Mahamadou Famanta is completing his master’s degree in German Studies at the University of Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso. He was awarded a Research and Studies Residency by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) in the framework of the program GIP (Germanistische Institutspartnerschaften) from October 2016 to February 2017 at the University of Stuttgart, during which he finished his bachelor thesis on the reception of German postcolonial works about Africa. Recently, from September to November 2017, he completed a research residency in Stuttgart for his master thesis on the usage of the language in postcolonial literary discourse. He expects to receive his master’s degree in 2019, after which he intends to begin doctoral studies.

Germanophone Literature About Africa: Usage of Language in Postcolonial Discourse

Language played an important role in colonial literary discourse. It was regarded as a means through which certain negative ideas about the stranger could be expressed. In the postcolonial discourse, in the light of multiculturalism, it is attempted to create intercultural awareness. Against this background, negatively connoted terms are sharply criticized in the common usage as well as in literature because of an increasing intercultural sensibility. Referring to German literature about Africa, Mahamadou Famanta's research project aims at analyzing these negatively connoted terms in postcolonial discourse, focusing on a corpus of four works. He will use concepts of lexical semantics and postcolonial theory for his analysis.