SEPALI BAMUNUSINGHE (UNIVERSITY OF SRI JAYEWARDENEPURA)
TEXTUAL CONSTRUCTION OF MARGINALIZATION IN THE LEXICALIZATION LEVEL: A STUDY ON NIHAL DE SILVA’S “THE ROAD FROM ELEPHANT PASS” : LINGUISTICS, DISCOURSE ANALYSIS, AND RELATED AREAS
Writers select vocabulary in conveying ideas and lexicalization is perceived as the most systematically analyzed form of ideological expression in discourse. This study describes and critically analyses the author’s ideologies and examines how the author has textually constructed marginalization experienced by the conflicting communities of the war. It is in the vocabulary that the ideological differences of texts in their representation of the world are coded. Marginalization is experienced by people due to many reasons and it is a process that inhibits a person or a group from fully partaking in political, social, and economic life. The backdrop of the novel is the War in Sri Lanka (1983-2009), and the plot is a journey of two individuals from the war-stricken North of the country to Colombo; an expedition that opens new avenues for the conflicting communities to rethink and revisit their perspectives and the mentally conditioned ideologies that prevent reconciliation. This research collects data from the novel and analyses discourse under the first dimension of Norman Fairclough’s three-dimensional model for critical discourse analysis (1989); Lexicalization Aspect under the Text Analysis Dimension. Findings of the research shed light on critical analysis of literary texts and indicate that lexicalization portrays ideological expressions in the discourse of the novel. This research concludes that the author’s ideological standing and identity as representing the majority community, is conveyed through the selection of lexicalization.
A Senior Lecturer in English attached to the Business Communication Unit of the Faculty of Management Studies and Commerce, University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Sri Lanka. The research interests are Applied Linguistics, Discourse Analysis, TESL, and Classical Literature.