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Title “Dialectical Materialism and Discourse: A Comparative Study of Aravind Adiga and Claude Brown”

Author(s) Mr. Wajid Hussain

Abstract ABSTRACT Thesis Title: Dialectical Materialism and Discourse: A Comparative Study of Aravind Adiga and Claude Brown This research analyses the selected texts of Aravind Adiga and Claude Brown to investigate the Marxian social dialectic as reflected linguistically. The study explores the socioeconomic power at work behind the discourse of the dominant social class and the way this power is used for hegemonic practices. It ascertains the cognitively manipulative role of the socially established identities, as constituted by caste and race, in establishing and maintaining the socioeconomic supremacy of the powerful. It investigates the discursive reaction of the dominated individuals to the socioeconomic monopoly of their exploiters and the way this reaction results in the material progress of the former. This qualitative content analysis establishes its ontological premise on Marx’s dialectical materialism and van Dijk’s socio-cognitive approach. The study uses van Dijk’s sociocognitive approach as model as well. It selects two different writers, who, through their distinct linguistic choices, represent two different societies with different cultural conditions and different eras, to investigate whether Marx’s concept of social dialectic which involves an endless historical process of the oscillation of the socioeconomic power between the two social classes is linguistically valid. The analysis reflects that the discourse strategies of the powerful social group determine and are also determined by the hegemonic practices of this group for its material interests. It reveals that the semantic features as used in discourse by the powerful class manipulate the dominated cognitively through the socially constituted ideologies. It also shows the realization by the dominated about their manipulation and their subsequent resistance through the same discourse strategies, which results in their socioeconomic amelioration. The study compares the two authors of two different societies and eras and finds that caste as a social identity in the South Asian Indian society is more susceptible to discursive manipulation as compared with race in the African American society and also that the South Asian Indian society offers greater scope discursively for the socioeconomic improvement to the dominated individuals. The study also concludes that Marx’s proposition about the endless historical process of the socioeconomic competition, which causes the oscillation of power between the two social classes, is linguistically effective.

Type Thesis/Dissertation PhD

Faculty Languages

Department English

Language English

Publication Date 2019-06-12

Subject PhD English Literature

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