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Article published In:
Literacies in Contact
Edited by Manuela Böhm and Constanze Weth
[Written Language & Literacy 23:2] 2020
► pp. 232–250

The multilingual practices of Laurence Sterne

Evidence of translanguaging?

| Tampere University
This article discusses the multilingual practices identified in the public and private writings of Laurence Sterne, novelist and clergyman. The data used consists of Sterne’s two novels as well as a selection of his personal correspondence. Sterne uses a wide variety of languages in his texts, although the most common ones are French and Latin, the languages he seems to have been most fluent in. Sterne engages in some practices associated with translanguaging, particularly in terms of playful language use and mediation of foreign-language passages, but it is impossible to pinpoint any specific characteristics of translanguaging for certain. On the whole, it would seem that the analysis of Sterne’s multilingual practices does not benefit from the translanguaging point-of-view.
Keywords: multilingual practices, Laurence Sterne, English, French, Latin, translanguaging
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Translanguaging: Possible avenues for exploration
    • 2.1Translanguaging
    • 2.2Multilingual practices in English historical texts
    • 2.3Translanguaging in historical texts
  • 3.The data used: Corpus of Late Modern English Texts 3.0 (CLMET3) and personal correspondence
  • 4.The multilingual practices of Laurence Sterne
    • 4.1Multilingualism in Laurence Sterne’s novels
    • 4.2Multilingualism in Laurence Sterne’s correspondence
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Note
  • References
Published online: 2 February 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/wll.00042.nur
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