LINGUISTIC HYBRIDITY AND READER POSITIONING THROUGH UNTRANSLATED CULTURAL LEXIS IN KAMILA SHAMSIE'S BURNT SHADOWS: A POSTCOLONIAL STYLISTIC ANALYSIS

Abstract

This study examines the postcolonial stylistic analysis of the untranslated cultural lexis for highlighting the linguistic hybridity and its effects on readers’ positioning in Kamila Shamsie’s novel Burnt Shadows (2009). The novel is written in English language which is globally enriching language, however there are certain cultural, linguistic, social, religious, and political untranslated expressions in Urdu, German, and Japanese language are deliberately used in the narrative for creating a different readers’ experience. Furthermore, it is a conscious effort being a diasporic author, Shamsie implemented linguistic strategies through religious, clothing lexis, food items, and a few identities driven expression from the Japanese language in the context of the bombing attack for constructing different reading experiences of western audience. Furthermore, it is qualitative research methodology, under the lens of the postcolonial stylistic analysis, with purposive sampling technique and the close reading of the primary text provides multiple examples of untranslated cultural lexis. These words are divided into five categories such as religion and spirituality, dresses and visual representation, food and domestic lifestyle, kinship and affection, and traumatic symbols in the bombing attack context.

The theoretical framework is based on the postcolonial stylistic linguistics. It is further examined the linguistic hybridity through cultural untranslated lexicon with Homi K. Bhabha’s concept of hybridity and third space as theorized in The Location of Culture (1994), Ashcroft, Griffiths, and Tiffin's strategies of abrogation and appropriation from The Empire Writes Back (2002), Roger Fowler's linguistic criticism and reader positioning from Linguistic Criticism (1996). The results reveal that the constant rejection of English translation in Burnt Shadows shows that it is a deliberate/conscious effort of the author to construct a linguistically hybrid place which is relevant to Bhabha’s ambivalent space where different languages and cultures blend. This study further argues that this untranslated lexis functions as reader positioning device, like the South Asian readers are culturally insiders, however the Western reading community is known as culturally outsiders because they are unfamiliar with the cultural, religious, social, domestic, and political lexis. Because they are unfamiliar with the deeper embedded meaning. These findings reveals that this study contributes in the growing field of postcolonial stylistic linguistic research in which close linguistics analysis uncover the ideological and cultural perspectives of postcolonial literary text as Shamsie’s Burnt Shadows is a linguistic and cultural resistance text with the untranslated cultural lexis.