THE STRUCTURE OF WOLOF SUFI ORAL NARRATIVES: EXPANDING THE LABOVIAN AND LONGACREAN MODELS TO ACCOMMODATE WOLOF ORAL TRADITION By MAMARAME SECK A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2009 1 © 2009 Mamarame Seck 2 To my wife Maguette 3 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank my deceased Aunt Mbolou Mbaye for providing me with the opportunity to gain this tremendous education and the necessary tools to succeed in life. I would like to thank my mother Ndiaw Mbaye for being supportive and patient. I would like to thank the chair of my committee, Dr. Fiona McLaughlin, whose expertise in African linguistics and Wolof has been very helpful. I would like to thank Dr. Blondeau, Locastro, and Sow, for accepting to be part of my committee and providing me with their insightful comments. I would like to thank my father-in-law Mansour Mbaye for being very supportive. I would like to thank my wife Maguette for accompanying me during this long journey. I would like to thank Ndeye Rouba, Mansour and Amina for their love. I would like to thank my brother Massamba Fall Seck for his insightful ideas and support. I would like to thank Kalidou Ndiaye for his constant support. I would like to thank my friends Harriet and Jim for their support. Finally I would like to thank all my family, extended family and friends for always being supportive and encouraging. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...............................................................................................................4 LIST OF TABLES ...........................................................................................................................8 LIST OF FIGURES .........................................................................................................................9 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ........................................................................................................10 ABSTRACT ...................................................................................................................................11 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................13 Introduction .............................................................................................................................13 Methodology ...........................................................................................................................27 Data Collection ................................................................................................................27 Selected Narratives ..........................................................................................................28 Organization of the Dissertation ......................................................................................34 2 NARRATIVE .........................................................................................................................37 Labov and Waletzky’s (1967) Narrative Framework .............................................................37 Temporal Sequence .........................................................................................................38 Types of Clauses ..............................................................................................................39 Temporal Juncture ...........................................................................................................40 Narrative Heads ...............................................................................................................41 Primacy Sequence ...........................................................................................................41 Overall Structure of Narratives .......................................................................................42 Further Developments of Labov’s Framework ...............................................................45 Abstract ....................................................................................................................45 Narrative syntax .......................................................................................................46 Evaluative elements ..................................................................................................47 Reportability and credibility .....................................................................................48 The assignment of praise and blame ........................................................................49 Narrative pre-construction ........................................................................................49 Longacre’s Narrative Structure ...............................................................................................50 Points in Common between the Labov-Longacre Model and Wolof Sufi Oral Narratives ....55 Points of Difference between the Labov-Longacre Model and Wolof Sufi Oral Narratives ............................................................................................................................59 5 3 GRAMMAR OF WOLOF SUFI NARRATIVE ....................................................................66 A Brief Overview of Wolof ....................................................................................................66 Wolof Sufi Narratives: A Complex Genre .............................................................................68 Embedded Text Types .....................................................................................................68 Monologue ...............................................................................................................68 Dialogue ...................................................................................................................70 Praise ........................................................................................................................72 Genealogy .................................................................................................................73 The Macro-Structure .......................................................................................................74 Background and Foreground: Definitions ................................................................74 Temporal Sequencing ...............................................................................................83 The Micro-Structure ........................................................................................................84 Canonical clauses .....................................................................................................84 Narrative clauses ......................................................................................................84 Below clausal level ...................................................................................................85 Wolof auxiliaries in narratives .................................................................................89 4 THE SOCIAL SETTING OF WOLOF SUFI NARRATIVES ..............................................94 Corpus of Texts .......................................................................................................................94 Ethnography of Speaking in Wolof Society ...........................................................................96 Géwël as Verbal Artist ....................................................................................................96 Origin and Social Status of the Géwël ..........................................................................100 Patterns of Géwël-speech Style in Sufi Narratives ........................................................102 A West African Sufi Culture ................................................................................................106 Themes and Contents of the Narratives ................................................................................108 Themes of Sufi Narratives .............................................................................................109 Prediction making ..................................................................................................109 Relationship between shaykh and disciple .............................................................110 Content of Sufi Narratives .............................................................................................113 Biographies of the shaykhs ....................................................................................113 Anecdotes ...............................................................................................................116 Variation in Sufi narratives ....................................................................................120 Wolof Sufi Narratives and West-African Epics ...................................................................120 Role of the Narratives ...........................................................................................................121 Sufi Narratives and Identity Shaping ............................................................................122 Communicative and Interactional Role of Sufi Narratives ...........................................123 5 WOLOF SUFI NARRATIVES ............................................................................................125 Cultural