University of Connecticut OpenCommons@UConn Doctoral Dissertations University of Connecticut Graduate School 4-28-2015 Language (Re)Appropriation in the Francophone Caribbean Region: Challenges and Perspectives Marky Jean-Pierre University of Connecticut - Storrs, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://opencommons.uconn.edu/dissertations Recommended Citation Jean-Pierre, Marky, "Language (Re)Appropriation in the Francophone Caribbean Region: Challenges and Perspectives" (2015). Doctoral Dissertations. 777. https://opencommons.uconn.edu/dissertations/777 ABSTRACT Language (Re)Appropriation in the Francophone Caribbean Region: Challenges and Perspectives Marky Jean-Pierre University of Connecticut, 2015 The development of the subject depends on whether the subject re-appropriates his/her creation or remains alienated by it. In Material Culture and Mass Consumption. Daniel Miller describes the challenges and perspectives for the subject to re-appropriate his/her creation and what happens when he or she remains alienated by it. Miller combines the work of Hegel, Marx, Simmel, and Munn in an attempt to frame his theory of culture. The key concept that reverberates throughout Miller’s reflection on Hegel, Marx, Simmel, and Munn is his notion of “objectification;” however, an analysis of his work suggests that perhaps Miller’s greatest achievement is the way he theorizes the process of re-appropriation itself, and its implications for the development of the subject. This study examines linguistic forms and practices as taking shape via what Daniel Miller has described an exercise of reappropriation as part of “a dual process by means of which a subject externalizes itself in a creative act of differentiation, and in turn reappropriates this externalization through an act which Hegel terms sublation” (Miller, 28). While Miller bases his theory of material culture on the notion of “objectification” that he abstracts from Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, this thesis draws on the notion of reappropriation, per se applying it to the context of the speech community of the francophone Caribbean region. Language (Re)Appropriation in the Francophone Caribbean Region: Challenges and Perspectives MARKY JEAN-PIERRE Doctoral Degree in Education (EdD), University of Massachusetts Amherst; 2011 Master’s Degree in French and Francophone Studies, Univ of Mass. Amherst; 2011 Master’s Degree in Applied Linguistics, University of Massachusetts Boston; 2005 Bachelor of Arts in Psychology, University of Massachusetts Boston; 2003 Bachelor of Science in Psychology, State University of Haiti; 1995 A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY at the University of Connecticut 2015 © Copyright by Marky Jean-Pierre All Rights Reserved 2015 APPROVAL PAGE Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation Language (Re)Appropriation in the Francophone Caribbean Region: Challenges and Perspectives Presented by MARKY JEAN-PIERRE Major Advisor ________________________________________________ Roger Celestin, Chair Department of Literatures, Cultures & Languages Associate Advisor________________________________________________ Anne Berthelot, Member Department of Literatures, Cultures & Languages Associate Advisor________________________________________________ Jacqueline Loss, Member Department of Literatures, Cultures & Languages University of Connecticut 2015 TABLE OF CONTENTS Language Re-appropriation in the Francophone Caribbean Region: Challenges and Perspectives Page ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................. i INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER 1: The Notion of Re-appropriation and its Implications for Language Studies in the Francophone Caribbean Region: A Theoretical Framework ............................................... 7 CHAPTER 2. Creative Linguistic Acts, Language Appropriation and Language Re- appropriation: the Case of the Francophone Caribbean Speech Communities ...................... 21 Creation, Appropriation/Sublation and Re-appropriation .................................... 22 I-Creole and E-Creole ........................................................................................... 28 The I-Creole, E-Creole and the Individual-Group Dialectical Movement in Language Development .................................................................................. 32 Locating the Agents of Early Development of the Haitian Language ................. 35 How Creative Linguistic Acts and Linguistic Appropriation Operate ................. 36 CHAPTER 3. Francophonie, Language Ideology, and the Rupture of Language Re- Appropriation……………………………………………………………………………....44 Ideology: The History of a “System of Ideas” ................................................ 45 Language Ideology – A Hierarchy of Languages ........................................... 50 The Formation of Language Ideology in France. ............................................ 51 The Operation of French Langauge Ideology ................................................ 55 Roots of the Language Dichotomy in the Francophone Caribbean Region .. 59 v The Maintenace of a Deficit View of Creole ................................................................... 63 CHAPTER 4: Contre-Parole and Minor Literature: Poetics of Language Re- Appropriation. ……………………………………………………………………………67 CHAPTER 5: POLYPHONIC Surrealism and Language Re-Appropriation: The Case of Césaire …………………………………………………………………………………….90 CHAPTER 6: Social Realism, Language Re-Appropriation and Discourse Re-Appropriation in Jacques Roumain’s Masters Of The Dew………………………………………………110 Plot Features of Masters of the Dew ………………………………………111 Significance of the Novel as a Work in Social Realism ................................. 114 Re-appropriation of Language ......................................................................... 115 Re-appropriation of Religious Discourses ........................................................ 124 CHAPTER 7: Language re-appropriation, identity and alterité (otherness) in the contemporary francophone novel: the case of Chamoiseau’s Texaco ................................... 131 CHAPTER 8: The rationales for Language re-appropriation: the Creole language as a salvation.……………………………………………………………………….…………147 CHAPTER 9: Rationales for Language re-appropriation: Toward a Common Caribbean Language Framework in the francophone caribbean region…………….……...…………164 CHAPTER 10: Conclusion: Language re-appropriation in the francophone Caribbean region: challenges and perspectives……………….…………………………..………..……...…183 REFERENCES ......................................................................................................................... 191 vi INTRODUCTION Language (re)appropriation in the francophone Caribbean region: challenges and perspectives Why have Caribbean subjects experienced such difficulties appropriating “la langue matricielle1” to “élaborer son langage2” to ensure “accès à la La Langue3” as a way to converge toward “l’imaginaire de l’homme4” in the “chaos-monde5”? To address this fundamental dilemma, this study has re-conceptualized the language varieties spoken by Caribbean subjects i.e. Creole, as the product of underlying linguistic reappropriation as part of a process involving externalization of the self and its values, sublimation, and re-appropriation. Linguistic re-appropriation underlying the milieu of language in the Francophone Caribbean region is examined as occurring, and receiving its impetus within, a post-colonial framework marked by French-dominant language ideology. This study examines linguistic forms and practices as taking shape via what Daniel Miller (1987) has described an exercise of reappropriation as part of “a dual process by means of which a subject externalizes itself in a creative act of differentiation, and in turn reappropriates this externalization through an act which Hegel terms sublation” (Miller, 28). It also emphasizes "the process of objective form arising both through fragmentation into the particular, and resolution through abstraction" and the conditions that turn to "preventing rather enabling the development of human social and material relations". In this case, and as we will see later, the real crisis of human development can be conceived as a crisis of re-appropriation. While Miller bases his theory of material culture on the notion of “objectification” that he abstracts from Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, this research draws on the notion of reappropriation, per se. Likewise, Miller uses the notion of “objectification” to refer to a subject, the culture as an externalized form of that subject and then the material objects that result from the 1 Patrick Chamoiseau uses this concept to refer to what is usually considered as mother tongue. The closest English translation would be “matrix language” 2 English translation: “elaborate one’s language” 3English translation: “Access to one’s language” 4 English translation: “the imaginary of human beings” 5 The closest English translation might be “world chaos” 1 externalization of the subject. Drawing on this, this study considers the subject, language as a form of culture as an externalization of the subject and then the reappropriation of this externalized form by the subject to further his development. As Miller signals,