Multilingualism as the Legibility of Transculturality

Translation Scenes and Possible Pedagogical Attitudes of a Multilingual Text

Abstract

In the last decade, research on literary multilingualism has mainly analysed the distinction between latent and explicit representations, and in the case of explicit representations, the mode, function and poetic implications of code switching and code mixing representations have often been at the forefront. This paper focuses on explicit forms of literary multilingualism, not on language mixing or language shifting in the speech of characters, but on the textual functions of code mixing in narrative texts, which both create and mediate transcultural situations. The chosen text is Thomas Perle’s short story cycle wir gingen weil alle gingen, which brings aspects of multilingualism in relation to Romanian, Hungarian and German to the fore at the level of the narrower (family) and the wider (regional) community. The chosen German text shows differences in the representation and use of multilingualism compared to many contemporary texts, since the words and expressions of the foreign language, the other language, are integrated into the text much more organically – often due to the techniques or lack of translation – than in the case of novel or short story texts, where foreign language elements are dissolved at every occurrence. The paper will attempt to examine this phenomenon in detail.