Multilingual awareness in tyrolean material culture

Ulrike Jessner

Dominik Unterthiner

Stéphanie Topf

Manon Megens

pp. 113-130

in: Larissa Aronin, Michael Hornsby, Grazyna Kiliańska-Przybyło (eds), The material culture of multilingualism, Berlin, Springer, 2018

Abstract

Over the last few years, multilingualism as a field of study has gained a great deal of interest and many linguists try to explore its effects and issues on human society and the individual. Not only do linguists discuss properties between language systems and language learning phenomena, they also examine languages out of social contexts and practice. Objects and artefacts have the potential to transport linguistic information in more than one language and may raise one's awareness of multilingualism. Subsequently, multilingual objects and artefacts should be observed from a dynamic perspective recognized in their ability to offer possibilities for linguistic discussions. This chapter will outline concerns of multilingual material culture from an Austrian perspective, a country with a blossoming multilingual culture. Here, (culturally marked) objects and artefacts in the context of a Tyrolean exhibition are at this text's centre of attention. Hence, it will examine effects of multilingual materials on the Tyrolean society and vice versa, with a foremost qualitative research approach. In addition, the concept of the uncanny by Sigmund Freud will be linked to multilingual material culture. Combining material culture with the uncanny is intended to contribute to an understanding of multilingual material culture and of people's perception of materials. The last part will present ideas on the categorizations and visualisation of (multilingual) material culture.

Cited authors

Freud Sigmund