English Dictionary

subaltern

/ˈsʌbəltɚn/

noun

A subordinate. / (Britain, military) A commissioned officer having a rank below that of captain; a lieutenant or second lieutenant.

The subaltern carried out the orders of their superior without question.

意味（1）

A subordinate.

意味（2）

(Britain, military) A commissioned officer having a rank below that of captain; a lieutenant or second lieutenant.

She was an extraordinarily beautiful girl, Margaret Devereux ; and made all the men frantic by running away with a penniless young fellow ; a mere nobody sir a subaltern in a foot regiment, or something of that kind.

意味（3）

(logic) A subaltern proposition; a proposition implied by a universal proposition.

意味（4）

(social sciences, literary theory) A member of a group that is socially, politically and geographically outside of the hegemonic power structure of the colony and of the colonial homeland.

Young refers sardonically to the existence of reams of postcolonial theory, and promises to give us postcolonialism from below, which is what and where it should rightly be, given that it elaborates a politics of ‘the subaltern’, that is, subordinated classes and peoples.