Sprachwechsel in der neuesten litauischen Migrations- und Mobilitätsliteratur

Abstract

Language Change in the Most Recent Lithuanian Literature of Migration and Mobility. When discussing literary multilingualism within the Lithuanian literary scene, researchers usually refer to different groups of authors. Some were born and socialised abroad immediately after the Second World War, some left Lithuania after 1990, but producing their texts in different linguistic contexts all of them write consistently in one language, English or Lithuanian. In the most recent Lithuanian migration and mobility literature, however, one can observe examples of intra-textual bilingualism or multilingualism, which illustrate the integration problems of Lithuanian (labour) migrants into foreign societies on the one hand and the development of multiple global identities on the other. The paper examines these spreading tendencies focusing on the exemplary novel Stasys Šaltoka (2017) by Gabija Grušaitė and discussing the structure and functions of the intra-textual code-switching. The creative use of language directed against conventional linguistic purism shows that the young generation of Lithuanian authors tends to break language and cultural borders. The authors Unė Kaunaitė, Gabija Grušaitė and others show that the playful use of multilingualism can be subversive, ironic, but at the same time can highlight the problems of language dominance and thus political, social and cultural exclusion, express group mentality, identity changes, etc. The way that Lithuanian literature deals with multilingualism, expressed explicitly or implicitly, reveals the extent to which certain literary texts can be described as transcultural, in line with the current tone of European and global migration and mobility literature.