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ABSTRACT
Over the last decades, literary multilingualism scholarship has focused above all on the way linguistic diversity openly manifests itself, for instance by examining multilingual practices such as code-switching, code-mixing, hybridization, etc. However, fewer studies have analysed so-called latent multilingualism, which could be defined as the presence of languages in a text even when they are not immediately perceptible. Even though it is less discernible, latent multilingualism is certainly more widespread than manifest multilingualism. More often than not narrators relate their stories in the tongue of the supposedly monolingual reader, rather than directly inserting or even mixing foreign tongues in their narrative. In this paper, I aim to trace back the origins of latent multilingualism, explore its principles, and compare the different theoretical approaches which have been formulated to examine it. Additionally, I aim to show that the research on latent multilingualism has helped to further expand literary multilingual boundaries. Latent practices have provided writers with extra tools to achieve their narratological aims, which would not be reached with manifest forms.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 T. Dembeck, ‘There is No Such Thing as a Monolingual Text! New Tools for Literary Scholarship’, Polyphonie: Mehrsprachigkeit_Kreativität_Schreiben, 2304–7607 (2017), p. 2. https://hdl.handle.net/10993/31641.
2 G. Radaelli, Literarische Mehrsprachigkeit: Sprachwechsel bei Elias Canetti und Ingeborg Bachmann (Akademie Verlag, 2011), pp. 54 and 61.
3 Ibid., p. 61.
4 According to G. Keller, ‘The Literary Stratagems Available to the Bilingual Chicano Writer’, in J. Francisco (ed.), The Identification and Analysis of Chicano Literature (New York: Bilingual Press/Editorial Bilingüe, 1979), pp. 263–316 but also G. Radaelli, Literarische Mehrsprachigkeit: Sprachwechsel bei Elias Canetti und Ingeborg Bachmann (Akademie Verlag, 2011), pp. 54 and 61 and N. Blum-Barth, Poietik der Mehrsprachigkeit. Theorie und Techniken des multilingualen Schreibens (Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2021).
5 M. Sternberg, ‘Polylingualism as Reality and Translation as Mimesis’,Poetics Today, 2.4 (1981), pp. 221–39.
6 P. Mareš, ‘Fikce, konvence a realita: k vícejazyčnosti v uměleckých textech’, Slovo a slovesnost, 61.1 (2000), pp. 47–53.
7 H. Wirth-Nesher, Call It English: The Languages of Jewish American Literature (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006).
8 D. Weissmann, ‘L’horizon utopique d’une totalité des langues et cultures. Plurilinguisme et écriture plurilingue chez Ilma Rakusa’, Germanica, 51 (2012), pp. 151–64.
9 N. Blum-Barth, ‘[W]enn man schreibt, muss man […] die anderen Sprachen aussperren [Exkludierte Mehrsprachigkeit in Olga Grjasnowas Roman Gott ist nicht schüchtern]’, in B. Siller and S. Vlasta (eds), Literarische (Mehr)Sprach-reflexionen (Wien: Praesens Verlag, 2020), pp. 49–67.
10 J. Domokos, Endangered Literature: Essays on Translingualism, Interculturality, and Vulnerability (Budapest: L’Harmattan-Károli Books, 2018) and J. Domokos, ‘Multilingualism in the Contemporary Finnish literature (Suomen kirjallisuus)’, in J. Domokos and J. Laakso (eds), Multilingualism and Multiculturalism in Finno-Ugric literatures 2 (Wien: LIT Verlag, 2020), pp. 39–60.
11 D. Delabastita and R. Grutman, ‘Fictionalising Translation and Multilingualism’, Target, 20.1 (2008), pp. 164–9, p. 17.
12 T. Dembeck, There is No Such Thing as a Monolingual Text! New Tools for Literary Scholarship (2017), p. 3.
13 G. Keller, The Literary Stratagems Available to the Bilingual Chicano Writer (1979), p. 130.
14 Ibid., p. 134.
15 Ibid., p. 135.
16 Ibid., p. 135.
17 Ibid., p. 136.
18 Ibid., p. 136.
19 Ibid., p. 136.
20 M. Sternberg, Polylingualism as Reality and Translation as Mimesis (1981), p. 222.
21 Ibid., p. 233.
22 L. Callahan, Spanish-English Codeswitching in a Written Corpus (Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2004), p. 90.
23 R. Grutman, ‘Refraction and Recognition: Literary Multilingualism in Translation’, Target, 18.1 (2006), pp. 17–47, p. 19.
24 R. Grutman, ‘“Besos para golpes”: l’ambiguïté d’un titre hugolien’, in L. Gauvin (ed.), Les langues du roman. Du plurilinguisme comme stratégie textuelle (Montreal: Les Presses de l’Université de Montréal, 1999), pp. 37–51, p. 41.
25 Ibid., p. 41.
26 S. Klinger, Translation and Linguistic Hybridity: Constructing World-View (New York and Abington: Routledge, 2014), p. 11.
27 Ibid., p. 11.
28 G. Keller, The Literary Stratagems Available to the Bilingual Chicano Writer (1979), p. 134.
29 M. Sternberg, Polylingualism as Reality and Translation as Mimesis (1981), p. 222.
30 S. Klinger, Translation and Linguistic Hybridity: Constructing World-View (2014), p. 12.
31 A. Aciman, Out of Egypt: A Memoir (New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1994), pp. 114–15.
32 G. Keller, The Literary Stratagems Available to the Bilingual Chicano Writer (1979), p. 134.
33 M. Sternberg, Polylingualism as Reality and Translation as Mimesis (1981), p. 222.
34 M. Locker, ‘Multilingualism in Fiction’, in M. Locher and A. Jucker (eds), Pragmatics of Fiction (Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter Mouton, 2017), pp. 297–327, p. 297.
35 P. Mareš, Fikce, konvence a realita: k vícejazyčnosti v uměleckých textech (2000), p. 60.
36 R. Grutman, Refraction and Recognition: Literary Multilingualism in Translation (2006), p. 19.
37 Ibid., p. 19.
38 P. Mareš, Fikce, konvence a realita: k vícejazyčnosti v uměleckých textech(2000), p. 61.
39 Ibid., p. 62.
40 M. Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1983), p. 366.
41 J. Taylor-Batty, Multilingualism in modernist fiction (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), p. 39.
42 Ibid., p. 39.
43 S. Klinger, Translation and Linguistic Hybridity: Constructing World-View (2014), p. 14.
44 Ibid., p. 16.
45 H. Wirth-Nesher, Call It English: The Languages of Jewish American Literature (2006), p. 38.
46 quoted in S. Klinger, Translation and Linguistic Hybridity: Constructing World-View (2014), p. 12.
47 Ibid., p. 16.
48 L. Venuti, The Translator’s Invisibility: A History of Translation (London and New York: Routledge, 1995), p. 49.
49 A. Knaut, ‘Translation & Multilingual Literature as a New Field of Research in between Translation Studies and Comparative Literature’, in A. Knauth (ed.), Translation & Multilingual Literature / Traduction & Littérature Multilingue (Berlin: LIT Verlag, 2011), pp. 3–24, p. 17.
50 D. Sommer, Bilingual Aesthetics: A New Sentimental Education (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004), p. 30.
51 J. Tidigs and M. Huss, ‘The Noise of Multilingualism Reader Diversity, Linguistic Borders and Literary Multimodality’, Critical Multilingual Studies, 5.1 (2017), pp. 208–35.
52 B. Alexandrova, Joyce, Multilingualism, and the Ethics of Reading (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020).
53 D. Sommer, Bilingual Aesthetics: A New Sentimental Education (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004), p. 30.
54 M. Sternberg, Polylingualism as reality and translation as mimesis (1981), p. 226.
55 Ibid., p. 227.
56 Ibid., p. 230.
57 Ibid., p. 231.
58 Ibid., p. 231.
59 Hašek quoted in P. Mareš, Fikce, konvence a realita: k vícejazyčnosti v uměleckých textech (2000), p. 64.
60 Ibid., p. 64.
61 G. Radaelli, Literarische Mehrsprachigkeit: Sprachwechsel bei Elias Canetti und Ingeborg Bachmann (2011), p. 54.
62 G. Radaelli, ‘Literarische Mehrsprachigkeit Ein Beschreibungsmodell (und seine Grenzen) am Beispiel von Peter Waterhouses Das Klangtal’, in T. Dembeck and G. Mein (eds), Philologie und Mehrsprachigkeit (Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2014).
63 B. Lennon, In Babel’s Shadow: Multilingual Literatures (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010), p. 17.
64 V. Nabokov, Pnin (London: Penguin Classics, 2016), p. 54.
65 D. Skiba, ‘Formen literarischer Mehrsprachigkeit in der Migrationsliteratur’, in Schweiger H. Bürger-Koftis and S. Vlasta (eds), Polyphonie. Mehrsprachigkeit und literarische Kreativität (Wien: Praesens, 2010), pp. 325–38.
66 A. Pandey, Monilingualism and Linguistic Exhibitionism in Fiction (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), p. 100.
67 Ibid., p. 96.
68 Ibid., p. 96.
69 Ibid., p. 101.
70 R. Grutman, Des langues qui résonnent: L’hétérolinguisme au XIXe siècle Québécois (Montreal: Les editions fides, 1997), p. 37.
71 T. Dembeck, There Is No Such Thing as a Monolingual Text! New Tools for Literary Scholarship (2017), p. 4.
72 M. Sternberg, Polylingualism as Reality and Translation as Mimesis (1981), p. 224.
73 quoted in G. Radaelli, Literarische Mehrsprachigkeit: Sprachwechsel bei Elias Canetti und Ingeborg Bachmann (2011), p. 61.