Defining and Displaying Gallo: Language and Ideology in Upper Brittany, France Sandra Keller University of South Carolina
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University of South Carolina Scholar Commons Theses and Dissertations 6-30-2016 Defining And Displaying Gallo: Language And Ideology In Upper Brittany, France Sandra Keller University of South Carolina Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd Part of the Other Arts and Humanities Commons Recommended Citation Keller, S.(2016). Defining And Displaying Gallo: Language And Ideology In Upper Brittany, France. (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd/3459 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you by Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. DEFINING AND DISPLAYING GALLO: LANGUAGE AND IDEOLOGY IN UPPER BRITTANY, FRANCE by Sandra Keller Bachelor of Arts Rhodes College, 2006 Master of Arts University of South Carolina, 2010 Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics College of Arts and Sciences University of South Carolina 2016 Accepted by: Elaine Chun, Major Professor Jennifer Reynolds, Committee Member Sherina Feliciano-Santos, Committee Member Alexandra Jaffe, Committee Member Lacy Ford, Senior Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies © Copyright by Sandra Keller, 2016 All Rights Reserved. ii DEDICATION For my parents, and in memory of my grandparents iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation has been deeply marked by encounters with many insightful and generous people. As a result, it is permeated with many voices, and I would like to use my own to thank some of them here. Tout d’abord, je tiens à remercier tous ceux qui m’ont si bien accueillie en Haute-Bretagne, une première fois en 2006-2007 et à nouveau lors de mon travail de terrain en 2013-2014. Pour l’hébergement chaleureux ; pour les repas partagés ; pour les rondes dansées côte à côte ; pour les moments d’amitié et de rire—merci ! D’innombrables fois, un mot généreux m’a fait me sentir comme parmi mes miens, et les souvenirs de ces échanges me resteront toujours précieux. Je remercie surtout tous les gallésants qui ont accepté de faire partie de cette étude. Vous m’avez accueillie dans vos salles de classe et de spectacle, vos réunions et vos maisons. Merci pour votre générosité sans bornes et votre confiance. Vous avez répondu à mes questions avec patience, et ce que vous avez partagé a vraiment enrichi ce projet. Toute mécompréhension qui reste est la mienne—et c’est grâce à vous s’il n’y en a pas davantage ! Pendant mon séjour parmi vous, mais aussi après mon retour, votre créativité et votre enthousiasme pour le gallo m’ont inspirée, et pour cela, merci. Il me serait impossible de citer toutes les personnes en Haute-Bretagne dont je suis redevable. Parmi le grand nombre d’individus et d’organismes qui m’ont offert du soutien et de l’aide, je cite : l’Association des Enseignants de Gallo, Bertègn Galèzz (et les réunions régulières et chaleureuses de BG 22 à Coëtmieux) et Chubri, pour les renseignements, les cours, et maints moments d’échange et de convivialité ; l’équipe du CAC Sud 22 ; et le iv laboratoire PREFics à Rennes 2, qui m’avait invitée à assister aux séminaires, et surtout Philippe Blanchet et Thierry Bulot, malheureusement éteint trop tôt, pour les échanges sur le gallo. Je remercie aussi mes professeurs de gallo, pour leurs connaissances et leur dévouement : Régis Auffray, Dominique Deffain, Mickael Genevée, Matlao Ghiton, André Le Coq, Maryvonne Limon et Crisstof Simon. Enfin, je remercie celles qui ont été là au début : Vovonne et Armelle, grâce à qui j’ai d’abord connu le gallo. Votre amitié et votre passion pour créer dans cette langue enrichissent ma vie depuis dix ans maintenant. Votre accueil m’a touchée profondément, et je vous en serai toujours reconnaissante. I have many to thank on this side of the Atlantic as well. My deepest gratitude goes my committee members: Elaine Chun, Jennifer Reynolds, Sherina Feliciano-Santos, and Alexandra Jaffe, for their intellectual insight; their generosity in providing feedback and reading recommendations; and the support they offered throughout this process. My particular thanks go to my advisor, Elaine Chun, who challenged me, with thought- provoking questions, to make my words and claims as strong as I could make them, while consistently also offering guidance and encouragement. This blend of keen challenge and warm support, along with her boundless generosity in providing comments and advice, at all stages of this project and across continents and time zones, is something for which I am so grateful. Other colleagues at the University of South Carolina also contributed their insight and support. Professors in both Linguistics and French were important sources of guidance and expertise; particular thanks goes to Annie Duménil for her mentorship. I am grateful to the linguistics community at USC, especially Julia McKinney, Sara Lide Matthews and Paul Reed, whose friendship was an anchor throughout, and who provided weekly insight, suggestions for succinctness, encouragement for flagging spirits, and an v open-minded sounding board for new ideas. For financial support I am indebted to the Linguistics Program, the College of Arts and Sciences, and the Bilinski Foundation. I am grateful for my students at USC and at Illinois State University, whose sharpness in the classroom kept me grounded even when writing stalled; for my USC and ISU colleagues, whose solidarity was always encouraging; for my contra- and swing- dance groups, who helped provide a sense of community on a weekly basis; and for other friends who shared good cheer and laughter at times when they were most needed: Megan, Sabra, Casey, Manar, Jasmine, Rachael and Marie. Je suis particulièrement reconnaissante pour mes échanges avec Anne Diaz, qui a été une source importante de connaissances sur la Bretagne et le breton—et une source toute aussi importante d’amitié et de solidarité. Sans elle, j’aurais du mal à envisager mes expériences sur le terrain. My warm thanks go as well to Marsha Walton at Rhodes College, who encouraged me in my decision to teach in Brittany before starting graduate school, and on whose research team I first learned to do qualitative research on discourse and to hone my scholarly voice. Finally, my love and my boundless gratitude go to my family. Mom and Dad, your love and support have been an inestimable gift all along, and I would not have gotten here without you. Thank you for your encouragement, faith and patience. Michael, you have unfailingly been a source of inspiration; I am lucky to be your sister. I would also like to acknowledge my grandparents (Gagie, Pa, Grossmami and Grosspapi), who were here for the beginning of this journey, and with whom I would have loved to celebrate its end. My grandparents crossed oceans and learned languages and told stories, and it is in part in relation to them that I understand my own unfolding story. And with that, I will close, as do many Upper Breton storytellers: Vla le bout! vi ABSTRACT This dissertation examines discourse practices in and about Gallo, a marginalized Romance language of Upper Brittany, France. Specifically, it explores how various Gallo social actors (advocates, performers, teachers and students) defined, labeled and displayed Gallo, as they constructed it as a language capable of participating in modernity, producing local authority, and forging links with loved people and places. Gallo was popularly imagined as part of a rural past and dismissed as a “deformation” of French, unlike the Breton language, which stood as a salient emblem of Brittany’s cultural distinctiveness. This dissertation elucidates the ideological and everyday consequences of using this ostensibly “traditional” language in “modern” times. Using interactional and ethnographic data collected during twelve months of fieldwork, I investigate how Gallo was represented in multiple contexts: celebratory festivals, association meetings, artistic performances, language classrooms, everyday conversations, and ethnographic interviews. I argue that strategies of Gallo representation involved not just explicit statements about the language but also bids by speakers to assign themselves, as well as interlocutors and/or publics, to participant roles and stances. By occupying these positions, participants jointly articulated language and speakerhood. First, I examine how Gallo was defined as a “language” rather than as deformed French, in promotional materials and performances, and I illustrate how these genres positioned a participant role of Gallo recognizer as desirable and achievable. Second, I explore the implications of patois and gallo as language labels. While Gallo advocates vii often preferred gallo, I elucidate how even patois allowed speakers to draw useful social distinctions and to meaningfully connect disparate people and places. Thirdly, I discuss how dictionaries, a prominent part of Gallo advocate culture, served as icons of Gallo’s existence and “weight,” indexes of modernity, and triggers for the performance of local expertise. Finally, I show how performers on stage constructed audience members as competent evaluators of Gallo. In sum, this dissertation illustrates that language is both social object and social action. When individuals and institutions propose a representation of a language, they also propose associated participant roles, stances, and figures of speakerhood, which are open to creative recontextualization