Oldal 30 [30]
LITERARY CODE-SWITCHING
understand the transliterated and relexified Arabic and French items and
somehow need to be guided toward their meaning. Ihis can be achieved either
explicitly by means of translation and metacommentary in the text, footnotes
or a glossary” or implicitly by means of contextualization and cushioning. In
this sense, Hammad can be considered an insider who disposes of insider—ex¬
pertise but remains simultaneously an outsider who knows which knowledge
needs to be shared with the outsider reader. Besides, she has the authorial
power to decide not to share this knowledge straightforwardly, or even not at
all. As an insider, she is at the same time well aware of the fact that because of
their linguistic and cultural background knowledge, many of her insider read¬
ers will immediately grasp the meaning of the translated and relexified Arabic
words and expressions. However, the presence of these items in the text nev¬
ertheless will draw these readers’ attention and invite them towards a deeper
reflection on the text. Hartman describes this as an aspect of what she calls
an “ethnographic pact”, which “creatively manipulates the truth value of lit¬
erature” and by means of which “authors set themselves up in a position that
consciously posits them as both insiders and outsiders in relation to what they
are describing.”? The interplay between various languages is one of the means
by which this ethnographic pact is established:
Mastery of multiple languages and their complexities is deeply intertwined with the
insider—outsider position. Language use and in particular the mixing of languages
marked as different are not only therefore ways to set up the pact but also a way to
challenge and disrupt conventions once this complicity is established. One element
therefore that can be read through this is the production of alternative knowledge,
the disruption of colonial ethnographies through imitation and challenge at the
same time. This in connection to the author’s insider—outsider status allows her to
write a text that can creatively challenge colonial knowledge production.“
Some aspects of the ethnographic pact will be elaborated on below. For now,
however, I would like to push the ethnographic metaphor a bit further by sug¬
gesting that in the most salient code-switches and relexifications, Hammad
generates what ethnographers would call “rich points,” namely something the
outsider reader does not immediately understand. As Agar’ describes, the rich
point, here the unexplained code-switch or relexification, signals a gap between
the reader’s world and the one created in the literary text. In the same way as
2 However, in this novel there are no footnotes or glossaries.
Hartman: Native Tongue, 60.
4 Ibid.
15 Michael H. Agar: The Professional Stranger. An Informal Introduction to Ethnography, New
York, Academic Press, 1996, 31-36.
13
.28 +