Induction of French sructures into Creole grammar in the French - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Induction of French sructures into Creole grammar in the French overseas Pascal Vaillant CELIA (INaLCO/CNRS/IRD) Université des Antilles et de la Guyane <pascal.vaillant@laposte.net> I. Presentation of the study II. Theoretical models III. Examples of syntactic phenomena IV. Synthesis P. Vaillant : Induction of French structures into Creole grammar Creolistics Workshop, Gießen, 03. 04. 2009

State of the art Few readily available corpora for French-based Creoles spoken in the « Départements Français d'Amérique » I I.1 ◙○ (Guadeloupe, Martinique, Guyane) I.2 ○○ Written works (ex. Raphaël Confiant, Georges Mauvois, Thérèse Léotin ...) I.3 ○○ Highly heterogeneous « web » corpora (chats, forums) – uneasy to store & edit II II.1 ○ Few oral transcripts (exc. in Ludwig, Telchid, Bruneau-Ludwig, 2001) II.2 ○ Few studies on the linguistic aspects of the contact II.3 ○○○ phenomenon itself (parasitic phenomenon for “pure” creolists) III III.1 ○ III.2 ○○○○ Exc. Goury, Léglise & Klinger (eds.) 2005; Sobotta 2006 III.3 ○○○○ Creole spoken on the radio : last study in the French Lesser III.4 ○ Antilles 1993 (DU/LCR Daniel Dobat, U.A.G.) IV IV.1 ○ Few electronic transcriptions P. Vaillant : Induction of French structures into Creole grammar Creolistics Workshop, Gießen, 03. 04. 2009 01/22

Present study Corpus collected and transcribed by two students of the I I.1 ●◙ Language Studies master programme, in Martinique I.2 ○○ (Université des Antilles et de la Guyane) : Christelle Lengrai I.3 ○○ and Juliette Moustin II II.1 ○ Part of the CELIA (Centre d’Étude des Langues Indigènes II.2 ○ d’Amérique) Language Contact corpus, presently under II.3 ○○○ III III.1 ○ standardization process III.2 ○○○○ corpus collection on miscellaneous radio or TV broadcasts in III.3 ○○○○ Martinique III.4 ○ IV IV.1 ○ between october 2005 and february 2006 4h40 broadcast transcribed, 35 000 words P. Vaillant : Induction of French structures into Creole grammar Creolistics Workshop, Gießen, 03. 04. 2009 02/22

Lesser Antilles French Creole Genetic status: French-based Creole language Lexicon : at least 90% French (Grammar : quite different) I I.1 ●● Origin and relationship: I.2 ◙○ Genesis (Chaudenson 1992, Mufwene 2005): a linguistic community originally I.3 ○○ speaking French (or more accurately some koinê of French dialects) grows with the II II.1 ○ incremental input of heterogeneous non-French-speaking people (African slaves). II.2 ○ First it grows slowly, then very quickly (language evolution “loses ground”), and eventually gets stable → Creole II.3 ○○○ III III.1 ○ Relationship: there is (arguably) a family of related French-based Creole dialects in the Atlantic/Caribbean area, from Louisiana to Guiana (Pfänder 2000): Louisiana III.2 ○○○○ (nearly extinct), Haiti, Guadeloupe, Dominica, Martinique, Saint-Lucia, Trinidad III.3 ○○○○ (extinct), French Guiana, Brazilian state of Amapá III.4 ○ Official status: regional language in France (cmp. Haiti) IV IV.1 ○ Ecolinguistic competition with the lexifier language (cmp. Saint-Lucia, Dominica) P. Vaillant : Induction of French structures into Creole grammar Creolistics Workshop, Gießen, 03. 04. 2009 03/22

E volution of the sociolinguistic ground Stable situation until the first half of the 20 th century: “classical” diglossia (Ferguson 1959) (cmp. Creole in Haiti) I I.1 ●● I.2 ●◙ Language demographics: majority of Creole speakers, minority of bilingual Creoles/French speakers, no French monolinguals (among the locally born) I.3 ○○ II II.1 ○ Domains of use: the two languages are used in distinct spheres, and each one of them is unchallenged in its sphere II.2 ○ II.3 ○○○ Present situation: regional language within the frame of the III III.1 ○ French state, in its first stage of regression (cmp. Occitan a III.2 ○○○○ few decades ago) III.3 ○○○○ Language demographics: hardly any monolingual Creole speaker, generalized III.4 ○ bilingualism, development of a “quasi-monolingualism” in French in parts of the IV IV.1 ○ population (March 1996, Barreteau 2006) Domains of use:the borders are not so clear-cut anymore: Creole is spoken on the radio, and informal conversation among friends can occur in French (Sobotta 2006) P. Vaillant : Induction of French structures into Creole grammar Creolistics Workshop, Gießen, 03. 04. 2009 04/22

Rise of Creole in the media From the seventies onward, Creole has been playing a part in the mass media in the French West Indies and Guiana (Pulvar 2005) ... I I.1 ●● I.2 ●● first as a social proximity marker — or derision (depending on I.3 ◙○ the public) — with respect to “petit peuple” ... II II.1 ○ it gradually comes along with movements claiming cultural II.2 ○ (and political) rights, in a context of: II.3 ○○○ III III.1 ○ Socio-economic crisis in the FWI (fall of the sugar cane industry), and ... III.2 ○○○○ Wake of consciousness for regional identity (like in other French regions). III.3 ○○○○ Later it becomes common, then unnoticed. III.4 ○ IV IV.1 ○ Paradoxically, this rise of Creole in the pubic sphere is taking place at the same time as the beginning of an actual decline. P. Vaillant : Induction of French structures into Creole grammar Creolistics Workshop, Gießen, 03. 04. 2009 05/22

Who’s mirroring whom? ( Kreolenspiegel ) Radio hosts speak Creole to be more intimate with the public I I.1 ●● Reciprocally, the public (esp. the young) speaks Creole like I.2 ●● they hear it on the radio I.3 ●◙ → Mirror game : who is imitating whom ? II II.1 ○ Radio broadcasts are comparable to a virtual agora , a II.2 ○ II.3 ○○○ marketplace where everyone looks how the others behave III III.1 ○ (linguistically) and gets ready to align their own behaviour III.2 ○○○○ (cmp. consumer behaviour in economy; Pulvar 2005) ... III.3 ○○○○ → From a sociolinguistic standpoint it’s an interesting node of III.4 ○ the “language diffusion network” to look at ... IV IV.1 ○ ... even if it does not reflect actual language use in the local communities ... P. Vaillant : Induction of French structures into Creole grammar Creolistics Workshop, Gießen, 03. 04. 2009 06/22

Sociolinguistic models: diglossia vs. continuum Two systems model (classical diglossia, Ferguson 1959) : CREOLE // FRENCH I I.1 ●● → BUT: Interferences are hard to account for I.2 ●● I.3 ●● Continuum model (Prudent 1981, see also de Rooij 1994) : II II.1 ◙ CREOLE ↔ FRENCH (everything is interlect) II.2 ○ → BUT: Which system are linguists describing? II.3 ○○○ Double continuum model (Bernabé 1983, MCHM 1996) : III III.1 ○ III.2 ○○○○ CREOLE CONTINUUM (basic Creole ↔ frenchified Creole) III.3 ○○○○ FRENCH CONTINUUM (standard French ↔ creolized French) III.4 ○ → Two systems, both having a great internal variability IV IV.1 ○ Two systems, and some non-native varieties (Sobotta 2006) : CREOLE (L1) VAR / CREOLE (L2) // FRENCH (L2) / FRENCH (L1) VAR P. Vaillant : Induction of French structures into Creole grammar Creolistics Workshop, Gießen, 03. 04. 2009 07/22

The interlect, live C'est le fait que vèn a pé subi des stress les plus diverses , des stress répétés comme par exemple le fait que ou ka manipulé des charges I I.1 ●● plus ou moins lourd , ou bien des charges pli léjè mais de manière I.2 ●● fréquente , ou pé ni an environnement ki pé, ki ka favorizé mauvaise I.3 ●● circulation an, par exemple, le fait que ka fè cho, le fait que ni II II.1 ● humidité, le fait que ou ka travay, par exemple, adan an navion éti II.2 ◙ ou ka ni des différences de pression ki ka exercé ko yo au niveau II.3 ○○○ ( Ø ) circulation et au niveau ko'w, sé pou sa lé moun ki ka voyajé III III.1 ○ ében yo sav bien ke lè ou adan avion-a sa ka rivé'w de manière III.2 ○○○○ épisodique, de manière rare , mais ou ka santi quand même que lè ou III.3 ○○○○ asiz adan avion-a, lé ou asiz adan avion-a pendant witè d'tan eh bien III.4 ○ jamb ou ka vini lou et que souvent si ou tiré soulié'w adan avion-a IV IV.1 ○ eh bien ou pa a rivé mété soulié-a an didan pié'w paske pié i gonflé et que soulié-a limenm i pa gonflé i pa dilaté ko'y. P. Vaillant : Induction of French structures into Creole grammar Creolistics Workshop, Gießen, 03. 04. 2009 08/22