Les formules exclamatives dans les farces (1450-1550): le parler expressif entre en scène

Abstract

The French farce of the period 1450-1550 contains a cornucopia of verbal expressions that we may term 'exclamatory’; swearing, oaths, curses, insults, supplications, interjections, exhortations, scatology, invocations of saints, and so on. Yet this literary form, considered by researchers be a repository of spoken French of the later Middle Ages, remains largely unexplored from this standpoint. Indeed, there are few studies of 'expressive' modern language in existence, due largely to the inferior status given to this linguistic register by the majority of researchers.

This thesis seeks to examine and quantify the formulaic nature of exclamatory discourse in the farces. By adopting a broader definition of the word 'exclamation' than that currently accepted, we seek to unite the disparate and fragmentary attitudes of the few researchers who have expressed the view that this aspect of discourse merits further analysis. It is asserted that examination of formulae (i.e. leitmotivic usages) allows an objective assessment of affective language; the formulaic constructions are shown to be themselves subject to formulaic modification.

A database of 7668 quotations (68,500 words) from 99 farces is used to establish a taxonomy which shows usage in context. The taxonomy is organised around headwords, which form the nuclei of the various expressive domains. From this taxonomy, 858 formulae are extracted and described. The relative frequency of occurrence of the phrases in the taxonomy is portrayed in graphical form.

The field of research from 1900 to the present is examined. The attitudes of researchers are shown to have undergone evolutionary rather than revolutionary development in the course of the century; the abovementioned divergence of methodologies (and definitions of the field of research), is asserted to have hindered an advance of research in this area. Possibilities for further research are suggested, for example in the field of comparative inter-lingual studies.