"The Translingual Sensibility: A Conversation Between Steven G. Kellman and Ilan Stavans"

Abstract

Dialogue might be the most appropriate medium for reflections on translingualism. In a dialogue conducted by email over the course of ten days, Steven G. Kellman and Ilan Stavans consider the validity and implications of linguistic determinism. Their conversation examines whether some words that seem to embody the unique Weltanschaaung of a particular culture – such as Schadenfreude, duende, or mångata – can be appropriated, if not translated, into another culture. Pondering whether there are any inherent qualities that distinguish texts by monolingual writers such as Jane Austen and William Faulkner from work by authors who switch languages, such as Samuel Beckett and Vladimir Nabokov, they agree on the usefulness of thinking in terms of a translingual sensibility. Apart from the biographical circumstances of the author, a text possesses a translingual sensibility if it embodies an awareness of both the power and the limitations of its own verbal medium.