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Stylistic Analysis of Ahmed Ali’s Short Story Our Lane
Authors: Muhammad Tufail Chandio, Faraz Ali Bughio, Abdul Hameed Panhwar, Sikander Munir Memon
Number of views: 411
The undertaken study is based on stylistic analysis of Ahmed Ali’s
short story Our Lane. The study analyzes how the author has
used linguistic features like noun, adjective, conjunction, sentence
complexity to portray the social, political, economic, religious,
psychological and cultural conditions of the colonized natives of
the Indian subcontinent in the wake of the British colonial rule. The
story portrays how the colonial rule has deteriorated the people
socially, economically, politically and psychologically. Ahmed Ali’s
use of adjective is in consonant with the established norm of using
7 to 8% of the total text (Hofland & Johansson, 1987:6). Whereas,
the median of 343 sentences is 13, which is shorter than the length of an average modern sentence, which according to Ellegard is
17.8 words. While rebutting colonial narrative, he deviates from
the standards of English language: excessive use of coordinating
conjunction ‘and’ is evidence to it. Most adjectives of positive
characteristics qualify to the past, whereas the adjectives referring
to present are either of negative or of neutral characteristics, and
thus the writer recognizes the glory of the past and condemns the
disintegrating present and uncertain future in the colonized land.