Wright, Chantal (2008) Writing in the “grey zone” : exophonic literature in contemporary Germany. GFL : German as a Foreign Language (3). pp. 26-46.

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Abstract

This article argues for the adoption of the term ‘exophony’ (and its derivative adjective
‘exophonic’) as a useful and appropriate description of the phenomenon of writing by nonnative
speakers of a language, in this case of German. ‘Exophony’ avoids the thematic
prescriptiveness of older terms used in the German context such as ‘Ausländer-’ and
‘Migrantenliteratur’, and of more recent thematically motivated terminology such as ‘axial’
and ‘postnational’. It allows an important distinction to be drawn between the differing
contexts of production of writing by non-native-speakers and native-speakers of hybrid
identity, calling attention to the politics of style in non-native-speaker writing. The innovative
stylistic features observed in the work of writers such as Franco Biondi, Emine Sevgi
Özdamar and Yoko Tawada are analogous to the strategies of appropriation identified in
certain postcolonial literatures. They defamiliarise the German language in a manner which is
often alienating for German readers.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Divisions:	Faculty of Arts > English and Comparative Literary Studies
Journal or Publication Title:	GFL : German as a Foreign Language
Publisher:	German Academic Exchange Service
ISSN:	1470-9570
Official Date:	2008
Dates:	Date Event 2008 Published
Number:	3
Page Range:	pp. 26-46
Status:	Peer Reviewed
Publication Status:	Published
Access rights to Published version:	Open Access

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