Linguistic Transition and the Evolution of Identity in Jhumpa Lahiri’s In Other Words

This study investigates the relationship between linguistic transition and identity formation in the memoir of Jhumpa Lahiri, In Other Words (2016). Lahiri’s writing in Italian is a transformative process of self-reinvention and cultural negotiation, a renegotiation that embodies hybridity, liminality, and subalternity. Drawing on Gayatri Spivak’s work on subaltern voices and the politics of representation, the research analyses how shifts in language affect identity among the marginalized. Homi Bhabha’s theories of hybridity and the third space address the negotiation of cultural identities in a diasporic context. This offers a valuable glimpse of Lahiri’s work as capturing the complexities of inhabiting multilingual and multicultural geographies as representative of a global contemporary identity. Findings indicate that linguistic transitions challenge traditional notions of cultural belonging, highlighting the fluid interplay between language and identity in a globalized world.