Discourse Research On Postcolonial Intellectual Identity By Edward W. Said

Postcolonial theorist Edward W.Said wrote many works,his orientalism is regarded as the origin of postcolonial criticism and has a high international influence.Since the introduction of said to China by Taiwan scholar Shan Dexing,his theory has aroused heated discussion in Chinese academic circles,and scholars have focused on the research of orientalism.In addition,Said’s "theory of molecular knowledge" has been praised in China.From the perspective of identity,this paper studies and sorts out Said’s discourse of postcolonial intellectuals.Identity is not only a vane of contemporary European and American cultural politics,but also a cognitive trend sweeping the world.Since the mid-1970 s,the global situation has undergone great changes,with the political trend towards multi-polarization,the so-called world hegemony no longer exists,and the economic trend towards globalization.With the universal progress and development of the world,culture has also begun a comprehensive turn.As a discourse closely related to political culture,identity has aroused heated discussion and research in the academic circle.Gender,place,race and other elements are all important components of identity.As an outstanding representative of post-colonial intellectuals,said himself rose to international fame for his active involvement in politics.Through the study of his theoretical texts,it can be clarified how the intellectuals represented by said himself construct their identity in today’s society.Because he once had the status of a refugee,said has involved a lot of postcolonial intellectual identity discourse with realistic significance in his works.By means of literature research,analysis and induction,text reading and other research methods,this paper makes a detailed review of Said’s works and related research literature,and extracts relevant expressions of identity discourse of colonial intellectuals.Post-colonial intellectuals refer to the intellectuals who emigrated from the former colonies of the third world to the former metropolitan countries of the first world and held post-colonial criticism.The core of this part of the intellectuals in the postcolonial context conflict zone,they were born in the former colonies,accept education is colonial system,eventually settled in the former colonial countries,such as difficult course not only brings to the post-colonial intellectuals identity confusion,but also make them get a marginal field of vision and identity of hybrid and its cultural power,thereby intermediary plays an edge but important critical construction function.The cultural identity of the post-colonial intellectuals is still being questioned,and their hybridism is denied and ostracized from both sides of the home country and the metropolitan country,and even accused of having the suspicion of privileged elites and comprador intellectuals,facing the polarization of class politics.Under such circumstances,the identity of post-colonial intellectuals presents extremely complex multiple tensions and possibilities of construction.For the study of this article,it focuses on the causes of the formation of Said’s postcolonial intellectuals.We should know any literary criticism promote and restrict development is inseparable from the era environment.As a special experience,experience about living in tow cities also is the main reason that he is committed to build a unique identity,its particular social context also has a role in a series of social events;Then,with the combination of Said’s works and his predecessors’ studies,the meaning and connotation of his post-colonial intellectuals’ identity discourse are sorted out,and four kinds of discourse,namely "Others","Exile","Representation" and "Amateur",are extracted and discussed systematically.At last,the thesis makes an overall analysis of Said’s post-colonial intellectual identity discourse,from which enlightenment and reflection can be extracted.As critics to usurp the role of intellectuals in exile,orientalism is proposed to the intellectuals in their definition,for its identity defined on the basis of criticism and shows that the living world and eliminate the need for the mandatory knowledge against type road,is a great contribution to human liberation,to contemporary intellectuals also has important reference meaning in the problems of cultural identity;At the same time,it should be noted that Said’s view of intellectual identity contains strong humanistic feelings.Although it plays an important role in alerting today’s intellectuals to re-establish their sense of mission,there is also an obvious color of idealism and utopia.