My contribution, coming out of a literary and cultural studies angle, will primarily address conceptual questions, the clarification of which I see as paramount to the formulation of productive and critical research agendas relating to multilingualism. Based on my research, I will argue that “Multilingualism 2.0” needs to focus much more explicitly on the impact of monolingualism as a historically specific yet currently dominant paradigm than the initial stage of scholarship on multilingualism has done. To contribute to this direction, I will lay out my understanding of monolingualism as a paradigm as well as introduce my concept of the “postmonolingual condition.” With this concept I seek to draw attention to the tensions between multilingual practices and the monolingual paradigm as characteristic of many contemporary linguistic configurations. As a number of examples drawn from literature and public discourse will demonstrate, these tensions constitute a productive arena for analysis. Through these examples, I also hope to identify what insights we can gain specifically from literary multilingualism, distinct from the study of everyday multilingualism.
Prompts / Questions
The most immediate question I will be addressing appears to be “What is monolingualism?” I will also be addressing issues of method and epistemology.
Citation information for 3 published texts:
*Bhatti, Anil. “Mehrsprachigkeit und kulturelle Diversität. Europa und Indien als Beispiel.” Available http://www.goethe.de/ges/phi/prj/ffs/the/spr/de4980085.htm. [2009] [English version: “Multilingualism and Cultural Diversity: Exemplified by Europe and India.” Trans. Aingeal Flanagan. Available http://www.goethe.de/ges/phi/prj/ffs/the/spr/en4980085.htm]
*Gogolin, Ingrid. Der monolinguale Habitus der multilingualen Schule. Münster: Waxmann, 1994.
*Yasemin Yildiz, Beyond the Mother Tongue: The Postmonolingual Condition. New York: Fordham University Press, 2012.
