Linguistic diversity in Lebanese graphic narratives by Samandal authors

The present study aims to explore linguistic diversity within a corpus of contemporary Lebanese graphic narratives. In particular, it focuses on the works of five authors, Jana Traboulsi, Barrack Rima, Lena Merhej, Omar Khouri, and Mazen Kerbaj, who are or were members of the Samandal collective, founded in Beirut in 2007 in the aftermath of the 2006 war with Israel. Linguistic diversity is investigated from a sociolinguistic perspective starting with the authors’ language choices, who mix standard Arabic, vernacular Arabic, English, and French in their works. The goal is to analyze what these linguistic choices convey in the interaction with the image and text and shed light on the variables that impacted them. Linguistic diversity is also examined from the authors’ linguistic choices in some of their self-translations from Arabic into English/French or vice versa from English/French into Arabic through a comparison of the two versions. The textual and qualitative analysis of the corpus is supplemented with semi-structured interviews with the five authors. The study shows that linguistic diversity within the works examined may depend on variables such as narrative strategies, identity claims, language attitude, author’s membership in Samandal, and target audience, and contributes to a polyphony of voices and narratives that go from individual to collective and resist dominant discourses, claiming their independence.