Аннотация:This paper argues that the sociolinguistic background is a relevant part of literary analysis, especially in multilingual settings. Twentieth- and twenty-first-century writers in Alsace (e.g. Arp, Vigee, Weckmann) have continued to deploy a trilingual repertoire (French, German, Alsatian Dialect), characteristic of this area's literature for centuries. Strategic language choices, code-switching, and self-translation characterize their work and give it a sense of identity. But sociolinguistic surveys show that knowledge of Alsatian and German is declining in Alsace; this trilingual output is therefore the swansong of a dying breed.
