German-speaking characters constructed through the English language in Joseph Conrad's fiction

What is it about?

Joseph Conrad had an extraordinary linguistic awareness that is reflected in his fiction. He introduces linguistic varieties not only to distinguish between characters of the same nationality, but also to create their distinct selves revealing their position in the fictional reality. In "Lord Jim", via stylization, Conrad makes his major German-speaking characters – the Patna skipper, Schomberg and Stein – emerge as individuals, while their language illustrates their cultural and social backgrounds. The skipper’s idiolect, contaminated by interferences from German, is concordant with his unethical conduct and his vulgarized language indicates his inferior social position. Stein’s idiolect, stylized as that of an educated German, not only underscores his cultural background, but also implies his superiority in the world of the novel, be it intellectual, economic or social. Schomberg’s fluent informal English is motivated by his identity as a gossiper and becomes modified in "Victory" and “Falk” as the character develops transtextually.

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Photo by Etienne Girardet on Unsplash

Photo by Etienne Girardet on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Joseph Conrad’s fictional worlds are multicultural and multilingual. As is evidenced in his German-speaking characters, Conrad consciously employs language to construct the unique identities of the characters. This does not mean that his stylizations are faithful representations of the manner in which Germans speak English. Rather he resorts to occasional markers of foreignness to achieve desired effects. As a writer he demonstrates an unusual grasp of the fact that language determines how people see themselves and how they are seen by others. Hence he makes foreignness evident to express a given character’s identity and social position through language. When language becomes interactive and intersubjective in an encounter with the social world, identity becomes personalized, and Conrad constructed his characters with the awareness that language may reveal a lot about their identities and personalities.

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