Hybridity, Code-Switching and Imagery: A Stylistic Analysis of the Poem If They Come for Us by Fatimah Asghar

Abstract

The current research explores the use of hybridity, code switching and imagery as stylistic and ideological devices by Asghar in expressing cultural belonging, resistance and postcolonial identity. Language within the diasporic literature can be defined as a place of identity negotiation and defiance. The poem of Fatimah Asghar, If They Come for Us, is a good example of how the concepts of hybridity, code-switching and imagery are created to build a diasporic identity in the context of Muslim-Americans. The proposed study employs a stylistic and postcolonial approach to using the qualitative descriptive method, with the textual and interpretive analysis of diction, syntax and imagery in theories of hybridity and language decolonization (Bhabha, 1994; Ashcroft et al., 2002). The analysis shows that the mixture of Urdu and English languages, family-related image and the use of the free verse structure by Asghar represents the hybridized self and group identity. Code-switching serves as a form of using emotional authenticity as well as a linguistic defiance against monolingualism. The poem by Asghar uses hybridity as a form of empowerment and reorganizes linguistic diversity to decolonial and unifying manifestation of the diasporic identity in the modern literature. The study recommends to use a larger data to dig the topic evolution and narrative shifting of the Pakistani writers over the period of time. It also endorses to use such poems in academic settings to teach the use of stylistic devices for expressing trauma, identity and conflict as post partition ordeals.