Tense, Orality and Narration: The Case of the Neo-Conte

Abstract

The relationship between tense and orality has been of major interest to linguists working on tense, aspect and discourse in a number of languages, and illuminating, if highly controversial, parallels have been drawn between the patterns found in various different types of oral narration. In the case of French, much research has been done on conversational narration, and connections have been made between contemporary temporal patterning (notably as regards tense switching) and that found in medieval data. Yet the term 'oral narration'is not synonymous here; the medieval narrations represent highly crafted performances, while the conversational data is spontaneous and informal. This paper proposes an analysis of tense switching in a contemporary performed variety of oral narration, the neo-conte. While many of the functions of tense switching in discourse prove to be relatively familiar, the patterns found in the «neo-conte» reveal complex-and at times apparently contradictory-influences from both spoken French and literary norms. Along with other types of discourse such as newspaper French, the patterns in oral story-telling pose questions for contemporary models of the French tense system, especially those based on a fundamental binary divide, such as written versus spoken discourse, «monde raconte» versus «monde commente» or «histoire» versus «discours».