[Bilimsel Haber] “Multilingual Realities in Translation” Special Issue (11.1, January 2011) for Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture

[Gonul Pultar]

     	 *“Multilingual Realities in Translation” Special Issue (11.1, 
January 2011) for Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture *

	

	

	

Cityscapes, landscapes, subway stations, tomato fields, universities, 
and bedrooms—the locales of multilingual or mixed language realities are 
everywhere. Yet literary and popular representations of multilingual 
realities as such remain largely constricted by the single language that 
must, in hegemonic fashion, encompass all others, especially on the 
printed page of a novel. The dominance of a single language also affects 
so-called nonliterary discourse; for instance English is now the primary 
language charged with disseminating scientific (and technological) words 
and concepts. Film, arguably, has come closest to conveying the Babeldom 
of public and private spheres, as its projected translation, by way of 
subtitles, nevertheless promises a semblance of cohesion. Perhaps this 
accessible rendering of multilingual fragmentation can even be regarded 
as one of the emerging conventions of world cinema as a contemporary 
global form.

But multilingual realities are not exactly reader friendly in any 
medium, including film. One wonders at the function of characters’ 
thoughts made audible in Wim Wenders’s film Der Himmel über Berlin 
(Wings of Desire), when commuters on a Berlin subway train can be heard 
thinking in German and Turkish (though the English subtitles render only 
the German). One wonders what Apollinaire’s already fragmented 
conversation poem “Lundi Rue Christine“ would look like with bits of 
conversation in languages other than French. Would the bits make a 
meaningful difference? One wonders at the fragments of French floating 
through Jean Rhys’s Good Morning, Midnight, fragments yet to be 
translated, even in the most recent edition. Charlotte Brontë’s Villette 
continued to be published well over a century without an annotated 
translation of all its French bits and pieces. One wonders how and to 
what extent the foreign language is immaterial (a point raised by 
Umberto Eco with reference to Tolstoy’s War and Peace).

Another open question is the status of languages in the formation of 
scientific knowledge. When science is concerned, some languages play a 
unequaled role, as did Greek at the beginning of the Christian Era (or 
Common Era), Latin in the Middle Ages and English today. It seems 
English is becoming a language which invents (creates) scientific words 
(and concepts) and that there is no need to find any equivalent in other 
languages as most every scientist speaks and publishes in English. But 
can scientific neologisms properly be considered English in any 
traditional sense, even given the fact that neologism is a constant 
process in any language? How can scientific concepts, born inside of one 
language, be translated into another language? Does working in a “single 
language” limit scientific creativity? Is there anything (or could there 
be) like a Pidgin, or Creole way of writing in the sciences?

How do single language texts, in any discourse or genre, signify mixed 
language realities? What is at stake in the representation of 
multilingual realities in a particular text, medium, place, or time? To 
what extent do texts at different historical and cultural junctures 
reflect the ideologies of their scene of writing? What are the affects 
of characters/individuals in multilingual situations, the affects of 
multilingual space? How do “other” languages in a given text/situation 
play with questions of figure and ground, decor and inflection? How have 
certain authors and artists made the conventions and realities of 
multilingual space a central thematics? What formal innovations have 
writers from various disciplines and traditions produced to address such 
realities and what are the politics of these experiments? What are the 
links between language and identity, and what are the problems which may 
arise from these links when translation is at stake?

We invite papers that address the above issues and related questions 
from a variety of disciplines and in any conceivable context, including 
nationalism, imperialism, modernism, epistemology, sexuality, gender, 
class, religion, race, etc.

Please send completed papers and abstracts to Angela Flury 
(aflury_at_depauw.edu) and Hervé Regnauld (herve.regnauld_at_uhb.fr) no 
later than May 1, 2010. Earlier submissions and queries are welcome as 
we may be able to collaborate authors in order to produce work that not 
only fits with the intent of the issue but with the standards of 
Reconstruction. Also, we encourage you to forward this CFP to interested 
parties and lists.

Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture (ISSN: 1547-4348) is an 
innovative online cultural studies journal dedicated to fostering an 
intellectual community composed of scholars and their audience, granting 
them all the ability to share thoughts and opinions on the most 
important and influential work in contemporary interdisciplinary 
studies. Reconstruction publishes three themed issues and one open issue 
per year. Send open submissions (year round) to 
reconstruction.submissions at gmail.com and submissions for themed issues 
to the appropriate editors listed on the site at 
www.reconstruction.eserver.org. Reconstruction also accepts proposal for 
special issue editors and topics. Reconstruction is indexed in the MLA 
International Bibliography.

	Angela Flury, DePauw University
Hervé Regnauld, University of Rennes
Email: aflury at depauw.edu <mailto:aflury at depauw.edu>