The Autoethnographic (De)Construction: How German writers of Turkish heritage manipulate the German language to reexamine ideas of national identity and -lingualism

Starace, Emily

The Autoethnographic (De)Construction: How German writers of Turkish heritage manipulate the German language to reexamine ideas of national identity and -lingualism

Files

2013StaraceE_thesis.pdf(618.65 KB)

2013StaraceE_release.pdf(40.76 KB)

Date

2013

Authors

Starace, Emily

Advisor

Brust, Imke
Fernald, Theodore B.

Department

Tri-College (Bryn Mawr, Haverford, and Swarthmore Colleges). Department of Linguistics
Bi-College (Haverford and Bryn Mawr Colleges). Department of German and German Studies

Type

Thesis

Language

eng

Access Restrictions

Open Access

Terms of Use

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/us/

Abstract

This paper examines how the innovative, non-standard German language and usage presented by minority German authors with Turkish heritage stand as reactions to constructed ideals and myths that pervade modern Germany society. Using the medium of ‘autoethnographic texts,’ these authors work to dissolve the myths of nationhood, monolingualism and a ‘mother tongue’ in order to surmount the limitations they impose. Examining Feridun Zaimoğlu’s novel Kanak Sprak: 24 Misstöne Vom Rande Der Gesellschaft (1995) and Emine Sevgi Özdamar’s work Mutterzunge: Erzählungen (1990), this thesis challenges the precondition of a solely monolingual identity and analyzes these works and the unique languages they employ as commentaries on both the heritage Turkish and the host German culture.