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  Theme: Multilingualism and Children's Literature. Ill. Henry Lyman Saÿen - Child Reading (1915–1918). Smithsonian American Art Museum, object number 1968.19.11. State-Sanctioned Multilingualism for Babies and Their Adults: Literary Multilingualism in Finnish Baby Box Books The baby books that, since the 1980s, are included in the Finnish state’s maternity packages distributed to every new-born child and their caregivers, are multilingual at heart. On pages of durable cardboard, a multilingual iconotext is realised as the two national languages Finnish and Swedish coexist with pictures on the spread. Lately, separate editions in the Sámi languages are also available. So far, there has been little literary research on these unique baby books. Hence, we seek to combine picturebook research with research in literary multilingualism to explore how these books handle multilingualism in relation to the materiality and multimodality of the picturebook medium. Our interest has been fuelled by the baby box books being a stately sanctioned and tailored book product that reaches about 30,000 Finnish families every year. In our article, we argue that a visual literary multilingualism is an essential trait of these books, and we suggest a typology for how multilingualism is realised within their multimodal format. Paying special attention to how the books deal with power hierarchies among the featured languages, we show that they employ a range of strategies to neutralise such hierarchies with greater or lesser success. Hence, we end up concluding that the books in the maternity package harbour a utopian and unproblematised view of multilingualism at odds with current societal debates.

Šiame straipsnyje analizuojamos daugiakalbystės apraiškos, sutelkus dėmesį į estetinę ir teminę funkcijas Akvilinos Cicėnaitės autofikciniame romane „Anglų kalbos žodynas“ (2022). Lietuvių kalba parašytame tekste, reflektuojant migrantų patirtis, vartojamos įvairios kalbos, dažniausiai anglų. Romane pasakojama apie lietuvių rašytoją ir jos Kanados prancūzų kilmės vyrą, gyvenančius Australijoje ir automobiliu keliaujančius po šalį. Jiedu nuolat jaučiasi esą vertimo būsenos – tarp skirtingų kalbų, realybių ir kultūrų. Kiekvienas romano skyrius, pavadintas anglų kalbos žodžiu, kuria žodyno struktūrą, padedančią sujungti meditatyvines pasakotojos refleksijas. Tyrimo problema – kaip Cicėnaitės tekste atsiskleidžia daugiakalbystė ir kokias literatūrines funkcijas ji atlieka. Analizė remiasi teorinėmis prielaidomis apie literatūrinę daugiakalbystę, suformuluotomis Rainierio Grutmano (2006, 2024), Tillio Dembecko (2020), Wernerio Helmicho (2016), Mariannos Deganutti (2022) ir kitų; taip pat daugiakalbystės funkcijų grožinėje literatūroje apibrėžimais ir klasifikacija, kurias aptaria Tillis Dembeckas ir Anne Uhrmacher (2016), Andrásas Hornas (1981), Markusas Hussas (2021) ir kiti. Remiamasi šiais pagrindiniais principais: literatūrinių tekstų daugiakalbystės „režisavimu“, t. y. konstravimu, ir dviem pagrindinėmis literatūrinės daugiakalbystės atliekamomis funkcijomis – estetine ir temine („patirtine“ daugiakalbyste). Pirmoje analizės dalyje nagrinėjama, kaip romano naratyvinė struktūra papildoma daugiakalbėmis struktūromis, kurios tekstą paverčia kruopščiai sukonstruota daugiakalbe tekstine erdve, padedančia atliepti migrantų padėtį ir būvį. Antroje analizės dalyje aptariami „patirtinės“ daugiakalbystės pavyzdžiai, kurie naratyvą įtvirtina konkrečiomis socialinėmis ir kultūrinėmis daugiakultūrės ir daugiakalbės Australijos realijomis. Cicėnaitės tekste pasireiškiančios daugiakalbystės analizė straipsnyje siejama su rašytojos tyrinėjimais apie migranto patirtį ir pastangomis rasti tam tinkamą meninę išraišką. This article analyzes manifestations of multilingualism, focusing on their aesthetic and thematic functions in Akvilina Cicėnaitė’s autofictional novel “Anglų kalbos žodynas” [A Dictionary of English] (2022), which employs numerous languages, most frequently English, in a predominantly Lithuanian text to explore the migrant experience. The novel follows a Lithuanian writer and her French-Canadian husband on a road trip across Australia, in which both currently reside, and constantly find themselves in a state of translation between languages, different realities, and cultures. Each chapter of the novel is titled with an English word, forming a dictionary-like structure which frames the narrator’s meditative reflections. The research problem of the article is how multilingualism is made evident in Cicėnaitė’s text and what literary functions it performs in the novel. The analysis draws on theoretical propositions about literary multilingualism by Rainier Grutman (2006, 2024), Till Dembeck (2020), Werner Helmich (2016), Marianna Deganutti (2022), and others, as well as about the functions of multilingualism in fiction by Till Dembeck and Anne Uhrmacher (2016), András Horn (1981), Markus Huss (2021) and others. Central to the analysis is their emphasis on the constructedness of multilingual configurations in literary texts and the two functions, aesthetic and thematic (“experienced” multilingualism), literary multilingualism performs. First, the analysis explores how the novel’s narrative structure is supplemented with multilingual structures, which transform the text into a carefully organized multilingual textual space and enhance the exploration of the migrant’s condition. Then the analysis discusses the instances of “experienced” multilingualism, which root the narrative in specific social and cultural realia of multicultural and multilingual Australia. The article links the analysis of multilingual manifestations in Cicėnaitė’s text to the writer’s exploration of the experience of displacement, the condition of the migrant figure, and her efforts to find a relevant artistic expression for it.

For Finland-Swedish Young Readers, in Their Language: The Evaluation of Literary Multilingualism in Reviews of Finland-Swedish Young Adult Novels from the Early 2000s The article is a study of the evaluation of literary multilingualism in reviews of Finland-Swedish YA novels from the early 2000s. It investigates the evaluation of multilingualism in the literary field and, furthermore, contributes to the field of research into children’s literature reviews. The material consists of reviews of Annika Luther’s Ivoria (2005) and Brev till världens ände (Letters to the end of the world, 2008), as well as of Marianne Backlén’s Kopparorm (Copper snake, 2008), in Finland-Swedish newspapers and periodicals. The novels all feature literary multilingualism, for example instances of Finnish, specific Finland-Swedish linguistic traits, and/or multilingual slang, and these features are discussed in the majority of the reviews. With a theoretical background in literary multilingualism studies, children’s literature research, and studies of literary reviews, and by using textual analysis, the article shows that classic questions regarding literary multilingualism, authenticity, and comprehensibility, as well as different readerships, feature heavily in the material. There are also new elements to the discussion regarding the temporal durability of literary multilingualism and the age gap between author and readers. The reviewers’ evaluation of literary multilingualism is mixed; however, literary multilingualism is recognized as a valuable and multifaceted literary device in Finland-Swedish YA literature of the early 2000s.

This article explores the resurgence of contemporary Sephardic children’s literature, with a particular focus on its multilingual nature as a central feature. The study aims to demonstrate how the use of multiple languages within a book serves as a tool to keep young Sephardic readers connected to Ladino – their heritage language – which, nowadays, is considered severely endangered. The methodological approach is based on Jeffrey Shandler’s concept of post-vernacularity, positioning contemporary Judeo-Spanish children’s literature as a post-vernacular phenomenon. The selected books were published in Israel and the United States between 2010 and 2023. This research categorises these works based on the various configurations of multilingualism, which may manifest as direct translations or the use of different languages (and alphabets) in distinct sections of the text and in the pictures. The study concludes that multilingual children’s literature offers a meaningful way for young Sephardim to connect with their cultural roots and engage with Ladino culture.

Theme: Multilingualism and Children's Literature. Ill. Henry Lyman Saÿen - Child Reading (1915–1918). Smithsonian American Art Museum, object number 1968.19.11. Heterographics and Reading Aloud: On Different Alphabets and Their Functions in Swedish Picturebooks Multilingual literature that uses more than one alphabet or script system can be labelled as heterographic. The purpose of this article is to explore uses of heterographics as a literary device in a selection of Swedish picturebooks, published between 2013 and 2023. The intention is to exemplify different types of embedded heterographics. How are they shaped? Which functions do they fulfill? What impact may they have on the reading aloud of a picturebook? Guided by multimodal perspectives, as applied within literary multilingualism studies, intermedial studies, and picturebook research, reading aloud is regarded as a shared event. Both reader and listener are active and co-creative, as the visual-spatial dimension of the iconotext is realized in an auditory-temporal way. The article opens with a discussion of heterographics in relation to the page turn direction of picturebooks. Then four books in Swedish, which integrate Persian or Arabic script as well as an example of pseudo-script, are examined. It is demonstrated how heterographics may be inserted in the picturebooks’ verbal or visual texts, where they can take on aesthetic, thematic, and performative functions. In this way, they exhibit their beauty, contribute to strengthening themes of friendship and hope, or make readers experience similar feelings of threat or joy as the picturebooks’ characters, encountering scripts they do not know.

  Theme: Multilingualism and Children's Literature. Ill. Henry Lyman Saÿen - Child Reading (1915–1918). Smithsonian American Art Museum, object number 1968.19.11. This article focuses on aesthetic and didactic aspects of literary multilingualism and the interaction between these aspects in two contemporary dual-language picturebooks with Sámi motifs and characters. Lilli, áddjá, ja guovssahas/Lilli, farfar och norrskenet (Lilly, Grandpa and the Northern Lights, 2020), written by Elin Marakatt and illustrated by Anita Midbjer, and Gájuoh muv! Gïjrra Almien jah Enoken luvnnie/Rädda mig: Vår hos Almmie och Enok (Save me: Spring at Almmie and Enok’s, 2021), written by Sophia Rehnfjell and illustrated by Inga-Wiktoria Påve, are intended for 3–7-year-olds and combine a Sámi language and Swedish. The analyses show the aesthetic and didactic interplay between verbal and visual elements. The insertion of North Sámi words in an otherwise Swedish text can highlight culture, traditional beliefs, and history, and the Ume Sámi glossaries can be used to talk about the illustrations and learn words pertaining to reindeer husbandry and life in Sápmi. The vocabulary has a didactic function, while the literary text and the illustrations tell stories about the Sámi peoples, thus being both aesthetic and didactic. Literary multilingualism is teamed with didactics and Sámi aesthetics to support language acquisition, to depict and to make visible Sámi culture and Sámi peoples to in-group as well as out-group readers.

This article investigates naming practices in Italian postcolonial children’s literature. I define naming practices as a series of verbal figures that display affirmation of one’s own name. While multilingualism in children’s fiction has recently gained attention, names and naming practices are understudied, especially in contexts of migration. The aim of the article is twofold. First, it investigates how characters defy the mispronunciation of their names. Secondly, it discusses naming strategies in connection to categories of difference such as race, gender, and class in contemporary Italy. Finally, the article demonstrates that naming practices in Italian children’s literature disrupt the monolingual paradigm by representing a multilingual social texture; by doing this, I argue, they contribute to questioning racism and other forms of social oppression in contemporary Italy. This study sets the basis for future research on narrative strategies in multilingual literature in order to educate children in equality.

This article investigates naming practices in Italian postcolonial children’s literature. I define naming practices as a series of verbal figures that display affirmation of one’s own name. While multilingualism in children’s fiction has recently gained attention, names and naming practices are understudied, especially in contexts of migration. The aim of the article is twofold. First, it investigates how characters defy the mispronunciation of their names. Secondly, it discusses naming strategies in connection to categories of difference such as race, gender, and class in contemporary Italy. Finally, the article demonstrates that naming practices in Italian children’s literature disrupt the monolingual paradigm by representing a multilingual social texture; by doing this, I argue, they contribute to questioning racism and other forms of social oppression in contemporary Italy. This study sets the basis for future research on narrative strategies in multilingual literature in order to educate children in equality.

This article explores the resurgence of contemporary Sephardic children’s literature, with a particular focus on its multilingual nature as a central feature. The study aims to demonstrate how the use of multiple languages within a book serves as a tool to keep young Sephardic readers connected to Ladino – their heritage language – which, nowadays, is considered severely endangered. The methodological approach is based on Jeffrey Shandler’s concept of post-vernacularity, positioning contemporary Judeo-Spanish children’s literature as a post-vernacular phenomenon. The selected books were published in Israel and the United States between 2010 and 2023. This research categorises these works based on the various configurations of multilingualism, which may manifest as direct translations or the use of different languages (and alphabets) in distinct sections of the text and in the pictures. The study concludes that multilingual children’s literature offers a meaningful way for young Sephardim to connect with their cultural roots and engage with Ladino culture.