Books by Yasemin Yildiz
"Monolingualism—the idea that having just one language is the norm—is only a recent invention dat... more "Monolingualism—the idea that having just one language is the norm—is only a recent invention dating back to late eighteenth century Europe, yet it has become a dominant, if overlooked, structuring principle of modernity. According to this monolingual paradigm, individuals are imagined to be able to think and feel properly only in one language, while multiple languages are seen as a threat to the cohesion of individuals and communities, institutions and disciplines. As a result of this view, writing in anything but one’s “mother tongue” has come to be seen as an aberration.
Beyond the Mother Tongue demonstrates the impact of this monolingual paradigm on literature and culture but also charts incipient moves beyond it. Because newer multilingual forms and practices exist in tension with the paradigm, which alternately obscures, pathologizes, or exoticizes them, this book argues that they can best be understood as “postmonolingual,” that is, as marked by the continuing force of monolingualism.
Focused on canonical and minority writers working in German in the twentieth century, Beyond the Mother Tongue examines distinct forms of multilingualism, such as writing in one socially unsanctioned “mother tongue” about another language (Franz Kafka); mobilizing words of foreign derivation as part of a multilingual constellation within one language (Theodor W. Adorno); producing an oeuvre in two separate languages simultaneously (Yoko Tawada); writing by literally translating from the “mother tongue” into another language (Emine Sevgi Özdamar); and mixing different languages, codes, and registers within one text (Feridun Zaimoğlu). Through these analyses, Beyond the Mother Tongue suggests that the dimensions of gender, kinship, and affect encoded in the “mother tongue” are crucial to the persistence of monolingualism and the challenge of multilingualism.
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Papers by Yasemin Yildiz
Transit, 2011
... Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1994. Amati-Mehler, Jacqueline, Simona Argentieri, and Jorge C... more ... Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1994. Amati-Mehler, Jacqueline, Simona Argentieri, and Jorge Canestri. Babel of the Unconscious: Mother Tongue and Foreign Tongues in the Analytic Dimension. ... Ed. Michael Holquist. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981. 259-422. ...
American Book Review, 2014
Globalization and the future of German: with a select …, Jan 1, 2004
German Life and Letters, Jan 1, 2009
Gelbin, Cathy et. al.(Hg.): AufBrüche. Kulturelle …, Jan 1, 1999
Conference by Yasemin Yildiz
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Books by Yasemin Yildiz
Beyond the Mother Tongue demonstrates the impact of this monolingual paradigm on literature and culture but also charts incipient moves beyond it. Because newer multilingual forms and practices exist in tension with the paradigm, which alternately obscures, pathologizes, or exoticizes them, this book argues that they can best be understood as “postmonolingual,” that is, as marked by the continuing force of monolingualism.
Focused on canonical and minority writers working in German in the twentieth century, Beyond the Mother Tongue examines distinct forms of multilingualism, such as writing in one socially unsanctioned “mother tongue” about another language (Franz Kafka); mobilizing words of foreign derivation as part of a multilingual constellation within one language (Theodor W. Adorno); producing an oeuvre in two separate languages simultaneously (Yoko Tawada); writing by literally translating from the “mother tongue” into another language (Emine Sevgi Özdamar); and mixing different languages, codes, and registers within one text (Feridun Zaimoğlu). Through these analyses, Beyond the Mother Tongue suggests that the dimensions of gender, kinship, and affect encoded in the “mother tongue” are crucial to the persistence of monolingualism and the challenge of multilingualism.
"
Papers by Yasemin Yildiz
Conference by Yasemin Yildiz
Beyond the Mother Tongue demonstrates the impact of this monolingual paradigm on literature and culture but also charts incipient moves beyond it. Because newer multilingual forms and practices exist in tension with the paradigm, which alternately obscures, pathologizes, or exoticizes them, this book argues that they can best be understood as “postmonolingual,” that is, as marked by the continuing force of monolingualism.
Focused on canonical and minority writers working in German in the twentieth century, Beyond the Mother Tongue examines distinct forms of multilingualism, such as writing in one socially unsanctioned “mother tongue” about another language (Franz Kafka); mobilizing words of foreign derivation as part of a multilingual constellation within one language (Theodor W. Adorno); producing an oeuvre in two separate languages simultaneously (Yoko Tawada); writing by literally translating from the “mother tongue” into another language (Emine Sevgi Özdamar); and mixing different languages, codes, and registers within one text (Feridun Zaimoğlu). Through these analyses, Beyond the Mother Tongue suggests that the dimensions of gender, kinship, and affect encoded in the “mother tongue” are crucial to the persistence of monolingualism and the challenge of multilingualism.
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