Abstract:
This study of two women authors from Guadeloupe examines the texts Pluie et vent sur Télumée Miracle by Simone Schwarz-Bart and Traversée de la mangrove by Maryse Condé.
It looks at ways in which linguistic aspects or realities of creole language have been incorporated into the French language of the texts. These linguistic realities illustrate the process of creolisation of language which has also influenced the development of cultural, social, political and historical elements in the West Indies. For although the links between history and language are relevant to any linguistic group, these links are all the more important in the Caribbean where the creole languages only came about relatively recently and only because of European colonialism. Creolisation is thus a direct result of the history of the region whereby people from many different cultures were brought together, and in the case of the African cultures, forcably separated. Their languages and cultures were mixed together, cross-bred. An entirely new creole language and culture was created from the attempts to communicate between all the existing linguistic groups.
The thesis reveals the existing and continuing links between the language and the wider culture in Guadeloupe, the setting for both novels. It also examines the changing linguistic situation in Guadeloupe, clearly evident when one compares the modes of expression in the two novels, which we have called the "manières créoles de dire." Modernisation and migration from rural to urban areas have greatly affected language use in Guadeloupe, increasing the influence of French, the dominant language.
Moreover and finally, this thesis attempts continually to relate the novels to ways in which they represent wider cultural implications, especially in terms of oppositions between French and Creole language. The implications of writing in French while inscribing the text with Creole language translates as a political move for these writers. The resulting literature forces the French reader to re-assess their conceptions of the native tongue, and re-define the supposed limits or definitions of what is French language.
