This paper approaches the speaking subject through the work of fiction, which depicts multilingual encounters in contemporary Sweden. We exemplify and discuss how lived experiences of language are made salient in boundary transgressions, and how the authors use linguistic variation to construct images of belonging and difference.
In this paper, we approach the speaking subject through the work of fiction. The aim is to show how arts-based research may provide insights into language struggles. The paper draws on extracts from a database under construction, which consists of 65 books, plays, and poems written during the 2000s, and which depict the lives and experiences of multilingual individuals in contemporary Sweden (cf. Hübinette 2019). These extracts show how sociolinguistic experiences are made salient in relation to the transgression of boundaries, for example with respect to national borders, in moving from the suburb to the inner city and when changing from lower to higher education. In particular, we focus on how the authors use linguistic variation and non-standard language (such as second language speech or contemporary urban vernaculars) to construct images of belonging or difference, and feelings of inclusion and exclusion (Busch 2017: 342). Aesthetic use of language offers a space for critical reflection (Bauman & Briggs 1990), and can help make visible inequalities created through language in society. Hence, fictional representations of multilingual encounters may provide a window into the role played by language in contexts of alienation, self-censorship, and intergenerational interactions and conflicts. For example, our analyses reveal how the (re)production of dominating language ideologies and the depiction of language variation are central to the authors' positioning of subjects, and in drawing boundaries between different categories of people and ways of speaking.
References:
Bauman, R. & Briggs, C. 1990. Poetics and performances as critical perspectives on language and social life. Annual Review of Anthropology 19, 59–88. Busch, B. 2017. Expanding the notion of the linguistic repertoire: On the concept of Spracherleben – The lived experience of language. Applied Linguistics 38 (3), 340–358.
Hübinette, T. 2019. Att skriva om svenskheten. Malmö: Arax Förlag.
