Translated from the German original: "Porträt einer Zunge".

Includes bibliographical references (pages 145-152).

"‘Porträt einer Zunge’ is the narrator's portrait of a German woman, referred to throughout only as P, who has lived in the United States for many years. The text is part declaration of love for P by the first-person narrator, part ‘thinking-out-loud’ about language and languages, and part self-reflexive commentary. The German text assumes that the German-speaking reader will be familiar enough with the English language to be able to follow the text's reflections on linguistic equivalence. The same familiarity with German cannot be assumed of the English-speaking reader.

Since the text invites the reader to interact with it – to go to the dictionary, for example, or to think about why a particular linguistic phenomenon appears odd to the narrator – and since the text often does not complete its own thoughts, a translation that acknowledges and embodies this interaction between the text and the reader-translator, as well as acknowledging and embodying the text's new geographic and linguistic environment, seems both an appropriate and a creative approach. Chantal Wright's translation places Tawada's text on the left-hand side of the page and the translator's dialogue with the text on the right. The translation therefore occupies the page in a manner which draws attention to the presence of a translator, to her personal experience of two languages and cultures, and to the impact of this experience on the reading and translating process." (Book Cover)

CONTENTS:

Acknowledgements

Introduction:

Yoko Tawada's Exophonic Texts

Translating "Portrait of a Tongue"

"Portrait of a Tongue" by Yoko Tawada

Bibliography