'Reading it my way': Responding to literature in a conflicted multicultural setting

The role of language

Abstract

The article presents two case studies focusing on lexical and linguistic characteristics of a written discourse between two members of a national and religious minority and their lecturers who are members of the majority. The students are Arab women teachers, who took part in literature courses at Hebrew Israeli colleges of education. The students responded in writing to novels they had to read in Hebrew, their second language, as part of their graduate studies. The study analyzes phrases, metaphors, choice of words in the reading responses. It also questions the lecturers' responses to their students' papers language. The findings reveal the powerful effect of social, cultural, linguistic, and political context on the interpretation of the works read, the insights that readers extract from such works in intercultural situations, and their influence on the discourse setting: what is expressed in the setting and what is silenced. We use the terms 'minor writing' and 'minor reading', extending Deleuze and Guattari's term 'minor literature' (1980; 1986) to explain our findings concerning the role of the language in the context of the study. This study can inform and be relevant to teachers who teach literature in classrooms populated with minorities' students, in a tense political and cultural atmosphere.