The Place of the English Language in Post-Colonial Caribbean Literature
The Place of the English Language in Post-Colonial Caribbean Literature

Summary/Abstract: This paper examines how selected Caribbean writers use the English language to represent their nations’ cultural and social contexts. The political and sociolinguistic transmutations the English language undergoes in post-colonial literary contexts and societies have engaged the attention of both literary and linguistic scholars over the years. As conceptualized in my paper, language as a synecdoche of cultural identity counter-identifies with the language and culture of the metropolitan centre; language as a marker of cultural identity challenges the hegemonic territoriality of the dominant code of the so-called standard English. The writings to be examined in this paper epitomize how post-colonial writers adapt and modify the English language to fit their own cultural, social, and political exigencies.

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