Towards a Literary History of “Broken Language": Reading Accent in E.T.A. Hoffmann, K.A. Tavaststjerna, and Vilhelm Moberg

Ever since the shibboleth narrative in the Book of Judges, the consequences of linguistic passing or non-passing have been demonstrated in literature. The article analyzes so-called “broken” or accented speech in terms of embodied and affectively charged nodes of linguistic entanglements: between belonging, affect, proficiency, ownership as well as inclusion and exclusion. The function of accented speech is in turn shown to be highly contextual, depending on socio-historical and cultural settings, as demonstrated in the article’s three case studies: E.T.A. Hoffmann’s “Der Sandmann” (1816), K. A. Tavaststjerna’s En patriot utan fosterland (1896), and Vilhelm Moberg’s Nybyggarna (1956).