Bakhtin’s polyphony theory, introduced in his work Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics, explores the concept of multiple, independent voices within a literary work. These voices engage in a dialogue, challenging and enriching each other, creating a complex and dynamic narrative. This paper proposes a novel approach to literary multilingualism through a focus on the reader's contribution to the polyphony of the reading experience where multilingualism is involved.
We argue that the reading experience is shaped not only by the linguistic features of the text itself but also by the reader’s linguistic skills, repertoire and cognitive processes. We thus model and simulate the copresence of different voices within the same text, through an interplay between reader reception, language contact, and intercomprehension (the ability to understand a language without formal learning, based on knowledge of a related/cognate languages). By analyzing a selection of multilingual texts (Joyce’s Finnegans Wake,Tardos’s Ami minden, Marani’s Las Adventures des inspector Cabillot, Brooke-Rose's Between etc.), we demonstrate how the readers’ understanding of the meaning in a literary text is influenced by their knowledge of cognate languages. We illustrate all this, and simulate readings and their impact on interpretation, with ezglot (https://www.ezglot.com/