Reconstructing a Voice in the Diaspora: Language and Hegemony in Theresa Hak Kyung Cha's Dicteé

“Reconstructing a Voice in the Diaspora: Language and Hegemony in Theresa Hak Kyung Cha's Dicteé” is a close reading into the experimental work Dicteé by Theresa Hak Kyung Cha. The text explores the interplay of language, identity, and cultural hegemony and primarily focuses on how Cha deconstructs language and narrative to critique colonialism, patriarchy, and the diasporic identity that generations feel after losing their voice. The fragmentation of the text mirrors the effects of diasporic trauma, specifically with symbolic violence and the fragmentation of the self. Pierre Bourdieu, Antonio Gramsci, and Victor Turner’s theories — symbolic violence, cultural hegemony, and liminality respectively — analyze how institutional power shapes power and narrative, therefore how language reinforces dominant ideologies, keeping them dominant. The result of this is a feeling of liminality or being “in-between” identities. Through a close textual analysis of specific chapters or sections of the work, alongside an interdisciplinary approach that draws from literary theory, cultural studies, literary analysis, and philosophy, Dicteé reveals how language can be a tool of alienation and oppression. However, through Cha’s experimental style, the fragments have meaning reassigned, and language is reclaimed as a site of resistance, remembrance, and rebirth.