Colonial and Postcolonial Language

As part of her exploration of the issues prevalent in Antiguan society, Jamaica Kincaid discusses the way language is used.  The examples she gives, however, are used in two different ways. 

Her first discussion of language involves an exploration of the ways that language is used by the English people to exert control over the people of Antigua.  She refers to the people of Antigua as orphans and goes on to say that one of the key factors is the lack of their native language.  “For the language of the criminal can contain only the goodness of the criminal’s deed.  The language of the criminal can explain and express the deed only from the criminal’s point of view.”  I believe that what she is saying here is not that the English language somehow has inadequate expressive potential, but that the ties of the language with colonialism and control render it ineffective for her use.  The very fact that she is using the language that the colonial regime brought and enforced ties her in more firmly to the colonial paradigm.  While there is an argument to be made that certain key concepts may not be fully able to be expressed in English, her problem here is one of associations with the language rather than the language itself.   

Her second discussion involves the issue of how the young people of Antigua speak English.  She says that they speak very badly, talking about “how unable they were to answer in a straightforward way, and in their native tongue of English, simple questions about themselves.”  This seems to indicate a different kind of view towards the language than was expressed in her first discussion.  Far from believing that the young people cannot speak English because it is not suited to the context, she is instead saying that they cannot speak it because they are not well educated.  They seem stupid and illiterate because of the deplorable quality of their post-colonial education.  While she does not explicitly show the kinds of ways that colonialism has affected the quality of education in Antigua, the general idea is relatively easy to grasp.  Applying the same kinds of reasoning she uses in discussing why there is so much poverty and so much corruption in the Antiguan government, it is possible to discern some reasons. 

Uma Narayan’s discussion of Westernization and “Westernized” as a term of disparagement is particularly relevant here.  The enforced spread of English in areas colonized by the British Empire is one of the key factors in subordinating the peoples of said areas.  Through direct or indirect means, the English language is made to be the one that people need to learn to function under the colonial regime.  This devaluation of native languages can result in a lack of speakers of the languages and an anticolonial pushback once the enforcement of English is gone.  Use of English, while useful in certain contexts, can be seen as a way of betraying valuable traditions. 

I believe that Narayan’s critique of anticolonialist pushback and the selectiveness with which items and practices are deemed “Westernized” is relevant here as well.  How might Kincaid’s first discussion of language reflect this kind of pushback?  Is her criticism of English in this context valid? In her second discussion, what kinds of things is she saying about the young people? Are they the actual focus of her disparagement, or is the system that caused the educational issues the focus?