Beyond the Mother Tongue: The Postmonolingual Condition

by Yasemin Yildiz

Overview

Winner of the Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for Studies in Germanic Languages and Literatures

Honorable Mention for The 2014 Laura Shannon Prize in Contemporary European Studies

Beyond the Mother Tongue examines distinct forms of multilingualism, such as writing in one socially unsanctioned "mother tongue" about another language (Franz Kafka); mobilizing words of foreign derivation as part of a multilingual constellation within one language (Theodor W. Adorno); producing an oeuvre in two separate languages simultaneously (Yoko Tawada); and mixing different languages, codes, and registers within one text (Feridun Zaimoglu).

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780823255757
Publisher:	Fordham University Press
Publication date:	12/01/2013
Pages:	306
Product dimensions:	8.70(w) x 5.90(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Yasemin Yildiz is Assistant Professor of German at the University of Illinois.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments 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 Özdamar 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

Editorial Reviews

"Yildiz offers an enlightening argument against the monolingual paradigm that has dominated linguistic thinking since the 18th century..."- R.C. Conard, CHOICE

"'Beyond the Mother Tongue' is an ambitious and deeply fascinating book, written in a clear and accessible style."-Matthew Hart, Parallax

". . .Yildiz's Book [is] a particularly timely intervention in debates about multiculturalism, cosmopolitanism, and integration of immigrants everywhere." -Cultural Critique

"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

From the Publisher

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.

Stanford University - Amir Eshel

'Beyond the Mother Tongue' is an ambitious and deeply fascinating book, written in a clear and accessible style.

Columbia University - Matthew Hart

A bold, ambitious, and timely evaluation of philosophical and literary imagination of language.

Author of Cosmopolitical Claims: Turkish-German Literatures from Nadolny to Pamuk - B. Venkat Mani

. . .Yildiz's Book [is] a particularly timely intervention in debates about multiculturalism, cosmopolitanism, and integration of immigrants everywhere.

Cultural Critique

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

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