POSTCOLONIAL NEGOTIATIONS OF LANGUAGE: ANALYZING APPROPRIATION TECHNIQUES IN BLASPHEMY

Abstract

The twentieth century witnessed intense political ruptures as colonized nations sought independence, geographically, culturally, and intellectually from European empires. Language, as one of the most enduring colonial legacies, remained central to these struggles. This study analyzes Blasphemy (1998) by Pakistani writer TehminaDurrani as a significant postcolonial text that tactically appropriates English to articulate local culture, indigenous sensibilities, and socio-religious experiences. Drawing on key postcolonial theorists such as Ashcroft, Tiffin, Griffiths, Kachru, NgũgĩwaThiong’o, Fanon, and Said, the study identifies and interprets Durrani’s use of glossing, syntactic fusion, untranslated words, code-switching, cultural redefinition, translation equivalence, indigenous metonymy, and an additional strategy local titles. Findings reveal that these strategies allow Durrani to preserve culturally embedded meanings that would otherwise be lost in translation, thereby resisting linguistic homogenization and asserting cultural specificity. The study contributes to scholarship on South Asian postcolonial writing by demonstrating how language appropriation functions as an act of cultural representation, resistance, and reclamation.

Keywords: Postcolonial Literature, Language Appropriation, Linguistic Homogenization, Cultural Representation, Reclamation