A Study on ‘the Language’ of Resistance and Rebellion

About the Book

This book entitled ‘ A study on ‘the language’ of Resistance in the Writings of Toni Morrison: A Sociolinguistic Perspective’  is an academic attempt to re-introduce to the readers  Morrison’s language of anger, aspiration and hope  which has been  silenced for long due to  factors which are not too far to seek. The language variation  which is demonstrated in phonological, phonetic, morphological, syntactical and semantic levels highlights a fact that every variation  has features which deserve to be respected. Here, the term ‘variation’ is used to refer to differences existing within the same dialect.  Language a person uses is a reflection of the background he is from. In other words, it is an identity. If defines ‘the being’ of an individual in social and political sense.

The language of the oppressed has certain features which are normally ignored. First of all, such people are not encouraged to respect and represent themselves in their original language. They develop a sense of self inadequacy.  That feeling gives an individual a feeling of guilt. This unreasonable ‘guilt’ that a marginalized is subjected to disturbs his communicative competence. As a result, he will try to develop sense of negativism related towards his own language. This feeling is the initial reaction to the process which is going to over ‘bulldoze’ the victim in due course of time.  The reader will find such instances of ‘victimization’ and also example of ‘doing violence with words’ in the following chapters.

About the Author

Prof. S.A. Thameemul Ansari, a scholar of Interpretative and Linguistics Studies, has gained enormous experience in Teaching and Research activities for more than 17 years. He has obtained his M.A.,(English) from Manonmaniam Sundarnar University, Tirunelveli , Tamil Nadu and M.A.,(Linguistics) from Annamalai University, Tamil Nadu, India. Besides this, he has an M.Phil in English and LL.B., with a specialization in Legal Language and Writing. He has done his Doctoral Research in Discourse Studies touching upon the contentious issues involved in interpretation of Freedom concepts. He has travelled across different parts of the world and worked in prestigious international universities. He headed the Department of English, Nalanda College, Andra Pradesh, India from 2000-07. Later, he served in the Department of English Studies and Linguistics, University of Sirte, Libya for three years from 2008-11. He writes extensively on the subjects such as Education policy, Teacher Training, Issues in interpretation, Dialogue Studies, Civil Rights and English Language Education. He is presently serving in the Department of English, University of Jazan, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia