Constructing Hybrid Cultural Identity In The Third Space

Xiaolu Guo is a Chinese-born British-based writer and screenwriter who was selected as one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists in 2013 and has gained popularity in the West since then,although her works have not yet garnered enough scholarly attention in China,including her best-selling novel,A Concise ChineseEnglish Dictionary for Lovers.It is her first novel written in English,which upon publication was nominated for the 2007 Orange Prize for Fiction.The novel offers an account of the transcultural experience of a 23-year-old Chinese woman in Britain who is from a small town in China,with a focus on the encounter between the East and West represented by the relationship between the Chinese woman and her British lover.This thesis argues that the female protagonist Zhuang Xiaoqiao(Z)is a migrant who constructs her hybrid cultural identity in the Third Space identified by Homi Bhabha.Under the analytical framework of Homi Bhabha's postcolonial theory of the Third Space and Hybridity and Stuart Hall's concept of Cultural Identity,this thesis investigates how and why a hybrid cultural identity is created in the Third Space.The thesis identifies three types of hybridity in the text: language,narrative techniques and culture.Language is a significant marker of one's cultural identity.The mixture of multiple languages in the novel testifies to Z's hybrid cultural identity.Besides,the application of hybrid narrative devices makes the text become a kind of Third Space,which reflects the influences of postmodernism.Finally,Z has to negotiate the tension between her Chinese cultural background and British culture she is exposed to during her sojourn in London.The fact that Z finally opts for cosmopolitanism is indicative of her embrace of different cultures.All in all,they serve as Third Spaces which render possible the formation of the protagonist's hybrid cultural identity.In the conclusion,this thesis argues that the creation of a hybrid cultural identity may have the following implications.In the first place,it showcases Xiaolu Guo's attempt to challenge and subvert the dominance of Western discourse on language,sexuality and culture by establishing a non-essentialist cultural identity.In the second place,as displacement characterizes our increasingly globalized world,Xiaolu Guo's transcultural writing offers a viable model whereby people can negotiate with various cultural identities and cultural differences.In the final analysis,it depicts cultural interactions and exchange processes from a postcolonial perspective,alerting us to the Dictionary for Lovers dynamics of connection and disconnection,inclusion and exclusion that shape our social realities.In a nutshell,this hybrid cultural identity provides a viable solution for migrants mired in identity crisis in this transcultural era of the new millennium.