Construction of Identity in Suheir Hammad’s What I will

Autor:	Gibreel Sadeq Alaghbary
Rok vydání:	2018
Předmět:	Oppression Linguistics and Language Transitive relation Phrase Literature and Literary Theory Conceptualization media_common.quotation_subject Identity (social science) Language and Linguistics Linguistics Presupposition Education Personal pronoun Sociology Sentence media_common
Zdroj:	World Journal of English Language. 9:1
ISSN:	1925-0711 1925-0703
DOI:	10.5430/wjel.v9n1p1
Popis:	This paper offers insights into the conceptualization of identity in poetry. In particular, it seeks to examine the way the Palestinian-American female poet Suheir Hammad negotiates her textual identity in the poem What I Will. The study uses Mill’s (1995) feminist stylistic theoretical framework in order to identify the identity Hammad constructs for herself in the poem, and the way this textually constructed identity plays out against her cultural heritage and ethnic origin. This objective will be achieved by examining the way textual identity is carried by linguistic choices at the lexical, lexico-grammatical (phrase/sentence) and discourse levels. Analysis reveals a dichotomy constructed via personal pronouns between the speaker and her aggressor. This oppositional relationship is reinforced by the transitivity choices and triggers of presupposition. The speaker uses no gender-specific or sexist nouns and pronouns and no description of her appearance in the textual construction of her identity. Her identity is constructed in terms of her collective ethnic background and resistance to the oppression of her aggressor.
Databáze:	OpenAIRE
Externí odkaz:	https://explore.openaire.eu/search/publication?articleId=doi_________::8cc4b2ba25b02ab90bca8cc7ac88e067 https://doi.org/10.5430/wjel.v9n1p1 Zobrazit plný text záznamu