The Utilization of Language in Transcultural Relationships

By Sienna Pearson (2024)

 

Purpose:

This is the final project for Cultures and Ideas 11H. It uses a variety of scholarly sources as well as Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie, The Burial at Thebes translation by Seamus Heaney, The Sovereignty and Goodness of God by Mary Rowlandson, and The Secret River by Kate Grenville, to explore how language operates as a tool for negotiation, resistance, and cultural exchange within diverse historical and cultural contexts depicted in literature. 

Argument: 

In transcultural relationships, language operates as a multifaceted tool, facilitating both connection and conflict. While language has the potential to create understanding and bridge cultural divides, it is more often than not wielded as a weapon, consciously or inadvertently, against one side.

 

Background:

Transculturation: a process of cultural transformation marked by the influx of new cultural elements and the loss or alteration of existing ones (Miriam Webster). 

Transcultural relationships encompass interactions across cultural boundaries. In these relationships, language serves as a crucial tool for negotiation, resistance, and mutual understanding. Individuals navigate linguistic and cultural transitions, often called "multilingual lives" (Kuhiwczak). These interactions occur within contact zones and third spaces, where diverse cultural perspectives converge.

Contact zones extend our understanding of cultural encounters beyond traditional boundaries (Schorch). Places like museums become platforms for cross-cultural dialogue, challenging visitors to interpret and engage with diverse perspectives. Schorch emphasizes the significance of humanizing the museum as a contact zone through interpretive actions, movements, and performances by museum visitors (Schorch). Arguably, books and literature reflect and also act as contact zones. For this reason, the way the language is utilized within novels is very important. 

Language within these zones plays a dual role, enabling the expression of cultural identities while also presenting barriers to communication. Interpretive actions, movements, and performances allow for the fostering of understanding and humanizing in a contact zone (Schorch). Individuals also employ language strategies to assert identities, challenge dominant narratives, and foster mutual understanding (Kuhiwczak). In transcultural relationships, language operates dynamically. It's used to assert identities, challenge dominant narratives, and foster mutual understanding. However, language can also lead to misunderstandings, highlighting the need for sensitivity and adaptability in navigating cultural diversity (Kuhiwczak).

 

Key and How to Navigate: 

The map points are color-coordinated by which Literary Text they are related to. 

Red = Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie

Blue = The Burial at Thebes translation by Seamus Heaney 

Green = The Sovereignty and Goodness of God by Mary Rowlandson

Orange = The Secret River by Kate Grenville

10 points in total can be found using both the map and the timeline to navigate to them. Note that some points overlap on the map. 

 

Works Cited: 

Collingwood-Whittick, Sheila. “Discursive Manipulations of Names and Naming in Kate Grenville’s The Secret River.” Commonwealth Essays and Studies, vol. 36, no. 1, 2013, pp. 9–20. EBSCOhost, https://doi-org.libproxy.scu.edu/10.4000/ces.5263.

Derounian, Kathryn Zabelle. “Puritan Orthodoxy and the ‘Survivor Syndrome’ in Mary Rowlandson’s Indian Captivity Narrative.” Early American Literature, vol. 22, no. 1, 1987, pp. 82–93. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mlf&AN=1988023528&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

Grenville, Kate. The Secret River. Text Publishing, Australia, 2005.

Hamilton, Amy T., and Tom J. Hillard. “Before the West Was West: Rethinking the Temporal Borders of Western American Literature.” Western American Literature: A Journal of Literary, Cultural, and Place Studies, vol. 47, no. 3, 2012, pp. 286–307. EBSCOhost, https://doi-org.libproxy.scu.edu/10.1353/wal.2012.0067.

Heaney, Seamus, translator. The Burial at Thebes: A Version of Sophocles' Antigone. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004.

Kuhiwczak, Piotr. "Transculturation and Multilingual Lives: Writing between Languages and Cultures". International Journal of Society, Culture & Language, 2, Issue 2 (Special Issue on Translation, Society and Culture), 2014, pp. 103-111, https://www.ijscl.com/article_8030_848.html.

Merriam-Webster. "Transculturation." Merriam-Webster.com, Merriam-Webster, n.d., www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/transculturation#:~:text=%2Dn(t)%CB%8Csk%2D,of%20existing%20ones%20compare%20acculturation.

Panossian, Vicky. “The Metamorphosis: A Literary Analysis of the Arab Muslim Refugees Interpersonal Struggles of Integration in London.” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, vol. 49, no. 1, Feb. 2022, pp. 56–69. EBSCOhost, https://doi-org.libproxy.scu.edu/10.1080/13530194.2020.1758034.

Pes, Annalisa. “Telling Stories of Colonial Encounters: Kate Grenville’s The Secret River, The Lieutenant and Sarah Thornhill.” Postcolonial Text, vol. 11, no. 2, 2016. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mlf&AN=2016026451&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

Rowlandson, Mary. The Sovereignty and Goodness of God: Together with the Faithfulness of His Promises Displayed: Being a Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson. The Broathew Anthology of American Literature, vol. A: Beginnings to 1820, pp. 283-312. Broadview Press, 2022.

Shamsie, Kamila. Home Fire. Penguin Publishing Group, 2017.

Schorch, Philipp. "Contact Zones, Third Spaces, and the Act of Interpretation." Museum and Society, 11.1 (2013), pp. 68-81. https://epub.ub.uni-muenchen.de/69605/1/223-451-1-SM.pdf.

Younger, Kelly. “Antigone and Terrorism: Seamus Heaney Sends a Letter to George W. Bush.” Text & Presentation, vol. 4, 2007, pp. 205–12. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mlf&AN=2009700669&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

Zirzotti, Emanuela. “Translating Tragedy: Seamus Heaney’s Sophoclean Plays.” Studi Irlandesi: A Journal of Irish Studies, vol. 4, 2014, pp. 129–43. EBSCOhost, https://doi-org.libproxy.scu.edu/10.13128/SIJIS-2239-3978-14673.