There appears to be no consensus as yet on the meaning of the term “world” in “world literature”. Over the last few years, “world” has indeed been the object of a multitude of responses and readings, which markedly vary according to researchers’ academic backgrounds and theoretical vantage points. How then is the “world” of “world literature” to be apprehended? Combining linguistics-informed and close-reading methods, the present essay seeks to shed light on a notional issue that has especially divided world and postcolonial literary scholars in recent times. More precisely, it will be argued that “world” in the phrase “world literature” has begun to undergo a linguistic process of re-semanticization, whereby this lexical item has come to encode, and be imbued with, values central to the postcolonial agenda – thus providing the postcolonial cause with fresh impetus in the twenty-first century.

对于“世界文学”中“世界”一词的含义，目前似乎还没有达成共识。在过去的几年里，“世界”确实是众多回应和解读的对象，这些回应和解读因研究人员的学术背景和理论优势而显着不同。那么，如何理解“世界文学”的“世界”？本文结合语言学知识和细读方法，试图阐明一个概念性问题，该问题在近来特别引起世界和后殖民文学学者的分歧。更准确地说，有人认为“世界文学”这个短语中的“世界”已经开始经历一个重新语义化的语言过程，这个词项已经开始编码，并充满了，