Racial Identity, Black and White Performance in J. M. Coetzee's Disgrace

Through qualitative analysis - informed by the theoretical framework and methodology of the third wave of sociolinguistics - this paper looks at how identity, style and performance are construed in selected dialogues and utterances in J. M. Coetzee's Disgrace. This essay examines linguistic dominance and resistance with particular attention devoted to identity construction, stylization, Black and white performances constitutive of political acts. Using Pierre Bourdieu's concept of linguistic habitus, it demonstrates the ways in which white characters' superstandard high (cultural) performances preserve racial hierarchies and reenact the racial socio-semantics of colonial discourse. On the one hand, Black characters utilize the sociolinguistic resources of performance, styling and mimicry to contest (linguistic) dominance and racial discourse. On the other hand, white characters use anti-racist language to critique racism and signify their solidarity with marginalized groups. Thus, the paper shows how performance is an embodied and embedded, complex and ordinary, high and quotidian, spectacular and opaque practice with profound racial, political and ethical implications