Hybridity, Code-Switching, and Identity in Modern and Contemporary British Fiction: A Sociolinguistic Analysis of Maugham and Hornby

Authors

  • Lili Yang

    Faculty of Foreign Philology, Al-Farabi Kazakh National University, Almaty 050040, Kazakhstan
  • Karagoishiyeva Danel Almasbekovna

    Faculty of Foreign Philology, Al-Farabi Kazakh National University, Almaty 050040, Kazakhstan

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.30564/fls.v7i10.11137
Received: 18 July 2025 | Revised: 29 July 2025 | Accepted: 11 August 2025 | Published Online: 28 September 2025

Abstract

This study endeavours to examine the role of hybridity, code-switching and identity in the works of W. Somerset Maugham and Nick Hornby in terms of how the authors depict characters in postcolonial and contemporary British society. The paper focuses on the role of language as a medium of bargaining cultural borders and identity production in multicultural societies. Based on postcolonial theories by Homi Bhabha, and sociolinguistic approaches, this paper looks into how the above authors borrow the concept of hybridity and code-switching in an attempt to solve the problems of cultural assimilation, belonging and how viable or complicated the process of identity formation can be. Comparative research on Of Human Bondage and The Razor's Edge and Hornby's High Fidelity and About a Boy allows us to show how the characters presented by Maugham, before and after the Second World War, sought their way in a world of cross-cultural conflicts and identity crises. It can be concluded that hybridity and code-switching are important narrative devices in describing the struggles of identity in the colonial and postcolonial contexts, as they provide knowledge of the lack of fixedness of identity in modern-day multicultural Britain. The implications of language in the construction of identity are also used in the paper, especially in globalization, migration, and the exchange of cultures.

Keywords:

Hybridity; Code-Switching; Identity; Multiculturalism; Postcolonialism; Sociolinguistics; Language Negotiation

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How to Cite

Yang, L., & Danel Almasbekovna, K. (2025). Hybridity, Code-Switching, and Identity in Modern and Contemporary British Fiction: A Sociolinguistic Analysis of Maugham and Hornby. Forum for Linguistic Studies, 7(10), 768–783. https://doi.org/10.30564/fls.v7i10.11137

Issue

Vol. 7 , Iss. 10 (October 2025): In progress

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Article

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Copyright © 2025 Lili Yang, Karagoishiyeva Danel Almasbekovna

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This is an open access article under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) License.