Dr. Rab Nawaz Khan
Abdul Wali Khan University, Pakistan
This study sheds light on how language in literary genres, especially novels is manipulated by the writers to fictionalize and/or (re)shape reality about social members and their life-related actions and events. It is a critical discourse study (Fairclough, 1989, 2018) of Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner (2003) and A Thousand Splendid Suns (2007) which confirms how the novelist has perspectively and ideologically used language to (mis)represent reality about the Afghan social members and their historical actions and events in some contexts. Language is ambiguous, ambivalent, evasive, ideological, perspectival, metaphorical, constitutive, constituted, dynamic and non-neutral. In Foucault’s (1972) views, language is a non-neutral phenomenon which is invested. The researcher believes in the indeterminacy, instability and non-finality of meanings and interpretations, which are finitely and contextually plural. Reality is much more fragmented, diverse, tenuous and culture-specific than does structuralism (Lye, 1993). According to Lye (1993), reality is not seen as universal or transcendental, but as humanly produced phenomenon within and through their cultural systems. The role of language in representing or mirroring reality is very crucial, and reality can be represented or even disrupted in and through language. Similarly, Ryan’s (2007, p. 69) view about reality and its true or false representation by socio-political and cultural forces is very relevant. He argues that “The real, in other words, can be shaped to be whatever those with economic, political, and cultural power want it to be.” Language is unable or incapable of constructing fairly or justly the whole range and/or layers of reality. Alvesson and Skoldberg (2000) argue that there are different ways for representation of reality. However, truthful representation and/or reality are, sometimes, problematized. Foucault (1972) views discourse as a site of constructing and representing reality. His views on the mutual connection between discourse and reality are supported by Mills (1997, p. 53) who argues that “Discourse does not simply construct material objects, such as particular groups of plants; discourse also constructs certain events and sequences of events into narratives which are recognized by a particular culture as real or serious events.”
The above abstract is a part of the article which was accepted at The Fourth Annual International Conference on Languages, Linguistics, Translation and Literature (WWW.TLLL.IR), 1-2 February 2020, Ahwaz.
