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THE POLITICS AND POETICS OF LANGUAGE USE CONCLUSION In this article, I have analyzed five salient examples of how the intermingling of three different languages is deployed in order to convey multilayered messages to diverse reading audiences. I have demonstrated how these codeswitches and relexifications create “rich points” in the text that stall the reading flow and invite both insider and outsider readers to further reflection on the deeper meanings of the text. Apart from highlighting key elements in the plot, the interplay between the matrix language (English) and the embedded languages (Arabic and French) in combination with the mixing of genres (letters, songs, proverbs, storytelling) establishes the insider—outsider position of the author, allowing for (implicit) comments on colonialism and orientalism, as well as gender. It is needless to say that, with its abundant code-switches and other forms of language mixing, this polyglossic” novel offers a rich reservoir of other examples. Even if an exhaustive analysis is impossible, codeswitches, relexifications and metalinguistic comments underscoring the iconicity of sartorial elements, the psychological dimensions of the plot, including the relation between magic and psychiatry and the impact of being orphaned at a young age, as well as religious minority groups such as the Samaritans are but a few examples that are worth dealing with in further research. Also, Midhat’s as well as other characters’ (such as Abuna Antoine) complex outsider-insider positions, and how different ways of “othering” are intricately underscored by the procédés mentioned above, deserve to be investigated more systematically by drawing a more detailed linguistic map of the novel. BIBLIOGRAPHY AFIKRA: Interview with Novelist Isabella Hammad, afikra conversations, https://www. afikra.com/talks/conversations/isabellahammad, accessed 28 October 2022. AGAR, Michael H.: The Professional Stranger. An Informal Introduction to Ethnography, New York, Academic Press, 1996. AsHcROFT, Bill — GRIFFITH, Gareth — TIFFIN, Helen: The Empire Writes Back. Theory and Practice in Postcolonial Literatures, New York, Routledge, 1989. BAKHTIN, Mikail M.: The Dialogic Imagination. Four Essays, trans. Caryl Emerson — Michael Holquist, Austin, University of Texas Press, 1981. °° Mikail M. Bakhtin: The Dialogic Imagination. Four Essays, trans. Caryl Emerson — Michael Holquist, Austin, University of Texas Press, 1981. « 43 +
