NEGOTIATING CULTURES: A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH AND PASHTUN VALUES IN TARIQ RAHMAN’S TEARS IN A MAN’S EYES

Abstract

This paper explored the processes of construction and comparison of the cultural values of both the English and the Pashtun culture in the text, “Tears in a Man Eyes” by Tariq Rahman through the Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) based upon the Three-Dimensional Model given by Norman Fairclough. Focusing on family arrangement, expression of emotions and social behavior, the research looks at fifteen extracts of texts to expose how language provides and reproduces the socio-cultural ideologies. Results have demonstrated that the Pashtun culture is being deprived as the culture that values emotional control, communal esteem and patriarchal, but the English culture is depicted as emotional, individualistic and morally loose. In this comparative study, the paper has identified the ideological bargaining between cultures and the use of literary language as an instrument of strengthening and subverting social norms. Such results can be applied to the understanding of the interaction of culture, identity and discourse in the South Asian literature and how such a method as CDA can be applied in the analysis of the text.