Chantal Wright (New Brunswick, Canada) p.26-42
2008 Issue 3
Abstract
This article argues for the adoption of the term exophony (and its derivative adjective exophonic) as a useful and appropriate description of the phenomenon of writing by nonnative speakers of a language, in this case of German. Exophony avoids the thematic prescriptiveness of older terms used in the German context such as Auslnder- and Migrantenliteratur, and of more recent thematically motivated terminology such as axial and postnational. It allows an important distinction to be drawn between the differing contexts of production of writing by non-native-speakers and native-speakers of hybrid identity, calling attention to the politics of style in non-native-speaker writing. The innovative stylistic features observed in the work of writers such as Franco Biondi, Emine Sevgi zdamar and Yoko Tawada are analogous to the strategies of appropriation identified in certain postcolonial literatures. They defamiliarise the German language in a manner which is often alienating for German readers.