Transcultural Identity Constructions in a Changing World

Abstract

The act of choosing the language(s) with which one expresses oneself, or the decision of crossing a boundary of languages, is deeply related to one's identity.If this is considered in the context of Japanese literature, Japanese authors started writing in other languages (e.g.Kyoko Mori, Yoko Tawada) in the 1990s.Around the same time, non-Japanese writers, such as Levy Hideo and Arthur Binard, started publishing works written in Japanese.While this "crossing the boundary of the Japanese language" in both directions has been taking place, one could also find some authors who chose not to choose one language, but decided to mix several.This is called bilingual literature, where the authors use more than one language within the same text, often without translation, such as in the case of Shishosetsu From Left to Right, by Minae Mizumura (1995), or Chorus of Mushrooms (1994), by Hiromi Goto.Both these writers mix English and Japanese languages in the text, the former text being published in Japan, and the latter in Canada.This type of work is unique, since what it is transmitted, which could be considered a gap between two languages or cultures, or the disturbing sense of not being able to understand the complete text, refuses translation, at least into the "second" language used in these novels.It might also suggest what these authors consider "not translatable", for either linguistic or cultural distance (or both).In the current study, the language and cultural "hybridity" of the above mentioned works of Minamura and Goto will be analysed, partly in relation to the concept of the translatability in translation studies.

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