Modes of Multilingualism: Contemporary Language Theory and the Works of John Gower.
- Author/Editor
- Rajendran, Shyama.
- Title
- Modes of Multilingualism: Contemporary Language Theory and the Works of John Gower.
- Published
- Rajendran, Shyama. Modes of Multilingualism: Contemporary Language Theory and the Works of John Gower. Ph.D. Dissertation. George Washington University, 2017. viii, 163 pp. Dissertation Abstracts International A79.01(E). Fully accessible via ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global.
- Review
- In her dissertation, Rajendran applies modern theories of language and translation to selected potions of Gower's corpus in order "to provoke a reconceptualization of how we think about multilingualism, recognize when and where contemporary language ideology is structuring our expectations of the operations of language, and revisit our unmarked assumptions about language and cultural identity." Further, her "project aims to show that focusing in on textual moments of Gower’s work serves to build a picture of his multilingualism that is more true to the operations of language, rather than the operations of language ideology. By distinguishing between his ideological investments and the operations of language at each of these textual moments, this project seeks to attend to the operations of language without succumbing to contemporary language ideologies" (vi). In chapter one, Rajendran draws "on contemporary sociolinguistic theorist Yasemin Yildiz's formulation of the postmonolingual condition [to] consider how Gower’s divergent interpretations of the Babel story in Middle English verse and Latin prose annotations [in "Confessio Amantis'] speaks to modern multilingual resistance to monolingual frames of analysis and interpretation" (21-22). Chapter two assesses the notion of cultural identity in Gower's Tale of Constance in CA by viewing it in light of Gloria Anzaldúa's border theory and the practices of rap-artist M.IA. (Mathangi "Maya" Arulpragasam), revealing "the unmarked and marked structures of cultural intelligibility in medieval literature as well as in the present" (23). Chapter three uses "cognitive linguist Mel Y. Chen's concept of feral methodology" to argue that Gower’s "Visio Anglie" (Book 1 of "Vox Clamantis") helps us to think "critically about our modern tendency to categorize languages as living or dead" and to generate "a more nuanced understanding of allegory's ability to control or 'domesticate' language" (24). In chapter four Derrida's "idea of the specter" helps Rajendran to show how in Shakespeare's "Pericles" Gower's "resurrection" as chorus "functions as a textual haunting, complicating our understanding of a linear progression from one linguistic iteration to the next" (24)--in this case from Godfrey of Verbo's Latin "Pantheon" to Gower's Tale of Apollonius to Shakespeare's play.
- Date
- 2017
- Gower Subjects
- Language and Word Studies
Confessio Amantis
Vox Clamantis
Sources, Analogues, and Literary Relations
Influence and Later Allusioin