The language of power and the power of language
The usage of English by South Asian writers, and the subsequent creation of South Asian image and identity
This article will discuss the complexity of positionality and the implications of writing in the English language in a South Asian context. Given the postcolonial heritage of South Asia, contemporary authors producing literature in English find themselves confronted with both tremendous opportunity as well as tremendous controversy. Literature has become a product in the circuit of culture, and the concluding sections will therefore discuss and explore how writers, and particularly diasporic writers, using English (as opposed to the other languages in India) are able to seize a disproportionate amount of world attention and consequently, through their choice of language, gain the power to make their presentations and representations dominant and prevalent in terms of distribution and influence.
Cited by (3)
Cited by three other publications
Jaswal, Balli Kaur
2022.
Imaginary Homelands and Moveable Feasts: An Indian Diaspora Woman Writer’s Perspective. In
Writing the Multicultural Experience,
► pp. 149 ff.

Lau, Lisa
2010.
Literary Representations of the ‘New Indian Woman’.
Journal of South Asian Development 5:2
► pp. 271 ff.

Perera, S.W.
2008.
Sri Lanka.
The Journal of Commonwealth Literature 43:4
► pp. 219 ff.

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