…and Multiculturalism
Control and Empowerment through English in Salman Rushdie's Writings
Abstract
This article explores the double-edged power relationship between the English language, imposed and exercised as the language of the administration in the time of the British Empire on the South-Asian subcontinent, and the way it has been appropriated and re-shaped creatively in postcolonial times by one of its best-known writers, Salman Rushdie. Rushdie fully believes in mastering English and gaining freedom through it, placing himself to some extent in opposition to other authors, such as Gandhi or the Kenyan Ngugi wa Thiong'o. Moreover, in his novels, English itself is a character and/or a marker of class, gender, race, ethnicity, social group, while it differentiates the characters' roles on the axis coloniser-colonised.
Keywords —
postcolonialism · power · empowerment · decolonizationCite this article
Marinescu, R.-E. (2019). Control and Empowerment through English in Salman Rushdie's Writings. Dialogos, 36, 283–295.
Marinescu, Roxana-Elisabeta. “Control and Empowerment through English in Salman Rushdie's Writings.” Dialogos, vol. 36, 2019, pp. 283–95.
Marinescu, Roxana-Elisabeta. 2019. “Control and Empowerment through English in Salman Rushdie's Writings.” Dialogos 36: 283–95.
@article{marinescu2019control,
author = {Marinescu, Roxana-Elisabeta},
title = {Control and Empowerment through English in Salman Rushdie's Writings},
journal = {Dialogos},
year = {2019},
volume = {36},
pages = {283--295}
}TY - JOUR AU - Marinescu, Roxana-Elisabeta TI - Control and Empowerment through English in Salman Rushdie's Writings JO - Dialogos PY - 2019 VL - 36 SP - 283 EP - 295 ER -