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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Parlers populaires et paysans dans la fiction en prose (XVIe-XVIIe siècles)

subject

description

In fictional narrative and comedy of sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, staging lower-class or country people is a pretext to make up a comic stereotype. One of the main attributes of this stereotype is the use of a low language level, a faulty French, soiled by regionalisms. To this « popular » French language are often associated dull-wittedness, naivety, foolishness, as well as conversations limited on common place subjects. This linguistic standard is often presented on the occasion of a dialogue with a learned, well-read and refined interlocutor. Contrasting standards make laugh and disqualify as rough some uses and turns of phrase of French, at the time when grammatical and stylistic standards are shaping.