CfP: Script-switching in Literary Texts

LangueFlowColloquium

Online Colloquium Thursday and Friday 13-14 March 2025

Writing has literally changed the course of human history. The relationship between language and script is profoundly influenced by political, cultural, economic, social and historical forces, which affect the invention, adoption, development, transfer and adaptation of writing systems; conversely, understanding writing systems offers invaluable insights into these dynamics as well as human creativity.

This interplay is especially relevant in the realm of literature, where scripts can be strategically employed to achieve among others political, linguistic, stylistic and narratological functions.

Our aim is to approach literary heterographics in a wide range of literary traditions and languages. Two or more scripts can be used within a text (e.g. Tolstoy, Eliot, Pound, H. Rider Haggard, Mingya Powles, Ståhlberg), or the text can be translated into other scripts than the one(s) it was originally written in (e.g. translation of works written in Cyrillic into the Latin script), or there may be other options for script-switching (compare with code-switching) and multiscriptism (compare with multilingualism).

Literary application of multiple scripts is the focus of our one-day online colloquium planned for Thursday and Friday 13-14 March 2025. We invite concise (max. 15 minutes) discussion-inspiring contributions addressing the phenomenon of script-switching and its subtler implications, including the functions and motivations of these practices, analysis of the visual aspects, challenges for translators, editors, publishers and readers, etc. We especially encourage young scholars to participate.

Please send your abstract before 31 October 2024 of maximum 200 words with three scientific questions and a short (up to 50 words) bio to Dr. Marianna Deganutti, e-mail: marianna.deganutti // at // savba.sk with a copy to zerocodeswitching // at // pm.me.

Please note that no certificate of attendance will be issued to participants.

Polyglot art: S. Ståhlberg

Organizers

  • Prof. Johanna Domokos, Bielefeld University and Károli Gáspár University Budapest, LangueFlow
  • Dr. Marianna Deganutti, Slovak Academy of Sciences, LangueFlow
  • Dr. Jana-Katharina Mende, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, LangueFlow
  • Dr. Sabira Ståhlberg, Independent Scholar, LangueFlow

Selected Bibliography

  • Helena Bodin, “Heterographics as a Literary Device: Auditory, Visual, and Cultural Features.” Journal of World Literature 3, 2018: 196–216.
  • – “Seeking Byzantium on the Borders of Narration, Identity, Space and Time in Julia Kristeva’s novel Murder in Byzantium.” Nordlit 24, 2009: 31–43.
  • David Damrosch, “Scriptworlds: Writing Systems and the Formation of World Literature.” Modern Language Quarterly 68(2), 2007: 195–219.
  • Ernest Fenollosa, Ezra Pound, Haun Saussy, Jonathan Stalling, and Lucas Klein (eds.), The Chinese Written Character as a Medium of for Poetry: A Critical Edition. New York, NY: Fordham University Press 2008.
  • Rainier Grutman, “The Missing Link: Modeling Readers of Multilingual Writing.” Journal of Literary Multilingualism, 1 (1), 2023: 15–36.
  • Julie Hansen, Reading Novels. Translingually. Twenty – First – Century Case Studies. Boston: Academic Studies Press 2024.
  • Mark Huss, “Inscribed gestures: the vernacular-cosmopolitan dynamic of sign language in Michael Roes’s novel Die Laute.” Textual Practice, 34:5, 2020: 803–819.
  • Charles Lock, “Heterographics: Towards a History and Theory of Other Lettering,” in Literary Translation: World Literature or ‘Worlding’ Literature?, Ida Klitgard (ed.). Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press 2006: 97–112.
  • – “On roman letters and other stories: An essay in heterographics.” Journal of World Literature 1(2), 2016: 158–72.
  • Sowon Park, “Scriptworlds”, in The Cambridge Companion to World Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018: 100–115.
  • – “Transnational Scriptworld. Introduction.” Journal of World Literature, 1, 2006: 129–141.
  • Meira Polliack, “Dual-Script Mixed-Code Literary Sources from the Cairo Genizah”, in S. Schmidtke and G. Kiraz (eds.) Intellectual History of the Islamicate World 7, 2019: 325–350.
  • Jacob Wayne Runner, “Script and Language as Semiotic Media in Japanese Storytelling: A Theoretical Approach through Haruki Murakami’s Noruwei no mori.” Humanities 5, 2022: 106.
  • Markus Schiegg, Lena Sowada, “Script switching in nineteenth-century lower-class German handwriting.” Paedagogica Historica, 55(6), 2019: 772–791.
  • Monika Schmitz-Emans, “Mehrschriftlichkeit”, in Till Dembeck & Rolf Parr (eds.), Literatur und Mehrsprachigkeit: Ein Handbuch, Tübingen: Narr Francke Attempto Verlag 2017: 221–232.
  • Mark Sebba et all. (eds.) Language Mixing and Code-Switching in Writing: Approaches to Mixed-Language Written Discourse. New York and London: Routledge 2012.
  • Giustina Selvelli, The Alphabet of Discord – The Ideologization of Writing Systems on the Balkans since the Breakup of Multiethnic Empire. Stuttgart: ibidem 2021.
  • Szilvia Sövegjártó, Márton Vér (eds.), Exploring Multilingualism and Multiscriptism in Written Artefacts. Berlin: De Gruyter 2024.
  • Sabira Ståhlberg, “Desert/ed Trail: A Journey into Unknown, Forgotten and Lost Languages in Eurasia,” in M. Deganutti, J. Domokos and J. Mudriczki (eds.), Code-Switching in Arts. Budapest: L’Harmattan-Károli Books 2023: 223–234.
  • Philippa Steele (eds.), Understanding relations between scripts: the Aegean writing systems. Oxford; Philadelphia: Oxbow Books 2017.
  • Stijn Vervaet, “Linguistic Diversity in East-Central European Minority Literature: The Post-Imperial Borderlands of Petar Milošević.” Zeitschrift für Slawistik, 4, 2002: 628–654.
  • Judy Wakabayashi, “Script as a Factor in Translation.” Journal of World Literature, 1(2), 2016: 173–194.

This event is supported by