"Your English Very Good!"

Fanon writes, “this self-division [behavioral differences of the Negro] is a direct result of colonialist subjugation”.

The relationship between power and language is evident in this article. The perpetuation of a dominant language and the “desire” to master the dominant language suggests the desire to be on equal footing with a “master”. The idea of a dominant language suggests to us a form of neo-colonialism.

“The Negro of the Antilles will be proportionately whiter… in direct ratio to his mastery of the French language”. We don’t have to look so far to understand where Fanon is coming from. Our local education system instills the importance of the English language right from the start- fail English and you fail to communicate, you are left behind (quite literally for some- being “retained” and repeating certain levels of their education). Mastering English becomes not a source of becoming "whiter" over here but rather, becoming a “model” citizen and becoming part of a dominant culture/community that is imagined, preferred and perpetuated by certain political entities.

A rule of difference is hence coded in language. Within our current globalized context, the impression of many is that one needs to speak English in order to assume a better position to the First-World countries. MNCs, trade and business relations are vastly communicated in English [or if need be, an English translator in the negotiations]. One could argue that even the Tiger Economies of Asia fall back to communicating through the “common” medium of English.

However, a recent observation of language and power and its relationship to the economies can be seen in the increased attention given to the Chinese Language and Arabic Language when places like China and Dubai are becoming increasingly important economic entities. But I think we're still far away from Mandarin or Arabic usurping the English language. The point for my ramble here is that language of the dominant economic power/s is that which people strive to assume in order to be on an "equal" position.

To speak English is thought to be understood and to be part of the global culture. The irony is this: the global culture we so fondly talk about in transnational texts, the idea of an increasingly shared culture, a breaking down of barriers and being a citizen of the world isn’t all that “globalized”. Many things are still coded in the English language and by extension, “First World” ideals and values. [Sidenote: Maybe this is why the French and Japanese are so averse to the English language]

I’m not against the use of English as a common language [after all, I am an English Literature student]. But if “to speak means to be in a position to use a certain syntax, to grasp the morphology of this or that language, but it means above all to assume a culture, to support the weight of a civilization”… just whose culture and civilization are we assuming?

Lingua [Franca] Siapa?

The exploration of language as it affects/ is affected by the colonizer and the colonized is one that is perhaps most interesting when we consider Joyce. While language is obviously a carrier of culture, the adoption of language in terms of colonial dynamics is perhaps most aptly captured in Fanon’s idea that “the Negro wants to speak French because it is the key that can open doors” (Fanon 38).

The language of the colonizer, indeed that that is foreign to the native language( British English to Irish in Joyce’s novel), is deemed as superior and the underlying need to survive in the colony ( or in the face of the empire) sees the native “ incarcerating a new type of man”(Fanon 36). Here we see the ideas of language as opportunity, language as professed through power and therefore language as a form of power to be partaken of.The link between identity and language is further confounded when we contemplate Fanon’s idea that “every dialect is a way of thinking”( Fanon 25) and that the native adoption of a “language different from that of the group into which he was born is evidence of a dislocation” ( Fanon 25). The complexity lies in the way the native tries to forge a new identity by acquiring the power of the new language, but at the same time renounces his own identity. What Fanon suggests is that the Negro/Native has “no culture, no civilization” (Fanon 34) to fall back on and so his native language is bankrupt of value in the opinion of the Western world( the colonizers)

What remains to be asked then, is who’s language is it really, this language of the colony? It takes on words of the native language/dialects, but is forcibly structured to that of the colonizers. Meaning in some cases remain constant, but take on different forms: Joyce’s novel sees Stephen wonder about how even in the existence of “different names for God in all the different languages in the world … still God remained always the same God and God’s real name was God” (CH 1). Lingua Franca becomes Lingua Siapa, in the imposition of foreign on the local(in the eyes of the colonized) and of the local on the alien( in the eyes of the colonizer).

If we take into account Stephen’s role as an artist and his struggle to forge an identity in a changing Ireland through language we are left to contemplate the implication of language on expression and identity.The power behind the imposition, accessibility and usability language then complicates itself in the forging of a new (colonial) identity.

Power, (re)Structure, Everyone and One.

(warning I have taken painkillers for my back : a muscle relaxant im convinced they give horses)

The first thing that hit me about Joyce’s writing, was well, Joyce’s writing. His ‘unconventional ‘ use of punctuation especially when it comes to speech suggests that the dialogue that is shown becomes merely a reflection in the mind of the listener, rather than a product of the speaker per se. Its all very modernist, but this week im struggling to find the link(s) between the text and the reading.

Stephen’s struggle in school with Father Dolan seen in his situation over the broken glasses and hand-caning suggests the obvious issues with authority. In the novel we see tensions that arise between state and church when it comes to notions of authority. The culture that Stephen must rise against seems to be embedded in a tangle of power struggles. In much the same way as the colonies we have seen in previous texts on the course , Ireland becomes “ a half-way house between Britain and the Empire”(Jackson 136).

Struggling between formulating an identity of its own and being an extension of imperial impulses, Jackson notes Ireland struggled between a government style that was “colonial and metropolitan” (Jackson 126). The notion of “Cultural nationalism” and “political consciousness”( Jackson 136) that arises because of British imperialism comes from that “interrelationship of Irish Society with the British Empire” (Jackson 139). This seems to be something mirrored in other texts that we have done like Foster’s A Passage to India and Orwell’s Burmese Days where the locals start to become more aware of politics and how it affected lives.

Joyce’s novel revolves around Church, Self, Establishment and Power- four themes that are all, like Ireland ‘sand Britain’s fate: interrelated. In this sense perhaps we can draw links between Jackson, Joyce, Modernism and Colonialism by noting how power structures are altered on both a macro level; country(govt/ religion),society as well as micro level; individual.