Mother-Tongue in Modern Japanese Literature and Criticism

Toward a New Polylingual Poetics
1. Auflage 2018
ISBN: 978-981-10-8511-6
Verlag: Springer Nature Singapore

Buch, Englisch, 183 Seiten, Format (B × H): 153 mm x 216 mm, Gewicht: 378 g

This book examines how early research on literary activities outside national literatures such as émigré literature or diasporic literature conceived of the loss of ‘mother-tongue” as a tragedy, and how it perpetuated the ideology of national language by relying on the dichotomy of native language/foreign language. It transcends these limitations by examining modern Japanese literature and literary criticism through modern philology, the vernacularization movement, and Korean-Japanese literature. Through the insights of recent philosophical/linguistic theories, it reveals the political problems of the notion of “mother-tongue” in literary and linguistic theories and proposes strategies to realize genuinely “exophonic” and “translational” literature beyond the confines of nation. Examining the notion of “mother-tongue” in literature and literary criticism, the author deconstructs the concept and language itself as an apparatus of nation-state in order to imagine alternative literature,genuinely creolized and heterogeneous. Offering a comparative, transnational perspective on the significance of the mother tongue in contemporary literatures, this is a key read for students of modern Japanese literature, language and culture, as well as those interested in theories of translation and bilingualism.

Zielgruppe

Research

Autoren/Hrsg.

Yokota-Murakami, Takayuki

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Sprachwissenschaft Mehrsprachigkeit
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Exilliteratur
• Geisteswissenschaften Sprachwissenschaft Übersetzungswissenschaft, Translatologie, Dolmetschen
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturen sonstiger Sprachräume Ost- & Südostasiatische Literatur
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction Theoretical Presumptions and Comparative Perspective.- Mother-tongue and the Formulation of the National Language in Meiji Linguistics.- Gembun-itchi Movement: The Creation of a Linguistic State Apparatus.- Korean-Japanese Writers and the Redefinition of Bokoku-go.- Dialectal Literature as Bilingual Literature.- Contemporary Bilingual/Exophonic Writers and Their Politics.- Deconstructing Language as a Ground for Mother-tongue.- Conclusion.

Über Autor(innen)

Takayuki Yokota-Murakami (PhD, Princeton) is Associate professor in Comparative Literature at Osaka University, Japan. His publications incldue Don Juan East/West: On the Problematics of Comparative Literature (1998) and the award-winning Iro-otoko no kenkyu (2007). He is also the co-editor of the volume Policing Literary Theory (2017).