The “Gift”: Synesthesia in Translingual Texts

Abstract

This interdisciplinary article explores the relationship between multilingualism and synesthesia (neuropsychological blend of senses) using textual data from several translingual authors-writers who write in their non-native language (L2). I briefly summarize the existing research on synesthesia, primarily its relationship to language, cognition, and emotionality, and share my own multilingual synesthetic perceptions exemplified in my published work. I theorize that 'translingual synesthesia' is a complex cross-modal metaphor and a spontaneous imagistic 'device,' possibly enhanced by or concurrent with multilingualism, which allows writers to transcend cognitive and linguistic realms and to embody L2 with personal imagery while simultaneously creating an aesthetic effect of "de-familiarization of the word." Applied to language learning and teaching, synesthesia lends a view into learners' diverse subjectivities and their lingua-cultural and lingua-emotional dispositions, which can be modeled by language teachers.

Multilingualism and persistence in multiple language learning

“…Performing an identity through the imaginal action of writing a novel, a narrational self is invoked (Kramsch, 2009). A narrational self is a self that is actively engaged in multilingual practices and in the shaping of different identities (here as a multilingual author; Lvovich, 2012).…”

“…In providing an identity‐based conceptualization of processes underpinning motivational sustainability in multiple language learning, I have suggested that persistence is supported when goals relating to multilingualism are self‐concordant, when representations of desired states involve multilingual engagements and reference multilingual values, and when mental projections of multilingual experiences, practices, and accomplishments are integrated within an autobiographical timeline. Multilingualism involves a “deeply intimate personal journey” (Lvovich, 2012, p. 225). The conceptualization presented here makes this journey motivationally relevant.…”

‘Time-twisted space’: an exploration of the synaesthetic continuum through the work of Vladimir Nabokov

“…It has been hypothesized that the frequency of red-coloured A among English synaesthetes is due to picture books' insistence that 'A is for apple', and apples are red, whilst O and X are so often white and black respectively because of the symbolism attached to their shapes (Spector and Maurer 2008). Nabokov implies that, although his synaesthesia was hereditary, his early, highly visual sensory experiences encouraged its development and may have influenced its path (1967, 36;Lvovich 2012). Also, for multilinguals such as Nabokov for whom French, English and Russian alphabets each produced different synaesthetic concurrents (1967,(34)(35), the synaesthetic experience may be heightened (Beaujour 1989;Lvovich 2012).…”

“…Nabokov implies that, although his synaesthesia was hereditary, his early, highly visual sensory experiences encouraged its development and may have influenced its path (1967, 36;Lvovich 2012). Also, for multilinguals such as Nabokov for whom French, English and Russian alphabets each produced different synaesthetic concurrents (1967,(34)(35), the synaesthetic experience may be heightened (Beaujour 1989;Lvovich 2012). Given that English and Mandarin speakers think about time differently (Boroditsky, Fuhrman, and McCormick 2011), the impact of bi-or multi-linguality on time perception is likely to be as powerful as it is varied.…”

“…The young poet would later become a prolific novelist, lepidopterist and polymath, occupying a central place in the canon of twentieth-century late modernist literature (Foster 1993, xii). He would also draw scientific and artistic interest for his synaesthesia, an attribute innate to his writing that he considered ‘the genesis of his creative imagination’ (Lvovich 2012, 220). This awareness of the realms of synaesthetic possibility evoked Nabokov's artistic use of cross-sensory metaphor, such as sound-colour – ‘colors […] brighter and dreamier to the ear than they were to the eye’ (Nabokov 1992, 307) – and smell-taste – ‘the earthy, damp, somewhat violety smell of the dead leaves strewing the sidewalk’ (Nabokov 2008a, 150).…”