The dialectics of literature, language, and culture in shaping identity in selected novels of Saud Alsanousi: a sociodiscursive study

Despite numerous studies on identity in Arabic novels, the dialectical relationship between language, culture, and identity has received insufficient sociodiscursive analysis in Kuwaiti novels. This research addresses this gap by examining how literary texts construct identity through representations of self and other, belonging, and social conflict, and explores intersections between identity and culture through language, tracing how language represents individual and collective identity in Kuwaiti fiction and highlighting religious and social motives’ roles in preserving language as fundamental to identity. It provides a critical, applied reading of Alsanousi’s novels as examples reflecting the problems of identity in Kuwaiti society. A sociodiscursive analytical approach is applied through analysis of The Bamboo Stalk and Mama Hissa’s Mice to examine their implications for belonging, conflict, and class and sectarian differences. Drawing on previous studies, the analysis focuses on lexical choices, narrative voices, and forms of dialogue as key sociodiscursive indicators of identity construction. Language in Alsanousi’s novels serves as both a communicative function and a semantic space for conflict and belonging, contributing to reshaping self-awareness and social awareness; revealing class and sectarian disparities within social structures; and establishing identity as a shifting discursive construct influenced by cultural, religious, and social contexts.