Comparative literature has long struggled to overcome the biases of traditional models of national literatures, which fail to account for the fundamentally global, transnational and multilingual nature of the literary process. Satisfactory alternatives, however, are still lacking. While the concept of translation is increasingly applied to an ever-growing range of phenomena, the rapid expansion of research on literary multilingualism has led to “uncontrolled terminological ambiguity” (Domokos and Deganutti 2023, 51). This seminar seeks to respond to the pressing need for a consistent ontology capable of sustaining the conversation on the role and nature of language(s) across translation theory, literary multilingualism, translanguaging, world and postcolonial literature and cognate fields.

Several scholars have already proposed a language contact view of translation, including literary translation (e.g. Malamatidou 2016; Kotze 2020). This seminar explores the potential of this approach for the study of literature more generally, as an umbrella framework that naturally highlights linguistic aspects of several fields of literary study. It draws on the study of language contact in linguistics as a prism for the different ways languages come into contact, both at the level of linguistic communities (Thomason 2001; Matras 2009) and at the level of the individual mind (Pavlenko 2015). We invite approaches that help identify what sets literary texts apart from these other settings, bring together literary and linguistic perspectives in a hybrid approach to textual analysis and better map the complex, multifaceted language practices and processes that underlie global literature.

We welcome both theoretical contributions and case studies that investigate any relevant field or phenomenon through the vantage point of language contact in literature. Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

• Linguistic aspects of language contact and how they can be productively applied to literature
• The stylistics of language contact
• Historical perspectives versus contemporary literature
• Manifest and latent multilingualism as an expression of language contact
• Translation as language contact
• The role of the author’s/reader’s linguistic background
• Challenges and limitations of a potential umbrella framework, notably in terms of particular language pairs, integrating and reconciling existing terminologies and language theories
• Relevant exploration of case studies of multilingual and translingual literature, literary translation, minor and borderland literature, translanguaging, influence across language boundaries, postcolonial literature, international literary movements etc
• Additional areas in literary study where a language contact framework may apply