La littérature francophone ou l'art de s'approprier la langue de l'Autre

Abstract

This article attempts to show how French-speaking authors from sub-Saharan Africa appropriate the French language; an idiom which belongs to the Other, the former colonial power. This thought of appropriating it, is opposed to that of Jacques Derrida, who brilliantly defended the idea that a language cannot be something that one can possess and on which it would be possible to have any control whatsoever. Our article is not intended to contradict Jacques Derrida's argument, on the contrary. Indeed, if a language cannot be an object to which one can claim to have any right, it is nonetheless a malleable subject and non-native speakers can either adopt it as they have learned it or transform it according to their culture, their beliefs, their philosophy, etc. What we understand by appropriation of language is the process of transformation and adaptation by post-colonial authors according to their habits and customs. This may occur in the areas of the lexicon, morphology or syntax of the acquired language. Why do French-speaking authors from sub-Saharan Africa undertake to appropriate French? Do they manage to make this language theirs? By what means? These are some of the questions posed in this article and which we have tried to answer based on three novels: Le chercheur d’Afriques (Henri Lopes, 1990), Quand on refuse on dit non (Ahmadou Kourouma, 2004) et La femme aux pieds nus (Scholastique Mukasonga, 2008).