Exploring National Histories through Familial Narratives: A Critical Discourse Analysis of The Promise and Riverrun
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.30587/inatesol.v2i2.11065Keywords:
critical discourse analysis, sociolinguistics, family narrative, postcolonial literature, national historyAbstract
Literary texts frequently operate as cultural archives through which national histories are preserved, contested, and reinterpreted within intimate social spaces, particularly the family. In postcolonial contexts, where official historiography often privileges dominant narratives, familial discourse becomes a crucial site for negotiating memory, identity, and power. This study investigates how national histories of South Africa and the Philippines are discursively constructed through familial narratives in Damon Galgut’s The Promise (2021) and Danton Remoto’s Riverrun (2022). Grounded in Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and sociolinguistic theory, this qualitative research examines how ideology, silence, authority, and identity are mediated through family interactions against the sociopolitical backdrops of apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa and the Marcos dictatorship in the Philippines. Drawing on Fairclough’s three-dimensional model, selected narrative excerpts were analyzed at textual, discursive, and social practice levels. The findings demonstrate that both novels position the family as a microcosm of national trauma: The Promise foregrounds racialized land ownership, deferred justice, and the persistence of colonial discourse, while Riverrun exposes how authoritarianism, Catholic morality, and heteronormativity regulate subjectivity and silence queer identities. The study concludes that familial discourse constitutes a critical site where national histories are simultaneously reproduced and resisted. It recommends that future research extend discourse-oriented literary analysis to other postcolonial contexts and incorporate corpus-assisted methods to enhance analytical generalizability. These findings foreground the family as a critical discursive institution through which national history is lived, negotiated, and transmitted across generations.
Downloads
References
Assmann, J. (2018). Cultural memory and early civilization: Writing, remembrance, and political imagination (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press.
Attridge, D. (2017). The singularity of literature. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315268326
Blommaert, J. (2015). Discourse: A critical introduction (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139028374
Boehmer, E. (2018). Postcolonial poetics: 21st-century critical readings (2nd ed.). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90338-8
Bourdieu, P. (1990). The logic of practice. Stanford University Press.
Bucholtz, M., & Hall, K. (2016). Embodied sociolinguistics (N. B. T.-S. T. debates Coupland (ed.); pp. 173–197). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107449787.009
Assmann, J. (2018). Cultural memory and early civilization: Writing, remembrance, and political imagination (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press.
Attridge, D. (2017). The singularity of literature. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315268326
Blommaert, J. (2015). Discourse: A critical introduction (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139028374
Boehmer, E. (2018). Postcolonial poetics: 21st-century critical readings (2nd ed.). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90338-8
Bourdieu, P. (1990). The logic of practice. Stanford University Press.
Bucholtz, M., & Hall, K. (2016). Embodied sociolinguistics (N. B. T.-S. T. debates Coupland (ed.); pp. 173–197). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107449787.009
Creswell, J. W., & Poth, C. N. (2018). Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five approaches (4th ed.). SAGE Publications.
Erll, A. (2020). Memory in culture (2nd ed.). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-23180-9
Fairclough, N. (2015). Language and power (3rd ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315834361
Foucault, M. (1978). The history of sexuality: Volume 1. An introduction. Pantheon Books.
Gal, S. (2018). The politics of translation. Annual Review of Anthropology, 47, 17–34. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-anthro-102317-050021
Hau, C. S. (2017). The question of a national culture: Philippine literature since 1900. Ateneo de Manila University Press.
Hirsch, M. (2012). The generation of postmemory: Writing and visual culture after the Holocaust. Columbia University Press.
Jaworski, A. (2019). Silence: Interdisciplinary perspectives (J. Culpeper, M. Haugh, & D. Z. B. T.-T. P. handbook of linguistic (im)politeness Kádár (eds.); pp. 371–394). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77708-8_19
Jelin, E. (2017). State repression and the labors of memory. University of Minnesota Press. https://doi.org/10.5749/j.ctt1pwt6tc
Kiesling, S. F. (2019). Language, gender, and sexuality (M. Meyerhoff & J. B. T.-T. handbook of language and gender Holmes (eds.); 2nd ed., pp. 51–70). Wiley Blackwell. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119540562.ch3
Lazar, M. M. (2020). Feminist critical discourse analysis (J. Flowerdew & J. E. B. T.-T. R. handbook of critical discourse studies Richardson (eds.); pp. 372–387). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315739345
Machin, D., & Mayr, A. (2018). Doing critical discourse studies with multimodality (2nd ed.). SAGE Publications.
Munday, J. (2022). Narrative analysis and ideology. Journal of Language and Politics, 21(2), 235–255. https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.21021.mun
Nuttall, S. (2022). Literary studies in the post-apartheid era. Wits University Press.
Tolentino, R. B. (2019). Spectacles of nationalism: Gender, sexuality, and the politics of memory in the Philippines. Ateneo de Manila University Press.
Toolan, M. (2019). Narrative progression in literary discourse. Journal of Literary Semantics, 48(1), 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1515/jls-2019-0001
van Dijk, T. A. (2018). Discourse and power. Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-56616-8
Wodak, R. (2021). The politics of fear: What right-wing populist discourses mean (2nd ed.). SAGE Publications.
Wodak, R., & Meyer, M. (2016). Methods of critical discourse studies (3rd ed.). SAGE Publications.
Young, R. J. C. (2016). Postcolonialism: An historical introduction (2nd ed.). Wiley Blackwell.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
_3.png)
_2.png)
