407298

Positioning of Identity in Amitav Ghosh’s in An Antique Land: History in the Guise of a Traveler’s Tale

Article

Last updated: 01 Feb 2025

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Abstract

The present paper is a cognitive study of identity in Amitav Ghosh's travel memoir masterpiece in An Antique Land (1992). The paper employs Michael Bamberg's Narrative project (2012a) together with his Positioning Theory (2012b) as both tools and framework for analysis, respectively. In an attempt to position Ghosh's view of his own identity and that of the Indian slave in the two parallel narratives, the research applies first Bamberg's three traditions of narratives, the cognitive, textual and interpersonal performative. For a fully-fledged analysis, Peter Stockwell's perceptual and relational deixis are borrowed from his Deictic Shift Theory (2002) and added to that of Bamberg's textual tradition. In addition, Bamberg's third tradition lacks details about body language and gestures, for it only covers intonation and pitch. Hence, Tom Grothe's Taxonymy of non-verbal communication (2023) is adopted to fill in the gaps. As far as Ghosh's character is concerned, a dual identity is detected: an agentive, proactive and changing identity is seen with positive characters who strengthen the bonds between the antique lands; whereas a passive constant identity replaces it when bothered by threatening characters who abolish any great history that had once existed between the two nations. However, the slave's character as well as his master's seem to take only one identity-one that is agentive, proactive and flexible.

DOI

10.21608/jssa.2025.303920.1653

Keywords

Textual, Interpersonal performative, deictic shift theory, non-verbal communication

Authors

First Name

Ghada

Last Name

E. Belal

MiddleName

-

Affiliation

کلية الألسن جامعة عين شمس

Email

ghadaattiya@alsun.asu.edu.eg

City

القاهرة

Orcid

-

Volume

26

Article Issue

1

Related Issue

53338

Issue Date

2025-01-01

Receive Date

2024-08-13

Publish Date

2025-01-28

Page Start

184

Page End

219

Print ISSN

2356-8321

Online ISSN

2356-833X

Link

https://jssa.journals.ekb.eg/article_407298.html

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http://journals.ekb.eg?_action=service&article_code=407298

Order

9

Type

المقالة الأصلية

Type Code

653

Publication Type

Journal

Publication Title

مجلة البحث العلمي في الآداب

Publication Link

https://jssa.journals.ekb.eg/

MainTitle

Positioning of Identity in Amitav Ghosh’s in An Antique Land: History in the Guise of a Traveler’s Tale

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Article

Created At

01 Feb 2025