); Kannada (Descriptive Grammar) (Routledge, 1990); and
Cognition in Sentence Production: A Cross-Linguistic Study (Springer
Verlag 1989). He is co-editor of Ananya:  A Portrait of India (AIA,
1997) and Language Through Literature II (Oxford, 1977).  He has also
co-edited special issues of journals, including World Englishes (The
Extended Family:  English in Global Bilingualism 1992; World Englishes
and Second Language Acquisition Research, 1986); Innovations in
Linguistics Education, 1983, and International Journal of the Sociology
of Language (Aspects of Sociolinguistics in South Asia, 1978).  He is
currently co-editing, with Braj B. Kachru, a volume of papers, entitled
Language In South Asia, to be published by Cambridge University
Press.     Professor Sridhar's work has influenced linguistic theory in
many areas, including morphology, psycholinguistic aspects of language
production and bilingual mixing, language contact and convergence,
second language acquisition, and the descriptive grammar of his native
language, Kannada.  The National Endowment for the Humanities has
designated him a Superior Scholar/Indologist in the Humanities.  He has
been a Senior Fellow of the American Institute of Indian Studies, and
his research has been supported by the National Science Foundation,
among others.

Professor Sridhar has been the driving force behind the creation of the
Center for India Studies at the State University of New York at Stony
Brook, which was inaugurated in 1997.  Students and faculty as well as
the Indian American community have rallied together to create a model
program of India Studies.  The Center has introduced and regularly
taught over a dozen courses on India, established an undergraduate Minor
in India Studies, equipped a library, reading room, and multimedia
resource center in the heart of the campus, organized numerous lectures
and performances by visiting scholars, published acclaimed volumes, and
conducted a rich Outreach program for schools, museums, libraries, and
the media. The Center has been described as one of Stony Brook's
greatest success stories by President Shirley Strumm Kenny, and already
serves as a prototype for such efforts around the country.  In all this
effort, Professor Sridhar has worked in partnership with his wife and
colleague, Professor Meena Sridhar.

As Chair of the Faculty Committee for Asian Studies since 1995,
Professor Sridhar has also led the faculty effort for the establishment
of a new Department of Asian Studies at Stony Brook.