Des mots pour un pays. Marqueurs lexicaux de l'écrit et de l'oral en Camargue

Abstract

Martel (Claude). — A country through its words. Lexical markers in the oral and written expression of Camargue. Starting with about ten works représentative of Camargue and six interviews of inhabitants, we examine, using the vocabulary adopted by writers and witnesses, the rôle and operating mode of lexical indi-cators, markers and stéréotypés in the expression of Camarguais identity. Whether one wanders through the teeming crowd of words that assume new overtones irom one work to the next to celebrate a Camargue for eternity more mythical than real, or whether one indulges oneself in the spoken production closer to the grassroots and apparendy more trivial, one can see in its broad oudines the same picture of this country. But while written texts tend to give a more valorized vision, by insisting on the fascinating strangeness of an indefinite land between water and sait, oral productions denounce forcefully, though concisely, the most devalorizing aspects. To build the picture, the same words operate at several levels : beginning as plain describers, eveiyday words, or trade words in the local Camarguais speech, they become markers through sheer récurrence in a discourse of passionate protest and/or assessment, or through literary reshaping to eventually end up as written stéréotypés. But at every level, each in its own way, those words contribute to the expression and reconstruction of an identity for a country which thinks of itself and claims to be spécial, savage, wild, untamed, free brand. Le Monde Alpin et rhodanien, ler-2 trimestres 1993, L'identité vécue. Discours, rites, emblèmes, pp. 63 à 84.