Translingualism: A Poetics of Language Mixing and Estrangement

Abstract

Abstract This essay attempts to think through what a “translingual” poetics might be like for contemporary poetry. Its first section discusses the term translingual as it is used in some areas of applied linguistics. The second section constructs an imaginary scenario where a poem employs more than one language and examines the relations between them. The third section asks whether the term translingual poetry might be used to refer not just to language-mixing but rather to a special way of handling even a single language. The fourth section tries to think of “translingual poetry” as one where the poet assumes the linguistic strategies of the language learner. The essay also revisits the argument by the Russian Formalist critics that the language of poetry resembles a foreign language.