A PRAGMA-LINGUISTIC STUDY OF FOUR CONTEMPORARY INDIAN DIASPORIC NOVELISTS

Abstract

Literary multilingualism is widely used in contemporary literary works produced in India and abroad, but not much scholarly work analyzing the use of such language precedes the present. The present thesis attempts to understand the use of literary multilingualism in four Indian Diasporic novelists namely Amitav Ghosh, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Kiran Desai, and Rohinton Mistry. This pragma-linguistic study of literary multilingualism involves an extensive analysis of this phenomenon within the Relevance Theoretic framework in conjunction with fields like Sociolinguistics and Cross-Cultural Pragmatics. This study proposes to analyze two novels by each of the four writers selected for study which are Amitav Ghosh‟s The Hungry Tide and Sea of Poppies, Chitra Bannerjee Divakaruni‟s Mistress of Spices and Queen of Dreams, Kiran Desai‟s Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard and The Inheritance of Loss and Rohinton Mistry‟s Such a Long Journey and A Fine Balance. The eight novels by the four writers taken up for study and the theoretical framework developed with the help of Relevance Theory and insights from other fields of linguistics help to explicate the use of „literary multilingualism‟ and thereby provide an explanation for the wide readership of these novels. In undertaking this research on „literary multilingualism‟, I have relied on inputs from fields like sociolinguistics and intercultural communication because these fields have greatly contributed in explaining this phenomenon. Further, based on the inputs I have identified three manifestations of literary multilingualism, (a) Patterns of Intercultural Communication, (b) Affective markers and (c) Pragma-markers and S-markers. In addition, the application of Relevance Theory to literary texts in order to analyze the inferences helps us understand the effects of texts. Thus, by collating the above ideas the study attempts to understand the use of literary multilingualism in specific instances and explain the popularity of these novels. Chapter II, discussed the „cultural dimensions‟ given in Allwood (1985:1, 2), according to which use of literary multilingualism was divided into four categories. He had distinguished four primary cultural dimensions namely: Patterns of thought, v Patterns of behaviour, Patterns of artifacts, and Imprints in nature, which he states are the foundation of all human activity in a society. The picture that emerged in Chapter II, due to the use of literary multilingualism was that when a particular activity within the text lastingly combined several of these patterns, one could say that the activity had become institutionalized and thus the author described a socio-cultural institution in the texts. This provided the context for its interpretation which authors intended their readers to identify and consider, and which included not just linguistic description, but cultural and historical information. These patterns combined with the Communicative Principle of Relevance and the definition of optimal relevance provided a convenient method for understanding and constructing the communicator‟s/author‟s meaning for the hearer/reader. Thus, this correlation provides strong evidence for the significance of literary multilingualism, which explicates intercultural communication as represented in Diasporic literary texts. This study described and analyzed the various instances of literary multilingualism in the four selected authors and explained the possible patterns that emerged. The first important distinction that one finds among the manifestation in the novels rested on Allwood‟s Patterns‟ present in the novels. While Patterns of thought and Patterns of behavior were present uniformly in all the novels Pattern of artifact and Imprints in nature were not present in Kiran Desai‟s Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard. The major reason being Desai in this novel does not attempt to provide any background for the story; instead, her story revolves around a particular place, the orchard that did not require references to the past. Moreover, for the reader to understand the authors‟ intention literary multilingualism was indispensable, as pure English language constructions would not convey the cultural and social milieu of the novels. Thus, the authors resort to the use of literary multilingualism in order to gain optimal relevance. Most notably, the major usages of literary multilingualism with the help of these patterns help in the authors‟ intention to convey the socio-cultural milieu of the novels. In Chapter III by inserting the extracts from the novels in the model and usage of writer styles as well as affective markers, I have drawn some inferences about this type of literary multilingualism. The authors who used narrator style intended to evoke the reader‟s interest and guide the reader to process the text that they had created and with help of these affective markers conveyed their vi information. It was found that Desai in both her novels and Mistry in his A Fine Balance did not use the narrator style. The reason behind this may be that the novels‟ plots are created in such a way as to make the use of a reminiscent tone pointless. Further, drawing parallels between the different manifestations of literary multilingualism one finds that Chapter Two, discusses manifestation of literary multilingualism with respect to intercultural communication. Intercultural Communication categorizes use of interjections like Arre under the pattern of behaviour. The special reference of Arre in this chapter is given because it is not just a marker of a particular culture but also it helps in the expression of some or other emotion such as fear, surprise, disgust etc., thus making it an example of affective marker. In case of the examples of character style, it was found that Divakaruni and Mistry in their novels Queen of Dreams and Such a Long Journey do not use the character style. The possible reason would be that in both these novels there was no need for portrayal of individuals as both the novels concentrated on the interrelationship present among its various characters. In addition, all the eight novels studied in this thesis have examples of mixed styles. However, the use of one combination is more common than the other two. The character-interlocutor style is the most common style because according to literature on affective display the movement of a plot in the novel is assisted with this style. Chapter IV analyses the reflection of features of spoken discourse as a manifestation of literary multilingualism, and contends that the manifestation gives real world knowledge thereby creating a „mutual cognitive environment‟ for the reader. Particularly when encountering the constructions like fillers, particles and reformulations, which have been „created‟ by the author in the text, the readers‟ imaginations is aroused as to the place and time, one feels one is faced with a typical scene that is familiar and intimate. On the other hand the foreign reader can envisage the social reality in India is and can visuaslize what occurs there thus giving them an idea of real world knowledge. Accordingly, on the basis of the inferences drawn with the help of two categories referred to as Pragma-markers and S-markers it is suggested that the use of literary multilingualism performs following functions: The use of pragma-markers like Arey, Hai etc. are generally due to lack of good translation of such expressions in English. In case of fillers as pragma-markers there are no language specific (here English) markers present. The use of such expressions, reformulation, and plural elements provide better understanding of the vii text by the reader. It also provides authenticity to characters and makes the plot more believable for the reader. Therefore, specific places where the authors use these markers indicate that it is consciously used in order to create a mutual cognitive environment for the reader to comprehend and better connect with the novels‟ plot and characters which in turn enhance the appeal and readability. To conclude one can say that analyzing the manifestations of literary multilingualism was of great interest and significance to understand the overall „effects‟ of the Diasporic writers such as Ghosh, Divakaruni, Desai and Mistry. Further, it is a topical issue, which gave noteworthy results. In addition, the analysis of three different manifestation of „literary multilingualism‟ within a Relevance Theoretic framework positioned the selected novels as multilingual texts reflecting the language situation in a globalized world. The conclusion drawn from the textual evidence showed that use of literary multilingualism in specific places in the texts produced communicative effects vis-à-vis understanding of the texts. The three different manifestations lead to three different communicative effects, Patterns of intercultural communication produced cultural knowledge for the reader, Writer styles with the help of Affective markers produced affective stances for the reader and finally Pragma-markers and S-markers produced „cognitive environment‟ for the reader to understand and appreciate the text. Further, the analysis of the eight texts selected for this study with the help of Relevance Theory and Sociolinguistics and Cross-Cultural approaches explicated that the selective use of literary multilingualism enriched the background as well as real world knowledge which in relevance theoretic terms is „mutual cognitive envrionment‟. This creation of a mutual cognitive environment by the authors facilitated by the use of literary multilingualism, thus adds to the overall readability of these novels.