Abstract:
Postcolonial studies as well as sociolinguists have long asserted the significance of
language in postcolonial societies and the unquestionable power that language has in
constructing reality. Both disciplines explore the complex and dynamic relationship
between the English of the colonisers and the emerging World Englishes, and the
process of adaptation and appropriation (Ashcroft et al. 1989, 1995, 2002) of the
language which no longer belongs solely to what postcolonial studies refer to as the
“Imperial centre” (Ashcroft et al. 1989, Boehmer 1995), or what World Englishes
terms the “Inner Circle” or the “norm-providers” (Kachru 1982). Both disciplines
have also acknowledged that the languages of postcolonial societies, whether it is
their own indigenous languages or their adaptation of the coloniser’s language, offer
postcolonial writers a much richer and more appropriate linguistic resource to express
their own unique realities than the language of the imperial centre. (New 1978,
Ashcroft et al 1995 and 2002, Boehmer 1995). Similarly, in World Englishes studies
Kachru (1992) sees the positive and enriching effect of postcolonial adaptation of
language which defines a new identity to the postcolonial writer:
