Language and Identity in Literature - Essay Example

Language is a solemn thing which develops and orients based on external factors. At the same time, it is contained within the social values, beliefs, and norms of the society to which it belongs. When one analyzes based on the above-premise, it is obvious that there is a linkage between language and cultural as well as personal identity in different societies. The use of language, its cognition, and its relation between reality and expression of meaning contributes to the claim that language is controlled by social conventions. In addition, the choice of language is central to the people’s definition of themselves in relation to social and natural environment. These propositions about languages is discussed in reference to two novel texts, namely, Jean-Dominque Bauby’s Le Scaphandre et le Papillon and Ahmadou Kourouma’s Allah n’est pas oblige. The way in which language influences the formation of social and personal identity and how it has been a powerful tool in influencing various forms of exclusion and domination in the society’s process of identity formation is discussed elaborately. Every language is a lineament, in which the characteristic of those who uses it is enclosed. In that sense, language, which is used to express a message, is more superior to the message itself. That is, language is the medium through which thoughts are embedded and preserved to express the cultural and social values. In a literature, this use of language could be evident most of the times through the authors’ aesthetics and mastery of his/her texts, because the writer puts different figures of speech in the literary works to express their concerns uniquely. Again, one could explain that just the use of any language to express a message is not enough, and so one has to possess unique skills to coat one’s ideas, thoughts, and feelings in a literature. Both the authors, Kourouma and Bauby are adept in using language effectively in their plot, characterization, theme, point of view, dialogue, and denouement in order to put more emphasis on people and society. Le scaphandreet le papillon is the memoir of Jean-Dominque Bauby, a French journalist, who had suffered a stroke, left with a locked-in syndrome, and is confined to the bed. He describes his life experiences before and after the stroke through an augmentative communication technique called partner assisted scanning, since his entire body is paralyzed, with only exception to few movements in the head and eyes. The entire book was written with by Bauby by blinking just his left eyelid, while a transcriber recited the blinks to the French language frequency-ordered alphabets, and completed the book in a span of ten months. The book chronicles everyday chores of disabled people from the narrator’s perspective, engaging the metaphor of disability to conceptualize the identity of self regarding marginalized persons of a society. The language of the novel fundamentally establishes a standard of distorted normalcy within the social model. This distorted normalcy facilitates the general people to look up the disabled people as inferior. Moreover, the figure of speech in the novel is founded on the idea that invalidates the alternative ways of living within a society. The language of disability portrayed in the novel interrogates the ways in which the French language is adapted to the normative notions of disability, health, and beauty. However, cultural representations of language are vitally important in serving the conservative function of language and communication adaptation within the social and personal realms. Bauby expresses that one’s permanent embedded-ness in language is the ultimate key to understand and communicate with the world. But for Bauby, communication was something beyond realness of socially accepted language as just speech language was not enough. “But my communication system disqualifies repartee” (Bauby, 1997). The novel focuses on the new language or the linguistic processes that allow the subject to look beyond the reality in expressing his own self. With the protagonist being the narrator, it demonstrates self-enablement and portrayal of real-life adaptations to language. Using the new language of his body, he presents a scopic, temporal, and textual representation of language based on the disabled person’s perspective and fissures of chronology, which includes memory, dreams, and flashbacks. Communication for Bauby was perhaps a nightmare, right from the days of his paralysis. However, he learns the new language that enables him to communicate using the bodily expressions. His speech therapist introduces a system where he spells out each of his words to the transcriber such that she reads out the French alphabet in a particular order of their use in the language, and whenever she reaches the appropriate letter, he blinks his functioning eyelids to communicate it. “It was as if those twenty-six letters and been wrenched from the void; my own hoarse voice seemed to emanate from a far-off country” (Bauby, 1997). This kind of technique, a new disability language, becomes the effective way of communication for Bauby to achieve the seemingly impossible task of writing a book. Although he was a journalist who has expressed himself through many written content, but this endeavor of his to find new form of communication and thereby express himself has taken him to the basics. “The exhausting exercise left me feeling like a caveman discovering language for the first time” (Bauby, 1997). The use of this new language by Bauby to dictate his memoirs, perhaps the memoir of his disabled body becomes the central focus of his life because it is narrated through his body itself thereby giving new meaning to his body as a communication tool. The adaptation to language by Bauby, despite the barriers, offers an alternative narrative to the society regarding how an individual, particularly disabled individual could adapt to language thereby breaking the conventions of how the society view disabled people differently. Though language is an expression of meaning through speech, in the case of Bauby, language is definitely the process of speaking from inside, where the speech has no role to play but the expressions are handled through other possible means. The way the language of disability relates to cultural norms is that it questions the identity of the person through the physical limitations. However, by taking the language of disabled as a tool to demonstrate the marginalized people’s inner trauma, the book transposes the expressions of these subjects for social discussion. In this way, the expressions of the marginalized society are taken to the outside world and their language speaks for themselves, beyond conventional narrative subjects. Bauby uses the language of disabled to transcend borders of the cultural norms and social values that are traditionally imposed on these people. The new language that Bauby uses, helps to give voice to the subject of disability itself in a way that the language of expression he speaks is from inside, unlike the norms of the world. Moreover, the use of his language for communication seems to break down the barriers of what the society expects from the process of narration, and thus creating a new definition to the disabled world’s adaptive communication itself. Hence, it could be obvious that language and the purpose of its usage becomes the fundamental aspect for defining the people who use it. On the other hand, Ahmadou Kourouma in his Allah nest pas oblige uses language as a tool to image the African people and their lives. Published in August 2000, the book reflects the theme of African power and dominance, particularly focusing on child soldiers through his simple yet powerful African French writing. It is the story of a street child named Birahima who turns out to be a child soldier reflecting all the social ills. Kourouma’s choice of language used for depicting the status of the children in the African context makes his claim get communicated efficiently to the readers. Everything from the African context in African based French language makes the expression validated by the African readers. For instance, he mentions the African society as “Even a chicken-thief will tell you: if you pull off a big robbery with someone, you will never truly enjoy the spoils until the other person is dead.” (Kourouma, 2002, p95). Instead of using the standard French language in his literary works, the author stands in solidarity with the African readers for expressing themselves in the literature of their native. For this, he uses vernacular figure of speech as his literary medium, as it would prominently verbalize the needs of the Africans to have mastery over their own native language in expressing their thoughts and views. Moreover, the vernacular nature of this African speech enriches the French language. In this way, Kourouma’s use of vernacular language is a symbiosis of two languages, showing equality and mutual linguistic dignity for both the languages. The work is thematically focusing on domination and power in the African colonized society. This concept is well enriched by his style of writing, as it combines both French and Malinké language to express and thereby creating a lyrical and polemic efficacy. Each and every aspects of the African society is well expressed through the text, such that “You follow the elephant through the jungle so as not to get wet from the dew” (Kourouma, 2002, p.159). Though it might seem to be a rebellion of language, as it distorts French vocabulary and grammar, Kourauma effectively proves that the basic French language would be insufficient to open up the true expression of African writers’ creativity. This is because the structure of French language falls short in describing and expressing the African thoughts in a detailed manner. This is similar to the invention of Canadian French, Swiss French, and others, and through such an African French, the author faces to express the realities of African miseries, such as colonialism, neo-colonialism, slavery, and civil and religious wars, which could not be afforded with the lavish French language. “When people say there's tribal wars in a country, it means that big important warlords have divided the country up” (Kourouma, 2002, p.43). Moreover, his use of vernacular language mobilized the uneducated people for a way forward, which could not be achieved on using a foreign language. Thus, Kourauma uses the language as an indispensable tool to express and deepen the knowledge of the readers in the native context by waving opinions based on African situation and perspective. In that case, native language would help him get through the tough parts of speech such that the narrative is powerful enough to depict the African civilization in its own unique language. Moreover, use of this language helps the writer to convey the brutal and objectionable reality that he encounters in the African society. He depicts the character in his novel as a credible African persona and to be credible of such a depiction they have to speak in the novel similar to how they communicate in their own language. This is why the language in Kourauma text has gained enough attention to promote the African situation between the writer and the reader, with the language being both aesthetic and didactic in all means. It is obvious that the authors have chosen one form of language or dialect over the norm to create a unique boundary for their expression of particular group of people. The choice of language employed to communicate seems to differ in respect to the social and cultural context in which it happens. Though Bauby uses the language of disability for communications, Kourauma uses the vernacular African French as a credible means to express the colonial issues. Kourauma clearly invades the French language using appropriate African linguistic literary medium to make a pliable structure for the speakers of African languages. On the other hand, Bauby takes the new technique of communication to voice the marginalized people’s issues, and taking it to the public fora. Thus, the choice of language and the appropriate use of it by the authors define the context in which it is implied. References: Bauby, J-D., 1997. LeScaphandreet le Papillon. Éditions Robert Laffont. Kourouma, A., 2002. Allah nest pas oblige. PointsSeuil, 2002. Read More