Linguistic choices have different attributions beyond their literal meaning according to their contexts. This paper looks at the variations in the discourses seen in the colonial agreements and treaties during the Malabar conquest. The study employs the archived documents of various discourses during this period as a part of power shifting from the local elites to the colonial power. The analysis progresses in two phases, i) the linguistic attributions of power in the communications between the local elites and the colonial authorities and ii) the comparative analysis of variations in the linguistic choices by the colonial authorities correlating their varying power positions over the given period. It explores the dynamics of the linguistic choices of the local elites initially as a powerful entity in communication with the colonial authorities. However, after the colonial government acquired the power and elevated in the hierarchy, the same expressions with power attributions or more powerful expressions were used by the colonial administration to communicate with the same elites in a weaker position in terms of power. Apart from that, the variation in the linguistic choices of the colonial authorities also suggests how they are used to reflect the power positions on a scale from weaker to the powerful along the timeline. This includes the variation from a request to order in the colonial communication records.
The paper argues that the linguistic choices of the colonial communication files aided them to project their power to the existed society and assisted as one of the tools for reiterating their power position in various contexts. The study gains importance as it analysed the linguistic choices and their semantic attributions of the earlier foundations of the Indian legal system and serves as a reference to future research and reformations in the legal system.
