Terminology in Post colonial literature

Terms and concepts used in postcolonial theory and literature are enlisted in here, in brief:

1) Discoures: discourse means any thought communicated by speech; but according to Foucault, discourse is the material menifestation of a thought that is preserved, transmitted and still affects our present day thinking.

2) Eurocentric: Eurocentric means Europe is the source of all knowledge. Postcolonial theroy used this term to denote the marginality of ‘Other literature.

3) Foregrounding: It means cousidering significant. Post colonial theory fore grounds the ‘Other’ literature.

4) Hegemony: hegemony refers to power and control (indirect) in Marxist criticism.

5) Hybridity: The term stands for mixture, intermingling of different cultures. It is syncreticism and multiculturalism.

6) Intertexuality: Every work contains the bits or some factors of other work can be called intertextuality.

7) Marginality: Marginal means of secondary, subimportant. In postelonial theory Europe is the centre and colonies are margins.

8) Minicry: Bhabha uses this term to mean that blind imitation of western ideology, literature and lifestyle.

9) Orientalism: According to Said, it is a Western style of dominating and having authority over East. It is a huge body of texts establishing their superiority over ‘Other’ texts.

10) Other: Feeling of considering a person, subject, text out of focus. For coloniser, colonised is the ‘Other’.

11) Subaltern: Subaltern means of lower rank, but Spivak has widened its scope and attributed the term to the literature of marginality and suppressed groups of society.

12) Expatriate: The term expatriate means the native who goes to the West and works their but keeps the option open to come back home.

13) Immigrant: It refers to that person who leaves his/ her country for a foreign land for good.

14) Multiculturalism: It is referred to writing of those writers whose origin lies in another country and they work in third country.

15) Periphery: Periphery is the similar term to margin. Europe is the centre and ‘Other’ is periphery.

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