A presentation by Noya Dalem
National Institute for Oriental Languages and Civilizations, Paris
UCLA Yanai Initiative Visiting Graduate Researcher, Spring 2024

Not all novels are written in a single language. Firstly, languages are intrinsically heterogeneous, and secondly there are also texts which include words, sentences, or even entire paragraphs in foreign languages. In Japanese Contemporary Literature, this corresponds to works mainly written in Japanese, but which also include passages in Korean, Chinese, or English. The insertions can take a variety of forms (presented in the foreign language script or transcribed in the Japanese writing system; highlighted by line breaks or completely integrated into Japanese sentences; translated or not) and generate equally varied effects (is multilingualism used to show the separation of languages? their link? their distinction?) In this presentation, we will compare several cases: Levy Hideo’s work including English and Mandarin, Yi Yang-ji’s use of Korean in addition to Japanese, Mizumura Minae’s novel Shishōsetsu from left to right alternating between Japanese and English, and finally Li Kotomi’s work featuring different types of Mandarin. The study of several cases will allow us to compare the variety of shapes as well as well as the diversity of effects they create.