When I speak, I have an accent. In France, we would call it Canadian or Quebecois. In Montreal, we would consider it Joliettain or Lanaudois, or even, if we are pretentious, rural. I know that it is first and foremost Saint-Gabriel-de-Brandon that can be heard in my voice, in my rolled “r”s, in my “icitte” and in the “couvartes” that keep me warm at night.
I was never really ashamed of this accent. I come from a working-class family that prided itself on looking down on the rich and the social climbers of all kinds. In my clan, cheekiness was a daily culture, and after Saturday night hockey, we would listen to Marcel Pagnol’s films on Radio-Canada, finding that they talked about us, with a different accent that enchanted us.
Shall I say of myself today, as has become fashionable to do, that I am a class defector and that I have suffered since then from the distance I took from my original environment by going to university and writing in The duty ? Not at all!
I have never left or denied my first culture; it inhabits me every second of my life, whether I listen to Patrick Norman or Chopin. A defector changes sides. As for me, I added a world to my original universe and I like reading Maupassant while having a hamburger with a Pepsi in a fried potato shack. I can easily imagine the author of Suet ball enjoy being in my company at such times.
However, I have suffered from linguistic insecurity. Years ago, Michel Lacombe invited me to his Canadian radio show to debate Quebec literature with François Ricard. I said no. I was afraid, in fact, that I would not be up to par linguistically. I had full confidence in my arguments, but, I told myself, on Radio-Canada, my accent and my style would not come across well.
Lacombe tried to convince me by telling me that, on the contrary, my popular verve would be more appealing than the standard, dominant purr, but I didn’t believe him. I was afraid that a slip of the tongue “icitte” would discredit my words in the ears of those who have such criteria of judgment. I was wrong, of course, but they were still bothering me.
I thought about all this while reading Talk like people (Prise de parole, 2024, 177 pages), the beautiful book by sociolinguist Annette Boudreau. Originally from Moncton, New Brunswick, the Acadian first spoke Chiac. She says she felt, in her youth, “a form of shame towards [son] French and that of [son] middle”, having had “the impression that, collectively, we were speaking badly”.
Driven by a strong desire to study, Boudreau first attended the Université de Moncton in social work before branching out into French literature, which she continued at Université Laval. She then completed a master’s degree on the work of Anne Hébert in Aix-en-Provence.
Throughout this journey, she feels a sense of unease. She adheres, in fact, to the idea that there is only one truly good French, that this is the one spoken by educated French people and that, consequently, her French, marked by her Acadian origins, is not really legitimate. In many situations, she prefers to remain silent rather than make her language heard, which she believes to be incorrect.
Back in Canada, she became a professor of French studies at the University of Moncton and began to take an interest in sociolinguistics, a movement that seeks to “understand the power relations linked to the practice of a language […]as well as discrimination and stigmatization linked to ways of speaking.”
Sociolinguistics studies in particular the variations (temporal, spatial, social and situational) present in all languages and challenges the “hegemony of the standard”. It shows that, from a scientific point of view, the various varieties of a language are equal – the French of the Parisian elite is not “better” than that of the Acadian working classes – while recognizing that, on the social level, certain varieties – the famous standard French, above all – are more prestigious and must therefore be taught in school, without disdain for the others.
Sociolinguistics is a formidable school of science, lucidity and respect. In Quebec, the master book on the subject is States of soul, states of language (PUM, 2021, 112 pages), by Marty Laforest. We can add, for the entire Canadian Francophonie and to finally put an end to prejudices about the correct way to speak French, Talk like people as well as, in a more scholarly register, Insecurity linguistics in the French-speaking world (PUO, 2023, 96 pages), by Annette Boudreau. These books deny.