Heterolingualism as literary activism: resisting oppression through strangement of language

In Rebecca F Kuang’s 2022 acclaimed novel Babel, language becomes a resource of Empire, and a means to a colonial end. Feigning a scholarly façade, Kuang’s Oxford-based Translators’ Institute is in fact a powerhouse where translation matches inscribed on silver enable the expansion of the British Empire through magic. At the same time, whilst “native speakers” are praised for their insights into their languages, they are made to behave like “Englishmen”, and are constantly discriminated against in the XVIII century Oxbridge setting. Though a fantasy novel, this story makes a strong political statement that linguistic resources and the exploitation of those are similar to that of material resources and peoples around the world under British Imperialism.

With the expansion of the English language, and the often-witnessed repercussion of “native” or “minority” languages falling into disuse or becoming considered as “lesser”, language plays a huge part in nationalism and political power dynamics throughout history.

The XVIII and XIX century idea of “national literature” reinforces this notion (Minnaard & Dembeck, 2014), and Myriam Suchet states that our conception of “la langue” is rooted in colonial power dynamics (2014) but addresses a form of literature that deconstructs these ideals.

Heterolingualism (coined by Grutman in 1997) is the creative use of multiple languages in a single text, but it is also a means of rethinking language (Suchet, 2014). Drawing on examples from Suchet’s L’imaginaire Hétérolingue and my own ongoing research on contemporary heterolingual poetry, my paper will look at the ways in which heterolingualism can be a factor in the XX and XXI century political novel (or poetry) by “stranging” the language used and disrupting the supposed monolingual hegemony.