LANGUAGE AS IDENTITY: CODE-SWITCHING AND LIGUISTIC HYBRIDITY IN ZADIE SMITH’S WORKS
Keywords:
Key words: code-switching, heterglossia, hybridity, linguistic hybridity, identity, multiculturalism.Abstract
Abstract. In the present paper, I analyze the language-identity interface within the novelistic output of Zadie Smith by giving centre stage to two codependent processes—code-switching and linguistic hybridity. The tools of post-colonial theory, sociolinguistics, and Bakhtinian notions of heteroglossia serve to bring into view how the polyphonic texts of Smith engrave the daily worlds of multicultural Britain and shatter monologic assumptions of national and linguistic purity. In close reading White Teeth (2000), On Beauty (2005), NW (2012), Swing Time (2016), and select short stories within Grand Union (2019), the paper reveals that the experimentative languagedeployments of Smith serve not just to mirror the hybrid lifeworlds of her characters, but become themselves instruments for the purpose of socio-political commentary. The paper culminates with a reflexive on the pedagogical potentiality of the authorship of Smith for the pedagogy of linguistic diversity and cultural empathy.
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