Louis-Ferdinand Céline et l'oral populaire

Abstract

The study analyses innovative stylistic means of French novelist Louis- Ferdinand Celine—one of the first writers who has introduced the need to place spoken language into written text. The author treats theoretical paradox of spoken French in its written form, analysing the double linguistic distinction between the pho- netic code and the graphic code and between the spoken code and the written code. Celin's style, which modifies the rules of standard French, is characterised by the ar- gotic and vulgarised narration, which decomposes traditional syntax. The use of new means of expression is effectuated at several levels—at the vocabulary level (argot, neologisms, derivation), at the syntagma level (repetition, anticipation, segmentation), and at the sentencelevel (the use of juxtapositionand coordinationon detrimentto the subordination). The verb forms typical of colloquial style or, on the contrary, forms whichare used intraditional narrationare alsointroduced. The paper dealswith Celin's first novel Voyage au bout de la nuit, where the narration is still traditional, the narrator is fictitious, his name is different from the author's, the narration is linear, the novel is divided into chapters and the story has a beginning and an end. The search for the new means of expression is therefore reflected exclusively at the level of language and style.