Full Description
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.
Contents
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.
