Linguistic Exile and Cleft Identity in Jhumpa Lahiri's In Other Words and David Malouf's An Imaginary Life

Exposure to language is the key to early literacy and language learning. In the words of Maria Montessori "Language is an instrument of collective thought." The paper seeks to explain the close connection between Language Learning and Language Acquisition and how this connection bears an impact on 'smriti' and 'shruti' In addition, the paper is an attempt to answer such questions: How does Language help us in forgetting, re-creating and re-cycling our much endowed lives of limitless possibilities? How does the inadequacy of language also act as a catalyst in the constant struggle to adjust and assimilate ourselves to new environments? How do we re-surface then and make a forward progress?The protagonists in both the texts face a cleft identity, eventually exploring a larger and unified self that they were heretofore unaware of Their consciousness enlarges with the ability to improve not just their own lives but also other lives along the way.