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Programme: accepted abstracts

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Abstract ID: 1336

Part of Session 158: Language biographies and migration experiences in urban contexts (Other abstracts in this session)

« Then » vs « today » : languages and chronotopes in narratives of post-Soviet migrants

Authors: Nossik, Sandra
Submitted by: Nossik, Sandra (Université Sorbonne Nouvelle - Paris 3, France)

This paper aims to examine the symbolic values of the languages mentioned in life narratives of migrants coming from post-Soviet republics. Thanks to tools offered by the Discourse Analysis field (Pêcheux 1981), we shall analyze shared verbalizations that respond to each other from one narrative to another, and that draw one same chronotope (Bakhtin 1938) of USSR, characterized in the narratives by its stability and tinged with nostalgia.

The corpus of this paper is composed of thirty interviews in Russian with migrants from various post-Soviet republics of Caucasia and East-Europe (Chechnya, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Moldavia, Belarus, Ukraine...). Recently arrived in France, these tellers, all Russian-speaking and plurilingual, all emigrated as a matter of urgency, because of ethnic conflicts, sudden political changes, or precarious economic situations.

Life narratives will be here considered as emplotments (Ricœur 1983) that give coherence and meaning to the experiences told. Our object is this linguistic reconstitution and re-categorization of the word. We will also pay attention to the dialogism (Bakhtin 1952) of these speeches, i. e. to their dialogic echos, to their inscription in previous speeches. The narratives will be moreover considered as the situated result of a co-construction by the interviewer and the interviewed, whose interpersonal relationship must be taken into account while analyzing the narratives.

The discursive study of these narratives shows shared verbalizations concerning Russian language : associated with the chronotope of USSR, a sublimated past time, this language crystallizes in the narratives a serene and missed period of interethnic peace, which is opposed to a chaotic present. Sometimes these verbalizations echo formulas coming from Soviet speeches, that tellers can both seize and distance themselves from while telling their story.

In a less homogeneous way, French language is the subject of various speeches, depending on whether the narratives are optimistically oriented toward the future promised by the migration situation, or on the contrary organized around a regretted past.

Thus, the narrative and discursive analysis of these linguistic biographies reveal a common interweaving of public history and private stories, of political events and biographical turning points, and of languages and narrative chronotopes.

 References:

BAKHTIN M. M., [1938] 1981, Dialogic Imagination : four essays, Austin, University of Texas Press

BAKHTIN M. M., [1952] 1986, Speech Genres and Other Late Essays, Austin, University of Texas Press

BRUNER J., 2004, « Life as narrative », Social Resarch, 71 (3), 691-710

PECHEUX M., 1981, « Ouverture », in CONEIN B. et alii (eds), Matérialités discursives, Lille, Presses Universitaires de Lille, 15-18

RICŒUR P., 1983, Temps et Récit, Tome I, L’intrigue et le récit historique, Paris Le Seuil

SERIOT P., 1983, « La grande langue russe, objet d’amour et/ou de connaissance ? », in Essais sur le discours soviétique, n°3, Grenoble, Université de Grenoble III, 103-124