Inarticulacy in Creative Writing Practice and Translation
Where Language Thickens
Published on 20. March 2025
Book
Hardback
240 pages
978-1-350-50235-2 (ISBN)
Description
An investigation into the powerful effects occurring at the threshold between articulation and inarticulation in original and translated works, this book models how creative writing research, practice, processes, products and theories can further academic thought. At the threshold of in/articulacy, language can be said to 'thicken' and obscure the usual conditions of legibility or lexical meaning, becoming unfamiliar, flexible, incomplete, even absent. These 'thickening' moments alter and enrich literary processes and texts to initiate a paradigm shift in composition, translation and reading experiences. Interrogating this shift from the viewpoints of writers, translators and readers, Judy Kendall draws on translation studies, literary theory, anthropology, philosophy and physics and more to examine the practices of Semantic Poetry Translation, code-switching, made-up English, visual text, vital materiality and the material-discursive. Breaking new ground with her enactment of the ways in which creative writing can take an active and productive lead in research enquiries, Kendall looks at works including Old English riddles, Nigerian novels, J R. R. Tolkien's and Ursula K. Le Guin's narratives, Caroline Bergvall's hybrid works, Caryl Churchill's The Skriker, Patrick Chamoiseau's novels, Zong! and several other visual texts.
Reviews / Votes
A fascinating, highly-original and wide-ranging book which explores how the 'thickening' of language through visual and formal experiment can transform both the experience of reading and the potential of creative research. * Andrew Roberts, University of Dundee, UK *More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Laminated cover
Illustrations
7 bw illus
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
Thickness: 14 mm
Weight
510 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-350-50235-2 (9781350502352)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Judy Kendall is Associate Professor (Reader) in Visual Text and Creative Translation at Salford University, UK. She is an award-winning poet and investigates visual and poetic processes in original and translated literary works. Her academic articles, monographs and other writings experiment with methods of academic enquiry that involve reflective, creative and visual modes.
Content
Introduction to Where Language Thickens
Preamble;
A Thickening Approach;
The Thick of Geertz;
Threshold;
The Discomfort of Breaking from the Default;
Visual;
Chinese Character Analogy;
Sendak and 'Where';
Shakespeare and 'thickens';
Thickening Old English and twenty-first century Physics;
Geertz and the Physical
1. Thickness in Creative and Translation Processes
Introduction;
The Thick in Appiah's Translation Approach;
Hermans Widens the Compass;
Spiralling into Mailloux' Creative Essay Practice;
Bryant's Fluid Text;
Scott's Ongoing Encounters;
Wright's Interstitial Translation-with-commentary;
The Visual and the Spatial;
Translating the Reader: Bill Griffiths and 'Y Gododdin';
Visual Text in Old English Riddles;
Tactical Misrecognition;
Where Visual Text Thickens Critical Thought;
The Themersons' Semantic Poetry Translations
2. The Moment of Code-switching
Introduction;
Tutuola's Innovations;
Okara's Near-literal Approach;
Achebe's Translatory Code-switching;
Stages of Code-switch;
The Journey of Obi; Inside the Switch;
Mid-word Code-switching;
Creative Proverb Use;
Proverbs without Gloss;
Fascinating conversations
3. Made-up Englishes
Made-up Englishes and Code-switching;
The Development of Made-up English in Saro-Wiwa's Sozaboy;
More Stable Englishes: Shadow Tongue and Riddleyspeak;
The Mechanics of Reading;
Non-deliberate Construction Processes;
Synthetic Sampling: Terry and Bergvall
4. Sourcing Tolkien and Le Guin
Made-up Languages as Source
Tolkien's Employment of Racial and Colonial Stereotypes;
Tolkien's Linguistic Aesthetic;
Predictive Processing;
Effects of Limited Agency in Tolkien's Work;
Where Thickening Occurs: Ingoldian Wayfaring;
Where Thickening Occurs: Tolkien's Maps;
The Inaccessible and the Untranslated in Tolkien and Le Guin;
The Anthropological Novel;
Writing from the Future: Time-travelling;
Writing from the Future: Physical Embodiment
5. The Paratextual, the Visual and the Thing
Inter-modal - Composing between;
The Visual and the Typographical;
Not-quite Translation;
Textual-Visual Shimmers;
Material Translation and Composition
6. The Thick Moment of Now
Composition and Translation as Felt Sensation: Unworded, Unbound;
Unworded Thought and Not-quite Translation in The Skriker;
The Kakekotoba Stutter;
Quantum Translation;
Vital Materiality;
Chamoiseau: Resisting Singular Dominance;
Fuzzy Beginnendings;
World-in-Formation;
Dipping into Un-clarity;
The Material-Discursive Dynamic;
From Zorg to Zong!;
Notes on and in Zong!;
Not-telling - Against the Reductive Dominance of Language;
Athematic Intention and Physical Translation;
Thick Moments of Now;
Acknowledging, Not a Coda
Bibliography
Index
Preamble;
A Thickening Approach;
The Thick of Geertz;
Threshold;
The Discomfort of Breaking from the Default;
Visual;
Chinese Character Analogy;
Sendak and 'Where';
Shakespeare and 'thickens';
Thickening Old English and twenty-first century Physics;
Geertz and the Physical
1. Thickness in Creative and Translation Processes
Introduction;
The Thick in Appiah's Translation Approach;
Hermans Widens the Compass;
Spiralling into Mailloux' Creative Essay Practice;
Bryant's Fluid Text;
Scott's Ongoing Encounters;
Wright's Interstitial Translation-with-commentary;
The Visual and the Spatial;
Translating the Reader: Bill Griffiths and 'Y Gododdin';
Visual Text in Old English Riddles;
Tactical Misrecognition;
Where Visual Text Thickens Critical Thought;
The Themersons' Semantic Poetry Translations
2. The Moment of Code-switching
Introduction;
Tutuola's Innovations;
Okara's Near-literal Approach;
Achebe's Translatory Code-switching;
Stages of Code-switch;
The Journey of Obi; Inside the Switch;
Mid-word Code-switching;
Creative Proverb Use;
Proverbs without Gloss;
Fascinating conversations
3. Made-up Englishes
Made-up Englishes and Code-switching;
The Development of Made-up English in Saro-Wiwa's Sozaboy;
More Stable Englishes: Shadow Tongue and Riddleyspeak;
The Mechanics of Reading;
Non-deliberate Construction Processes;
Synthetic Sampling: Terry and Bergvall
4. Sourcing Tolkien and Le Guin
Made-up Languages as Source
Tolkien's Employment of Racial and Colonial Stereotypes;
Tolkien's Linguistic Aesthetic;
Predictive Processing;
Effects of Limited Agency in Tolkien's Work;
Where Thickening Occurs: Ingoldian Wayfaring;
Where Thickening Occurs: Tolkien's Maps;
The Inaccessible and the Untranslated in Tolkien and Le Guin;
The Anthropological Novel;
Writing from the Future: Time-travelling;
Writing from the Future: Physical Embodiment
5. The Paratextual, the Visual and the Thing
Inter-modal - Composing between;
The Visual and the Typographical;
Not-quite Translation;
Textual-Visual Shimmers;
Material Translation and Composition
6. The Thick Moment of Now
Composition and Translation as Felt Sensation: Unworded, Unbound;
Unworded Thought and Not-quite Translation in The Skriker;
The Kakekotoba Stutter;
Quantum Translation;
Vital Materiality;
Chamoiseau: Resisting Singular Dominance;
Fuzzy Beginnendings;
World-in-Formation;
Dipping into Un-clarity;
The Material-Discursive Dynamic;
From Zorg to Zong!;
Notes on and in Zong!;
Not-telling - Against the Reductive Dominance of Language;
Athematic Intention and Physical Translation;
Thick Moments of Now;
Acknowledging, Not a Coda
Bibliography
Index