Paper short abstract:

Expressions of the language-related dimension of homecoming will be traced in various types of narratives/counter-narratives: biographical accounts of homecoming in fictional works, linguistic biographies of migrants and narrative interviews such as those in the corpus “Emigrants’ German in Israel”.

Paper long abstract:

The starting point of this paper is the assumption that homecoming as a form of remigration and transborder experience (cf. Čapo Žmegač et al. 2014) is a process that comprises specific linguistic aspects. We look at the concept of homecoming as a narrative or counter-narrative (cf. Bamberg/Andrews 2004) of an essentially language-related experience which can involve the following linguistic dimensions and aspects: mother tongue/first language vs. second language/language learning, monolinguality vs. multilinguality, linguistic coherence/security vs. linguistic diversity/insecurity, as well as all the implications that these phenomena have for the experience and construction of identity. Different manifestations and expressions of the language-related dimension of homecoming will be traced on the basis of linguistic approaches in various types of texts: biographical accounts of homecoming in fictional works, linguistic biographies of mono-, bi- and multilingual migrants, narrative interviews such as those in the corpus "Emigrantendeutsch in Israel" [Emigrants' German in Israel]. The findings of the linguistic analyses of the (counter-)narratives of homecoming are then related to the theoretical concepts of "Spracherleben" [language experience, Busch 2013], "Sein-in-der-Sprache" [existence in the language] and multilingual identity (Kresić 2006). Finally, it is argued that the linguistic criterion should be included in typologies of migration in general and in approaches describing processes of homecoming in particular.