Oldal 29 [29]
OCR
THE POLITICS AND POETICS OF LANGUAGE USE By means of conclusion, Hammad continuously incorporates code-switches to French and (mostly Palestinian) Arabic into the main English text, as well as relexifications. The code-switches to Arabic and French are sometimes, but not always, marked by italics, but the relexifications are never. The codeswitches are not limited to culture-specific elements (realia, toponyms, personal names, addressing titles, etc.), but also include discourse markers, connectors and fillers, as well as phrases, sentences and longer stretches of discourse. These elements are often related to the setting and the speakers involved, but not exclusively. As we will see below, some of the ways in which the codeswitches are incorporated into the text clearly indicate that they are not merely mimetic, but function in a much deeper way than just representing “how people speak” or providing “couleur locale.” In combination with the relexified items and (implicit) linguistic metacomments, the languages are blended in such a way that they can be said to interanimate each other and form one creative literary language, to reiterate Hartman’s words." This literary language is in some ways reminiscent of the linguistic repertoire of multilingual speakers, without suggesting an exclusively mimetic function though. In the remainder of this paper, I will demonstrate how Hammad deploys these techniques in “The Parisian or Al-Barisi”, by highlighting a selection of striking examples. But before doing so, I would like to dwell a little longer on the insider and outsider readers and the insider—outsider position of the author herself. INSIDER AND OUTSIDER PERSPECTIVES IN A GLOBAL LITERATURE MARKET Asa British author with a Palestinian background writing in English, Londonborn Hammad cannot be anything but conscious of the fact that she addresses multiple audiences. Given the fact that her novel is published by large publishing houses" and is globally distributed, a considerable part of her reading audience consists of readers who are interested in, but not necessarily acquainted with Arab culture, history and societies and the Arabic language. On the other hand, she also addresses readers of English who are familiar with these elements. The diverse readership further enhances the obvious given that the novel can, and will, be read and interpreted in multiple ways and that this begs for multilayeredness. This also means that the author can take up an insider—outsider position, an issue that is also discussed by Hartman. It can be presumed that the author taps into the fact that some readers will not 1° Ibid., 4-7. u The novel was first published in Britain by Jonathan Cape in 2019 and reprinted by Vintage, which belongs to the Penguin Group, in 2020 and by Grove Press in the US. «27 +»
