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Redrawing Identity Lines in a Community Experiencing Language Shift Marguerite L

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Redrawing Identity Lines in a Community Experiencing Language Shift Marguerite L Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 11-14-2017 Francolouisianais in the 21st Century: Redrawing Identity Lines in a Community Experiencing Language Shift Marguerite L. Perkins Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the French Linguistics Commons Recommended Citation Perkins, Marguerite L., "Francolouisianais in the 21st Century: Redrawing Identity Lines in a Community Experiencing Language Shift" (2017). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 4171. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/4171 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. FRANCOLOUISIANAIS IN THE 21ST CENTURY: REDRAWING IDENTITY LINES IN A COMMUNITY EXPERIENCING LANGUAGE SHIFT A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of French Studies by Marguerite Lynn Perkins B.A., Fordham University, 2009 M.A., Louisiana State University, 2011 December 2017 © Copyright 2017 Marguerite Perkins All rights reserved À la mémoire de mes grands-parents, Octave Seymour “Buck” Pierret et Lutha Marguerite Sonnier Pierret ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my committee for their generous gift of time and attention to my dissertation. I especially would like to thank Dr. Sylvie Dubois: throughout my graduate education, she has shown such confidence in me - giving me plenty of room to grow, all while being patient with me as I formulated (and reformulated) my ideas. For all these things and more, I am extremely grateful. I’m also grateful to Dr. Jack Yeager for his openness and ability to see the very human aspects of this research, as well as his keen editorial eye. Dr. Jill Brody graciously agreed to join the committee on relatively short notice; I would like to thank her both for her generosity in this and for her valuable insights. It has been such a pleasure to get to know my Dean’s representative Dr. Neil Johannsen, and I’d like to thank him for his time as well as his willingness to engage in the subject matter. Additionally, I’d like to thank Dr. Kathe Managan who was very helpful during the proposal stages of this dissertation. It is very important for me to thank the participants in this corpus. Meeting them through these interviews and spending time with their stories and their words has been such a meaningful experience for me and I sincerely hope that the work I do here is worthy of them, and that the work that I will do in the rest of my career will continue to be so. I would like to thank Earlene Broussard Echevarria, Rocky McKeon, and Mandy Migues for their help with transcription issues and Dr. Richard Campanella for his assistance in finding sources. I would like to express my appreciation for everyone involved in the project Le Français à la mésure d’un continent, and more specifically, to Dr. Annette Boudreau and Dr. Mourad Ali-Khodja who help in the formation of my interview questions. I would also like to iv thank the Department of French Studies at LSU and my fellow graduate students, particularly my dear friends and colleagues Natacha Jeudy and Dr. Gina Breen for their support. There are so many people in the south Louisiana francophone community that I would like to thank, but to name only a few: les FrancoJeunes, Rachel DeCuir, Brenda Mounier, Amanda LaFleur, Carr Wilkerson, Philippe Gustin, Charles Larroque, Jean-Robert Frigault, Jennifer Rodriguez, Sen. Eric LaFleur, Dr. David Cheramie, Dr. Michael Vincent and the board of Alliance Française de Lafayette. I could go on for ages about how grateful I am for what each of you has done for me; please know how much I appreciate you. While they are not based in Louisiana, I feel it is appropriate to thank Denis Desgagné and the staff of the Centre de la Francophonie des Amériques here; they have done so much for me (and for Louisiana) and are some of the most inspiring people I have ever met. Sarah Senette, Gabriel Senette, Lester Tisdale, Dr. Tristan Bera, Dr. Ileana Sasu: these five individuals have been my metaphorical “rocks.” I would like to express my appreciation for them as well as for my St. Anne’s and Poitiers ‘families’ who have enriched my francophonie in so many ways, and for my many dear friends in Lafayette who cheered me on as I missed Mardi Gras parades and festival days. A special thanks to the Freetown neighbor who always made sure I had a good dinner in the home stretch. Lastly, I would like to thank my family. I’m from south Louisiana, so it would take far too long to name everyone, but I am blessed to have you all. I hope that my parents know that this would not have been possible without them; they could not have been more supportive. Thank you to my father for being a good Cadien par alliance, and to my mother for being a témoignage to her people, often without even thinking about it. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .......................................................................................................... iv LIST OF TABLES ....................................................................................................................... vii ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................. ix INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER 1: ETHNICITY, LANGUAGE, AND IDENTITY - THEORY AND CONTEXT 1.1 Approaches to identity and ethnicity ................................................................................ 10 1.2 Language and identity ....................................................................................................... 17 1.3 History of the francophone populations of Louisiana ....................................................... 23 1.4 Blurring identity lines in francophone Louisiana ............................................................. 31 CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 2.1 Original context of the study ............................................................................................. 35 2.2 Formulating the questions ................................................................................................. 35 2.3 Selecting participants ........................................................................................................ 37 2.4 Interview and transcription procedures ............................................................................. 39 2.5 Methodological issues of interviewing ............................................................................. 41 2.6 Technical issues ................................................................................................................ 44 2.7 Biographical overview of the participants ........................................................................ 44 2.8 Data analysis ..................................................................................................................... 68 CHAPTER 3: IMAGES OF FRANCOPHONE SOUTH LOUISIANA 3.1 The image question ........................................................................................................... 73 3.2 Negative Images ................................................................................................................ 73 3.3 Positive Images ................................................................................................................. 75 3.4 Distribution ....................................................................................................................... 80 3.5 Reactions to the images..................................................................................................... 83 CHAPTER 4: INDIVIDUAL IDENTIFICATION 4.1 The “roots” question ......................................................................................................... 94 4.2 Personal processes of identification .................................................................................. 95 4.3 Interpersonal processes of identification ........................................................................ 101 4.4 Social processes of identification .................................................................................... 106 4.5 Distribution ..................................................................................................................... 110 4.6 Negotiating individual identity ....................................................................................... 114 CHAPTER 5: COLLECTIVE IDENTIFICATION 5.1 Describing a distinct group ............................................................................................. 122 5.2 A Louisiana without French? .......................................................................................... 129 5.3 Diversity........................................................................................................................... 135 vi 5.4 Use of the first person plural ..........................................................................................
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