Description
Book SynopsisIdentifies the idea of monolingualism as a modern European invention dating to the 18th century that functions to obscure the widespread nature of multilingualism. Analyses the tension between multilingual practices and the monolingual paradigm in 20th century literature through the German writings of Kafka, Adorno, Tawada, Özdamar, and Zaimoglu.
Trade Review"Yasemin Yildiz has written an award winning monograph that deconstructs the conceptual frameworks of multilingualism and monolingualism that canonical and minority writers have been limited to." -TRANSIT "'Beyond the Mother Tongue' is an ambitious and deeply fascinating book, written in a clear and accessible style." -- -Matthew Hart Columbia University "A welcome, necessary, and well-crafted addition to a variety of studies in the fields of German-Turkish and German-Jewish studies-studies that increasingly participate in the much broader discussion of modernity/modernism, postmodern identities, globalization, multiculturalism, and ethnicity studies." -- -Amir Eshel Stanford University "...Yildiz's Book [is] a particularly timely intervention in debates about multiculturalism, cosmopolitanism, and integration of immigrants everywhere." -Cultural Critique "Yildiz offers an enlightening argument against the monolingual paradigm that has dominated linguistic thinking since the 18th century, that insists that the mother tongue connects a people to their nation and culture, allowing them to communicate at the deepest level." -CHOICE "A bold, ambitious, and timely evaluation of philosophical and literary imagination of language." -- -B. Venkat Mani Author of Cosmopolitical Claims: Turkish-German Literatures from Nadolny to Pamuk
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix Introduction: Beyond the Mother Tongue? Multilingual Practices and the Monolingual Paradigm 1 1. The Uncanny Mother Tongue: Monolingualism and Jewishness in Franz Kafka 30 2. The Foreign in the Mother Tongue: Words of Foreign Derivation and Utopia in Theodor W. Adorno 67 3. Detaching from the Mother Tongue: Bilingualism and Liberation in Yoko Tawada 109 4. Surviving the Mother Tongue: Literal Translation and Trauma in Emine Sevgi Ozdamar 143 5. Inventing a Motherless Tongue: Mixed Language and Masculinity in Feridun Zaimolu 169 Conclusion: Toward a Multilingual Paradigm? The Disaggregated Mother Tongue 203 Notes 213 Works Cited 259 Index 285
