Patrice Brasseur

Jean-Paul Chauveau

Cet ouvrage étudie les particularismes du français parlé dans les îles de Saint-Pierre et Miquelon. Au noyau primitif de la population, constitué pour l'essentiel d'Acadiens, se sont joints au cours des 19e et 20e siècles des pêcheurs venus des côtes de Normandie, de Bretagne, du Pays Basque ou de Terre-Neuve. Le français parlé dans l'archipel se caractérise surtout par son lexique. Le dictionnaire proprement dit comporte plus de 1500 entrées sous lesquelles sont notés des mots, des emplois ou des locutions qu'ignorent les dictionnaires les dictionnaires du français contemporain ou auxquels ils assignent un usage restreint. Une brève notice historique tente de déterminer pour chaque cas par quelle voie le particularisme s'est implanté dans le français de l'archipel. Les concordances avec l'acadien sont nombreuses, mais les emprunts au parler des terre-neuvas donnent une physionomie originale à ce français d'Amérique du Nord. En fin d'ouvrage, un index regroupe tous les faits lexicaux par champs sémantiques.

Dictionnaire des régionalismes de Saint-Pierre et Miquelon

Madelena Gonzalez

Contemporary theatre is one of the best ways for ethno-cultural minorities to express themselves, whether they be of indigenous origin or immigrants. It is often used to denounce social injustice and discrimination and, more generally, it helps to air questions debated in the wider community. It may also express itself thanks to the staging of collective memory, for it constitutes a privileged space for the exploration of the trauma of the past (colonial, for example), as well as providing a means of effecting the reconfiguration of a new identity, or of articulating an uneasiness about that identity. Should minority theatre increase its visibility in relation to the mainstream, or, on the contrary, remain on the margins and assert its specificity? This question is at the centre of French-Canadian experience, for example, but also applies to other postcolonial societies, in Europe and elsewhere. In order to maintain its cultural authenticity, should this type of theatre distinguish itself from a multiculturalism that runs the risk of political and social recuperation? If it is unable to resist the model proposed by globalization and widespread cultural dissemination, will it lose its legitimacy? Can, and should there be, a form of popular art at the service of the community? The term “minority” raises questions that will be examined by the articles collected in this volume. What is the definition of a minority? Does this term refer to experimental and avant-garde art forms as well as to ethno-cultural drama? Contemporary theatre is characterized by an aesthetics of hybridity—in what measure is this the case for theatre outside the mainstream? The exploration of this kind of theatre necessitates an examination of the very concept of theatre per se. Since the development of the electronic media as the privileged vector of culture, has not the theatrical genre itself become a minority art form? These are some of the pressing questions that this volume will try to address, thanks to a cross-cultural, multidisciplinary approach that aims to reveal the rich diversity of the field under study.

Constructing Identity

Authenticity and Legitimacy in Minority Theatre

This work focuses on the Acadian vernacular - transmitted orally to the present day - of the French speakers of the Port-au-Port peninsula in the extreme west of the island of Newfoundland in Canada. The result is a differential dictionary based on a corpus of field studies dating mostly from the early 1990s and amassing responses from 56 native informants, all of them bilingual (French/English). It comprises 2240 main entries and about 5400 examples of usage. Each article is followed by remarks of a comparative and historical nature.

Patrice Brasseur

Books

Your next favorite book is out there