International Journal of English Language Research Studies (IJELRS)
Welcome to the International Journal of English Language Research Studies (IJELRS), a prestigious platform that showcases the most recent developments in the field of English language studies. This journal offers a platform for individuals who are passionate about their fields of expertise to share their innovative findings and contribute to the advancement of knowledge worldwide. At the International Journal of English Language Research Studies, our dedication lies in publishing exceptional research that undergoes rigorous double-blind peer review. Our focus spans a wide range of subjects within the field of English language studies. This journal provides a comprehensive and interdisciplinary analysis of the complexities of the English language, with a particular emphasis on linguistics, literature, language teaching, and learning. This journal adheres to the policies and ethical standards prescribed by the UGC-CARE, ensuring the highest standards of academic integrity and scholarly excellence. Our team of experts is well-versed in their respective areas of expertise, guaranteeing that only the most cutting-edge and impactful research is featured in our journal. For individuals who appreciate staying informed and keeping up with the latest advancements in the field, the International Journal of English Language Research Studies is a crucial source. The dedication to delivering exceptional quality and fostering a worldwide dialogue on the English language makes it an engaging piece to read. Join us in our mission to advance the study of the English language and make a meaningful impact in the ever-changing field of language research. Share your research with the International Journal of English Language Research Studies and become part of a vibrant community of dedicated scholars who are pushing the boundaries of knowledge in this dynamic field. Title International Journal of English Language Research Studies (IJELRS) Frequency Quarterly ISSN(ONLINE) 3049-1894 ISSN(PRINT) 3139-3950 Publisher Eduschool Academic Research and Publishers Chief Editor Prof. (Dr.) Neeru Tandon Copyright Eduschool Academic Research and Publishers Starting Year 2024 (Online) 2025 (Print) Subject Language Language English Publication Format Online Phone No 0484-2929383 Email Id ijelrs@eduresearchpublication.com, info@eduresearchpublication.com Website www.eduresearchpublication.com Address Eduschool Academic Research and Publishers, Airport Road, Nayathode Kavala, Angamaly -72, Kerala, India. Submission Link www.eduresearchjournal.com/index.php/ijelrs/sub
Eduschool Academic Research and Publishers
A discipline is never simply a body of knowledge. It is also a set of exclusions—decisions, often unacknowledged, about whose voices matter, whose experience counts as literature, and whose languages are permitted to carry intellectual authority. The six contributions gathered in this issue of IJELRS do not share a single argument, but they share a common orientation: each, in its own register, interrogates the terms on which English literary studies has been conducted, and each finds those terms wanting. Taken together, they constitute not a manifesto but something more valuable—a sustained, many-voiced reckoning with what the field has inherited, what it has suppressed, and what it might yet become. The question of who speaks—and who is permitted to remain silent—is at the centre of Bambara’s “The Lesson,” as read in the first essay of this issue. The author’s close textual analysis of Sylvia’s narration challenges the routine critical assumption that silence signals absence. What Sylvia withholds, the essay argues, is not passivity but proto-political consciousness: a young Black girl’s refusal to perform the awakening that others expect of her. By situating the story within Black feminist cultural criticism and Black Girlhood Studies, the essay recovers silence as a mode of meaning-making, a form of interiority that precedes, and perhaps exceeds, the articulations that follow. The intervention matters because it insists on reading girlhood not as an apprenticeship to adult political selfhood but as a site of political knowledge in its own right.
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Reading the Earth: Ecocriticism and Nature Writing in English Literature
Ecocriticism, the study of the relationship between literature and the natural environment, has emerged over the past three decades as one of the most intellectually vital and politically urgent fields within English literary studies. Born from the recognition that the ecological crises of the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries, including climate change, biodiversity loss, deforestation, and environmental injustice, have profound cultural and imaginative dimensions that literary criticism is uniquely equipped to address, ecocriticism has expanded rapidly from a modest academic movement into a field of global reach and interdisciplinary ambition. This theoretical and literature review introduces undergraduate students to the historical origins, theoretical frameworks, and landmark literary texts of ecocriticism and the nature writing tradition in English. Drawing on the foundational contributions of Raymond Williams, Lawrence Buell, Greg Garrard, Rob Nixon, and Ursula Heise, and examining literary works by Gilbert White, William Wordsworth, Henry David Thoreau, Mary Oliver, Ted Hughes, Barry Lopez, Richard Powers, and Robin Wall Kimmerer, the review explores how literature has represented, constructed, and contested human relationships with the natural world across several centuries of English literary history. The paper argues that ecocriticism offers not merely a new set of readings of familiar texts but a fundamental reconceptualization of what literature is for at a moment of planetary ecological emergency.
Writing Women, Reading Power: Gender and Feminism in English Literature
Feminist literary criticism is among the most intellectually productive and politically consequential critical movements in the history of English literary studies. Beginning from the foundational insight that literature is not a gender-neutral field but one in which the representation, silencing, and distortion of women's experience has been historically systematic, feminist criticism has transformed both what we read and how we read it, recovering neglected women writers, exposing the ideological workings of canonical texts, and developing theoretical frameworks capable of illuminating the intersections of gender with race, class, sexuality, and colonial power. This theoretical and literature review offers an accessible introduction for undergraduate students to the major waves, theoretical frameworks, and landmark texts of feminist literary criticism. Drawing on the foundational contributions of Mary Wollstonecraft, Virginia Woolf, Simone de Beauvoir, Kate Millett, Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, bell hooks, Judith Butler, and Elaine Showalter, and examining literary works by Charlotte Bronte, Jane Austen, Zora Neale Hurston, Sylvia Plath, Toni Morrison, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and Roxane Gay, the review traces the development of feminist literary thought from its earliest articulations to its contemporary engagements with intersectionality, queer theory, and postcolonial feminism. The paper argues that feminist literary criticism is not a specialized subfield of English studies but a fundamental reorientation of the discipline that affects how every text in the tradition must be read.
Power, Language, and the Human Condition:Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature
Shakespeare and Renaissance literature constitute the bedrock of the English literary tradition, representing a period of extraordinary artistic, intellectual, and cultural transformation that continues to shape how we read, interpret, and value literary texts today. This theoretical and literature review offers an accessible introduction for undergraduate students to the defining features, critical frameworks, and major works of the English Renaissance, with particular emphasis on the drama and poetry of William Shakespeare and his contemporaries. Drawing on the critical approaches of New Historicism, feminist literary criticism, postcolonial theory, and psychoanalytic criticism, and examining key works including Hamlet, Othello, The Tempest, King Lear, A Midsummer Night's Dream, the Sonnets, and selected works by Christopher Marlowe, Edmund Spenser, and Mary Wroth, the review explores how Renaissance literature engages with questions of power, gender, race, selfhood, language, and the natural order. The paper argues that the richness and complexity of Shakespeare and his contemporaries are inseparable from the turbulent historical moment that produced them, and that the critical frameworks developed over the past four decades have fundamentally transformed and deepened our understanding of what Renaissance literary texts are doing and why they continue to matter
Fragmented Selves and Unstable Worlds: Introduction to Modernism and Postmodernism in English Literature
Modernism and postmodernism represent two of the most transformative and enduring literary movements in the history of English literature, each arising from a profound sense that inherited artistic forms and philosophical certainties were inadequate to the experience of their historical moment. This theoretical and literature review offers an accessible introduction for undergraduate students to the defining characteristics, theoretical foundations, and landmark texts of both movements, tracing the continuities and ruptures between them and situating each within its broader cultural and historical context. Drawing on the critical frameworks of theorists including Friedrich Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud, Ferdinand de Saussure, Jean-Francois Lyotard, Jean Baudrillard, and Linda Hutcheon, and examining literary works by Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, T. S. Eliot, Samuel Beckett, John Fowles, Angela Carter, Don DeLillo, and Ali Smith, the review explores how modernist and postmodernist literature engages with questions of consciousness, time, language, representation, history, and the instability of the self. The paper argues that these movements, far from being confined to a particular historical period, continue to shape the formal and philosophical preoccupations of contemporary English literature, and that a working understanding of their key concepts and texts is indispensable for any serious student of the field.
Macaulay's Minute and the Making of Indian English
This paper revisits the colonial origins of Indian English by returning to the document that, more than any other, shaped the linguistic destiny of the subcontinent: Thomas Babington Macaulay’s Minute on Education of 1835. I am not interested in rehearsing the familiar denunciation of Macaulay as cultural villain that story has been told often enough. What I want to do instead is read the Minute closely, attending to its rhetorical strategies and its institutional context, and then trace what happened after: how Indians took a language thrust upon them and made it genuinely their own. The paper draws on Phillipson’s linguistic imperialism framework and Pennycook’s cultural politics of English, but it also pushes back against both, arguing that neither model adequately captures the messy, creative, contradictory process through which Indian English actually came into being. I engage with Sharma and Sharma’s recent work on Indianness in Indian English, and with the longer tradition running from Kachru through Viswanathan to Ashcroft. The central claim is straightforward: Indian English was never just received. It was made.
The collection of ideas in this volume of journal are deeply rooted in established literary and critical tradition, when placed side by side, they begin to reveal a pattern: a persistent unease with the stories we tell, and more importantly, the stories we refuse to tell. At its core, this body of work is not just about literature. It is about failure—narrative failure, ethical failure, historical failure. And perhaps, most urgently, it is about the failure of imagination. There are books that arrive as finished arguments, polished and certain of their place in the world. And then there are collections like this one—restless, searching, unwilling to settle into the comfort of coherence. Across the collection, a pattern emerges. It is a pattern of failure—not as deficiency, but as revelation. The failure of narrative to contain the scale of ecological catastrophe. The failure of diasporic memory to reconcile longing with reinvention. The failure of canonical structures to accommodate voices that refuse to be aestheticized into comfort. These are not isolated concerns. They are symptoms of a deeper fracture: between the stories we have inherited and the realities we now inhabit.
Narrative Silence and Emerging Political Consciousness in Toni Cade Bambara’s The Lesson
The literature by Black women has been a site of resistance, expression, and identity as well as a reflection of lived experience. In the short story "The Lesson," Toni Cade Bambara follows this tradition by showing how the early social awakening of a young Black girl, Sylvia, is exposed to economic inequality and social power. This paper will discuss the use of the narrative voice, silence, and the internal struggle through close textual analysis. This study contends that Sylvia's silence serves as an emergent form of political agency, influenced by intersecting structures of race, class, and gender, rather than as passivity, by placing the story within Black feminist cultural criticism and Black Girlhood Studies.The study presents Black girlhood as a site of early political awareness rather than narrative absence by emphasizing silence as an active mode of meaning-making. Bambara suggests that political knowledge is not always manifested through immediate action or speech. Black girls' early discussions of gender, race, and class are represented in the narrative as a formative political realization, expressed through silent and resolute resistance.
Black girlhood, narrative silence, emotional resistance, intersectionality, Black feminist criticism
Copyright (c) 2026 Muzamil Hussain (Author) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Subaltern Voices and Narrative Resistance in Indian Fiction
The question of narrative authority over India's story animates this paper's examination of how Arundhati Roy and Salman Rushdie two writers who could hardly be more different in temperament and technique—have attempted to represent subaltern experience in their major novels. Drawing on Gramsci's concept of the subaltern and Spivak's still-unsettling challenge regarding subaltern speech, this paper argues that both The God of Small Things and Midnight's Children develop narrative strategies specifically designed to disrupt dominant historiography and make space for voices typically excluded from official accounts of the Indian nation. Serious attention is also given to the objection that English-language fiction by privileged cosmopolitan authors may transform subaltern experience into commodity rather than genuine representation. The analysis extends to Mahasweta Devi and Rohinton Mistry, whose different approaches Devi's confrontational minimalism, Mistry's patient social realism the picture in useful ways. The central contention is that subaltern representation in Indian fiction is most powerful when it is most honest about its own limitations
Copyright (c) 2026 Claris Annie John,Ritu Shepherd (Author) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Deconstructing Gender Binaries in Dattani's Indian
This paper examines how Mahesh Dattani dismantles rigid gender categories through his radio play Seven Steps Around the Fire, a work that thrust hijra lives into the consciousness of mainstream Indian English theatre. Dattani does not simply portray hijras as exotic curiosities or pitiable victims—he constructs a dramatic architecture where their erasure from legal, medical, and social discourse becomes the very engine of the plot. Drawing on Judith Butler's ideas on gender performativity alongside South Asian scholarship on third-gender traditions (particularly Gayatri Reddy and Serena Nanda), a close reading is undertaken that attends to what the play refuses to show as much as what it reveals. The murder mystery format, this paper argues, is not incidental but essential: it mirrors the investigative labor required to make visible what dominant society has rendered systematically invisible. The paper also engages with K. Prabha's recent work on feminist interventions in Dattani's drama, extending her analysis into territory she does not fully explore—namely, the specifically transgender and non-binary dimensions of the playwright's vision.
Synectics And Creative Capacity: Gordon's Enduring Pedagogy
This paper examines the synectics model developed by William J. J. Gordon in 1961, a framework for understanding and teaching creativity that has been alternately celebrated, neglected, and rediscovered over the past six decades. Gordon’s central claim that creative processes are not mysterious gifts but describable and teachable cognitive operations challenged the romantic mystification of genius that characterized mid-twentieth-century psychology and continues to remain relevant today. The study traces Gordon’s intellectual influences, including Gestalt psychology, pragmatism, and Arthur Koestler’s theory of bisociation. It also explores the four analogical mechanisms that form the core of the synectics method and evaluates their application in English language and literature classrooms, with particular reference to recent work by Yohannan and Thamarasseri on innovative teaching models. While acknowledging the limitations of the synectics approach, the paper argues that it should not be viewed as a simple formula for producing creativity. Rather, it represents one of the more carefully theorized and practically useful pedagogical tools available to educators seeking to move beyond rote instruction while maintaining an element of structured learning.
Tagore And Yeats: A Cross-Cultural Literary Dialogue
In 1912, W.B. Yeats read Rabindranath Tagore’s English prose translations of his Bengali devotional poems and declared himself profoundly moved. The introduction he wrote for Gitanjali helped secure Tagore the Nobel Prize in 1913 and established the terms in which Western readers would understand and misunderstand the Indian poet for decades to come. This paper reexamines the Tagore-Yeats encounter, arguing that it was shaped as much by mutual misrecognition as by genuine affinity. Drawing on biographies by Dutta and Robinson and by Foster, and engaging with the orientalism critique associated with Said, I trace the structural parallels between two poets who were simultaneously conducting projects of cultural nationalism in colonized nations, while also attending to the asymmetries of power and perception that ensured their dialogue would remain, in important respects, a conversation at cross-purposes. The paper does not debunk the encounter. It tries to understand it honestly, which is a more difficult and more interesting task.
Dalit Autobiography as Counter-Canonical Literary Genre
Dalit autobiography is not a comfortable genre. It is not supposed to be. When Omprakash Valmiki published Joothan in 1997 and Bama published Karukku a year earlier, they were not adding politely to the Indian literary canon; they were challenging its foundations. This paper examines both texts as interventions that unsettle the aesthetic norms, epistemological assumptions, and social hierarchies embedded in mainstream Indian literary culture. Drawing on autobiography theory (Lejeune, Smith and Watson) and Limbale’s aesthetic of Dalit literature, I argue that Valmiki and Bama deploy life-writing not as self-expression in the liberal humanist sense but as political testimony, communal witness, and aesthetic provocation. Their narratives demand to be read on their own terms terms that privilege fidelity to experience over formal elegance, collective identity over individual personality, and the urgency of social justice over the pleasures of aesthetic contemplation. Whether the Indian literary establishment is ready for that demand is another question.
Nostalgia And Cultural Hybridity In Indian Diaspora Literature
This paper places Jhumpa Lahiri and Bharati Mukherjee side by side a pairing that is more contentious than it first appears. Both are Indian American writers; both deal with immigration, identity, and the pull of the homeland. But their temperaments are so different, their formal choices so divergent, that reading them together illuminates the full range of the Indian diasporic imagination rather than a single point within it. Using Bhabha’s "third space," Boym’s distinction between restorative and reflective nostalgia, and Hall’s dynamic model of cultural identity, I argue that Lahiri’s fiction inhabits a space of melancholic liminality where the past is both wound and refuge, while Mukherjee’s writing plunges into transformation with a recklessness that is either exhilarating or alarming depending on where you stand. Neither writer sentimentalizes nostalgia. Both treat it as a lens sometimes distorting, sometimes clarifying through which the contradictions of diasporic life become visible and available for literary exploration.
Copyright (c) 2026 Rini Joy (Author) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Narrative Failure and Ecological Crisis: Amitav Ghosh’s The Great Derangement in Postcolonial and Ecocritical Perspective
This paper explores the argument advanced by Amitav Ghosh in The Great Derangement that the conventions of literary realism are inherently ill-suited to representing the large-scale and unpredictable phenomena of climate change. The study analyzes Ghosh’s claims across the book’s three sections—Stories, History, and Politics—situating them within the broader contexts of ecocriticism and postcolonial environmental thought. It draws on concepts such as Nixon’s notion of slow violence, Chakrabarty’s theses on the climate of history, and Morton’s theory of hyperobjects, while also examining how Ghosh’s own fiction, The Hungry Tide and Gun Island, attempts to enact the principles outlined in his critique. The paper contends that Ghosh’s most significant contribution lies not only in his literary diagnosis but in his insistence on linking environmental catastrophe to the legacies of colonialism and capitalism, a connection that much Western ecocriticism has been slow to acknowledge.
I believe that literature is never merely an aesthetic pursuit; it is a living, breathing conversation with society, history, language, and power. Each new issue of International Journal of English Language Research Studies (IJELRS), in a sense, an act of faith—faith in the written word, in careful reading, and in the belief that literature still has something urgent to say about the world we inhabit. The essays collected in this volume of IJELRS grow out of that conviction. Though they range widely in period, place, and method, they are united by a shared concern with voice, power, identity, and the ways in which texts speak to social realities that refuse to remain confined to the page. The opening study on The God of Small Things returns us to one of the most troubling questions in postcolonial thought: whose voices are heard, and whose are systematically silenced? By closely reading the lives of Velutha and Ammu, the article shows how Arundhati Roy’s narrative resists the neat resolutions of history and instead exposes the enduring violence of caste, gender, and class. It reminds us that literature may not fully “liberate” the subaltern, but it can unsettle dominant narratives and force readers to confront uncomfortable truths.
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Ecofeminism and the Land: Nature as Feminine Space in the Poetry of Mary Oliver and Kamala Das
This article examines the intersection of ecological consciousness and feminist sensibility in the poetry of Mary Oliver and Kamala Das, arguing that both poets construct nature as a feminine space that offers alternatives to patriarchal structures of domination. Drawing on ecofeminist theory and ecocritical methodology, this study analyses selected poems from Oliver's American nature poetry and Das's Indian confessional verse to investigate how these culturally distinct poets articulate parallel connections between the exploitation of nature and the oppression of women. The research employs a qualitative textual analysis methodology, examining published poetry collections alongside secondary critical sources from ecocriticism and feminist literary theory. The findings reveal that both poets employ nature imagery to critique patriarchal control over female bodies and desires, to imagine spaces of feminine autonomy and spiritual renewal, and to articulate embodied relationships between women and the natural world that resist Cartesian dualisms separating culture from nature. Despite significant differences in cultural context, poetic tradition, and thematic emphasis, Oliver and Das demonstrate convergent ecofeminist visions that challenge the hierarchical binaries (male/female, culture/nature, mind/body) underlying both environmental destruction and gender oppression. This comparative study contributes to ongoing scholarly conversations about global ecofeminism and the role of poetry in articulating alternative relationships between humanity and the more-than-human world.
Echoes of Shakespeare: Intertextuality and Adaptation in Modern Postcolonial Drama
This article examines the strategic appropriation and transformation of Shakespearean texts in modern postcolonial drama, arguing that postcolonial playwrights engage with Shakespeare not merely to challenge colonial cultural authority but to create new theatrical vocabularies capable of addressing contemporary political and cultural concerns. Drawing on theories of intertextuality, adaptation studies, and postcolonial criticism, this study analyses selected works by Aimé Césaire, Wole Soyinka, and Derek Walcott to investigate how these dramatists reimagine canonical Shakespearean plays from perspectives historically marginalized by colonial discourse. The research employs a qualitative textual analysis methodology, examining dramatic texts alongside performance documentation and scholarly interpretations. The findings reveal that postcolonial Shakespeare adaptations operate through multiple strategies: confrontational rewriting that explicitly challenges the source text's ideological assumptions; translocation that resituates Shakespearean narratives within postcolonial contexts; and synthetic integration that weaves Shakespearean elements into indigenous theatrical traditions. The article argues that these adaptations constitute acts of cultural reclamation that simultaneously acknowledge Shakespeare's global cultural authority and contest the colonial structures through which that authority was disseminated. This study contributes to ongoing scholarly conversations about world literature, theatrical adaptation, and the politics of canon formation in postcolonial contexts.
Language, Identity, and Resistance: Code-Switching as a Narrative Strategy in Contemporary South Asian Diasporic Writing
This article examines the strategic deployment of code-switching as a narrative technique in contemporary South Asian diasporic fiction, arguing that the interweaving of English with South Asian languages constitutes a form of linguistic resistance that challenges monolingual norms while articulating complex diasporic identities. Drawing on sociolinguistic theory, postcolonial criticism, and diaspora studies, this study analyses selected works by Salman Rushdie, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Monica Ali to investigate how these authors employ code-switching to represent the fractured linguistic landscapes inhabited by diasporic subjects. The research utilizes a qualitative textual analysis methodology, examining primary literary texts alongside theoretical frameworks from sociolinguistics and postcolonial studies. The findings reveal that code-switching in South Asian diasporic fiction operates on multiple levels: it authenticates cultural representation, disrupts the hegemony of Standard English, creates solidarity with bilingual readers, and textually embodies the hybrid identities of diasporic characters. The article argues that code-switching functions not merely as decorative local colour but as a substantive narrative strategy that transforms the English language itself, creating what Salman Rushdie has termed "new Englishes" capable of expressing experiences that monolingual discourse cannot accommodate. This study contributes to ongoing scholarly conversations about world literatures in English and the politics of linguistic choice in postcolonial writing.
The Gothic Reimagined: Tracing Elements of Terror and the Uncanny in Twenty-First-Century British Fiction
This article examines the resurgence and transformation of Gothic literary conventions in twenty-first-century British fiction, arguing that contemporary writers have reimagined traditional Gothic tropes to address distinctly modern anxieties surrounding technology, ecological catastrophe, national identity, and the legacies of empire. Drawing on Sigmund Freud's concept of the uncanny, Edmund Burke's theorization of the sublime, and contemporary Gothic scholarship, this study analyses selected works by Sarah Waters, Mark Haddon, and Sarah Perry to demonstrate how the Gothic mode has been revitalized for the post-millennial era. The research employs a qualitative textual analysis methodology, examining primary literary texts alongside critical essays and theoretical frameworks from genre studies. The findings reveal that twenty-first-century British Gothic fiction deploys familiar elements (haunted spaces, spectral presences, psychological terror, and the return of the repressed) while simultaneously interrogating contemporary concerns including trauma, sexuality, mental illness, and environmental degradation. The article argues that the Gothic's inherent capacity for exploring boundary transgressions and articulating cultural fears makes it particularly suited to capturing the uncertainties of the contemporary moment. This study contributes to ongoing scholarly conversations about genre evolution, demonstrating that the Gothic remains a vital and adaptive mode capable of illuminating the hidden terrors lurking beneath the surfaces of modern British life.
Reclaiming the Subaltern Voice: A Postcolonial Reading of Marginalized Characters in Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things
This article examines the representation of marginalized characters in Arundhati Roy's Booker Prize-winning novel The God of Small Things (1997) through the lens of postcolonial theory, with particular emphasis on Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak's concept of the subaltern. The study employs a qualitative textual analysis of secondary sources, including the primary text and existing critical scholarship, to investigate how Roy constructs narrative spaces for characters who exist at the intersections of caste, class, and gender oppression in post-independence India. The analysis focuses specifically on Velutha, the Untouchable carpenter, and Ammu, the divorced woman who transgresses social boundaries through her forbidden love. The findings reveal that Roy employs innovative narrative techniques including fragmented chronology, child perspectives, and linguistic experimentation to disrupt dominant discourses and amplify voices historically silenced by hegemonic structures. The article argues that Roy's novel not only critiques the persistence of colonial hierarchies in postcolonial Kerala but also demonstrates the possibilities and limitations of literary representation in giving voice to the subaltern. This research contributes to ongoing scholarly conversations about postcolonial literature's capacity to challenge epistemic violence and reimagine social relations beyond inherited colonial frameworks.
Copyright (c) 2025 Claris Annie John, Ritu Shepherd (Author) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
It gives me immense pleasure to present this volume of our research journal, which brings together a thoughtful selection of scholarly contributions across literature, linguistics, pedagogy, communication, and history. Each article represents the dedication of researchers who continue to explore how language and human expression shape our past, present, and future.
Women's Agency in Historical Transformation: A Critical Analysis of Female Leadership in Social and Political Movements
This research examines the multifaceted roles women have played in historical events and movements, challenging traditional narratives that marginalize female contributions to social and political transformation. Through a comprehensive analysis of primary and secondary sources spanning from the 18th century to contemporary movements, this study employs feminist historiographical methodology to illuminate patterns of women's agency, resistance, and leadership across diverse cultural and temporal contexts. The research reveals that women's participation in historical movements extends beyond supportive roles to encompass strategic leadership, ideological innovation, and sustained organizational efforts that fundamentally shaped the trajectory of social change. Key findings demonstrate that women's historical agency manifests through formal political participation, grassroots organizing, cultural production, and economic activism, often operating within and against patriarchal constraints. The analysis reveals recurring themes of intersectionality, where women's experiences are shaped by race, class, and nationality, creating diverse pathways for historical engagement. This study contributes to feminist historiography by providing a systematic framework for understanding women's historical agency and challenges prevailing androcentric historical narratives.
Enhancing Oral Communication Competency: Evidence-Based Methods for Improving Speaking Attributes in Pedagogical Approaches
Effective oral communication skills constitute fundamental competencies for academic success and professional advancement in contemporary society. This research article examines evidence-based methodologies for enhancing speaking attributes through comprehensive analysis of current pedagogical approaches, technological interventions, and cognitive-behavioral strategies. The study synthesizes findings from 134 peer-reviewed articles, experimental studies, and meta-analyses to identify the most effective methods for improving various dimensions of speaking competency, including fluency, clarity, confidence, persuasiveness, and nonverbal communication. Through systematic review and empirical analysis, this research reveals that multimodal approaches combining deliberate practice, feedback mechanisms, technology-enhanced learning, and metacognitive strategies produce the most significant improvements in speaking attributes. The analysis demonstrates that personalized learning pathways, incorporating individual learning styles and specific competency gaps, yield superior outcomes compared to standardized approaches. Key findings indicate that structured practice with immediate feedback, video recording analysis, peer evaluation systems, and cognitive restructuring techniques significantly enhance speaking performance across diverse populations. The study contributes to the field by proposing an integrated framework for speaking skills development that addresses cognitive, behavioral, and technological dimensions of oral communication competency. The research concludes with practical recommendations for educators, trainers, and learners seeking to implement evidence-based speaking improvement strategies in various contexts.
Digital Transformation in Language Education: A Comprehensive Analysis of Technology's Role in Contemporary Language Learning
This study examines the transformative impact of digital technologies on language learning processes, pedagogical practices, and educational outcomes in the 21st century. Through a systematic analysis of current literature and empirical research, this paper investigates how various technological tools—including mobile applications, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and online platforms—have revolutionized language acquisition methodologies. The research employs a mixed-methods approach, analyzing quantitative data from learning analytics platforms and qualitative feedback from educators and learners across diverse technological implementations. Findings reveal that technology significantly enhances language learning through personalized instruction, authentic materials access, interactive communication opportunities, and immediate feedback mechanisms. However, the study also identifies challenges incluxding digital divide issues, pedagogical integration difficulties, and concerns about reduced human interaction. The research concludes that effective technology integration requires thoughtful pedagogical design, adequate infrastructure, and balanced approaches that comjbine technological innovation with human-centered instruction. This study contributes to understanding how digital transformation can optimize language learning while addressing implementation challenges.
Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL)
Mobile-Assisted Language Learning (MALL),
Global English in the Digital Age: Linguistic Convergence, Cultural Divergence, and the Transformation of World Englishes
This research examines the complex relationship between globalization and the English language, investigating how economic, technological, and cultural globalization processes have transformed English from a national language to a global lingua franca while simultaneously creating new patterns of linguistic diversity and local adaptation. Through analysis of corpus data, sociolinguistic surveys, and ethnographic fieldwork across multiple geographical contexts, this study employs World Englishes theoretical framework to examine how globalization impacts English language variation, change, and ideological positioning. Key findings reveal that globalization creates simultaneous pressures for linguistic standardization and localization, resulting in the emergence of new English varieties that reflect local cultural values while participating in global communicative networks. The research demonstrates that digital communication technologies accelerate both convergence toward global English norms and divergence toward locally meaningful linguistic practices, creating unprecedented complexity in English language variation patterns. Analysis of educational policy, media discourse, and corporate communication reveals how institutional forces promote particular varieties of English while marginalizing others, contributing to new forms of linguistic inequality on a global scale. The study contributes to World Englishes scholarship by providing systematic evidence for how globalization transforms English language ecology while offering critical insights into the relationship between linguistic change and cultural power in contemporary global contexts.
The Enduring Legacy: Shakespeare's Transformative Influence on the English Language
This research examines William Shakespeare's profound and lasting influence on the English language, analyzing how his literary innovations transformed vocabulary, syntax, and idiomatic expression. Through comprehensive textual analysis of Shakespeare's complete works and comparative linguistic studies, this paper demonstrates that Shakespeare contributed over 1,700 words to the English lexicon while establishing syntactic patterns that continue to influence contemporary usage. The study employs corpus linguistics methodology to quantify Shakespeare's linguistic innovations and traces their evolution through four centuries of English language development. Findings reveal that Shakespeare's influence extends beyond mere vocabulary expansion to encompass fundamental changes in semantic flexibility, metaphorical expression, and grammatical structure. The research contributes to our understanding of how individual literary genius can shape the trajectory of an entire language, with implications for contemporary studies of linguistic change and literary influence.
It gives us immense pleasure to present this issue of IJELRS .The articles in this volume reflect the richness and diversity of contemporary academic thought, drawing connections across literature, education, culture, and the environment. At the heart of each contribution lies a shared commitment to exploring the challenges and opportunities of our time through insightful, critical engagement.
Language and Identity in Postcolonial Indian Literature: A Comprehensive Analysis
This article examines the complex interrelationship between language and identity formation in postcolonial Indian literature from independence to the present day. Through critical analysis of key literary texts by authors including Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy, Amitav Ghosh, and Jhumpa Lahiri, this study investigates how linguistic choices function as sites of cultural negotiation, resistance, and identity construction. Employing theoretical frameworks from postcolonial theory, sociolinguistics, and cultural studies, this research argues that language in Indian postcolonial literature operates simultaneously as colonial inheritance, tool of resistance, and medium for creating new expressions of hybrid identity. The findings reveal sophisticated linguistic strategies—including code-switching, vernacular incorporation, syntactic innovation, and translingual practices—through which Indian authors challenge Western hegemonic narratives while fashioning distinctive postcolonial literary voices. The article concludes that these linguistic innovations reflect broader cultural and political negotiations in postcolonial India, where language remains inextricably linked to questions of national identity, cultural sovereignty, and the ongoing legacies of colonial rule.
Challenging Patriarchal Structures: Feminist Themes in the Plays of Mahesh Dattani
This paper examines how Mahesh Dattani, one of India's foremost contemporary playwrights, incorporates feminist themes in his dramatic works to challenge deeply entrenched patriarchal structures in Indian society. Through close textual analysis of key plays including Tara, Dance Like a Man, Bravely Fought the Queen, and Final Solutions, this study reveals how Dattani creates complex female characters who navigate and resist societal constraints. The analysis demonstrates that Dattani's dramatic work destabilizes traditional gender roles, interrogates the mechanisms of female oppression, and creates spaces for female agency within restrictive social frameworks. This paper argues that while Dattani's plays do not present utopian feminist resolutions, they effectively expose the contradictions and injustices of patriarchal systems, inviting audiences to critically engage with gender politics in contemporary India. Dattani's unique contribution lies in his ability to integrate feminist perspectives with other intersecting concerns including class, sexuality, religion, and family dynamics, creating a multidimensional critique of power structures that oppress women in the Indian context.