On Language and the Possibility of Change

Abstract

Sayed Kashua, a prominent novelist, screenwriter and journalist, has become a central figure in the Israeli public sphere in recent years. This essay examines Kashua's hypercritical treatment of both sociological and linguistic accounts of the young Palestinian generation in Israel – often referred to as the ‘Stand-Tall Generation’ – as reflected in his popular television series Arab Labour. This treatment will be examined via an investigation of two main interpretations of the phenomenon of Arabic–Hebrew code-switching – a well-known and documented phenomenon in Israeli Palestinian speech. The core corpus for this essay is the fourth episode of the first season of Arab Labour, in which Kashua's critique is crystallized, and which deals with the kidnapping of Meir, the Jewish photographer friend of the protagonist, Israeli Palestinian reporter Amjad. Kashua conveys his critique through an intensive treatment of the notion of code-switching, which includes not only a sophisticated usage of the phenomenon, but also a critique of the very notions of language and code, their relation to the distinction between reality and fiction, and the relevance of perceptions of these notions to the local political power relations. Kashua constantly directs his critique to both the linguistic and the metalinguistic levels, by adhering to the resistance of the phenomenon to offer itself to existing interpretations or explanations. By doing this, his texts invite the intervention of the Derridian metalinguistic critique, which besides its methodological importance in the midst of the sociological, sociolinguistic and discursive enquiry, should prove valuable also for the analysis of Kashua's inspiring thinking of the notions of criticality and intellectuality, of the role of the intellectual, and of the possibility of political change and forgiveness.