Semiotic Resistance in the Margins: Racio-Cultural Markedness and the Assertion of Linguistic Identity in Postcolonial Literature

Abstract

This interdisciplinary study interrogates the interplay between racio-cultural markedness and linguistic identity within postcolonial literary texts, positing literature as a site of semiotic resistance against sociolinguistic hegemony. Drawing on frameworks from critical race theory, sociolinguistics, and postcolonial discourse analysis, the article examines how marginalized communities deploy marked linguistic codes—vernacular lexicons, code-switching, and subaltern speech acts—to destabilize colonial legacies of linguistic erasure and reassert cultural autonomy. Through a close reading of 21st-century Anglophone and Francophone postcolonial novels, including works by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Jamaica Kincaid, and Mohammed Dib, the analysis reveals how authors strategically weaponize linguistic hybridity to subvert racio-cultural hierarchies embedded in globalized “prestige” languages. By foregrounding the tension between authenticity and assimilation, the study illuminates the paradoxes of linguistic markedness: while vernacular forms index cultural resistance, they simultaneously risk re-marginalization within dominant literary canons. Methodologically, the article bridges textual analysis with ethnographic insights from communities undergoing language revitalization, arguing that postcolonial literature functions as both an archive of endangered semiotic practices and a dynamic space for renegotiating identity. Findings underscore the role of literary discourse in contesting neoliberal language ideologies that commodify linguistic diversity while perpetuating epistemic violence. However, the study also critiques romanticized narratives of resistance, highlighting how globalization exacerbates tensions between heritage preservation and the pragmatic demands of linguistic survival. Ultimately, this research contributes to debates in linguistic anthropology and postcolonial studies by reframing racio-cultural markedness not as a deficit but as a politicized semiotic strategy, urging scholars to recalibrate theories of communicative competence to accommodate the fractured, polyvocal realities of postcolonial speech communities.