Postcolonial Irony. The Language of Political Correctness as a Source of Polish Literary Fiction After 1989

The article argues that Polish post-1989 literature absorbed the language of numerous debates on controversial issues that have been present in the Polish public opinion for twenty-five years of democracy –  including the phenomenon of the so-called “political correctness”. The basic rhetorical figure used in its defense by three writers –  Mariusz Sieniewicz, Arthur Daniel Liskowacki and Joanna Bator –  is an ironic quotation of hate speech. The author compares this phenomenon to the classic figure of post-colonial mimicry. In this case, the ethnocentric language of the communist regime would constitute the language of the colonizer. Literature, whose main character is the language of exclusion, provides a good study of how it helps constructing and dismantling the identity.

Article Title	Type	Size
Emilia Kledzik	[pdf]	[237 KB]