By Professor Peter Wuteh Vakunta
Introduction
The distinctive feature of Cameroonian literature written in Camfranglais is authors’ recourse to linguistic decolonization as a narrative mode. An incontrovertible manifestation of linguistic variance in contemporary Cameroonian literature resides in the tendency by fiction writers to resort to modes of writing characterized by linguistic indigenization—that is, an attempt at textualizing linguistic differentiation and conveying indigenous concepts, thought patterns and worldview through the ex-colonizer’s language (Zabus, 1991). One of the celebrated aspects of Camfranglais literature is the introduction of a mass of images, semantic shifts, neologisms and even syntactic elements from indigenous languages into hexagonal French. Kouega(2003) defines camfranglais as “a composite language consciously developed by secondary school pupils who have in common a number of linguistic codes, namely French, English and a few widespread indigenous languages”(23). In an attempt to convey territorial speech patterns, cultural specificity and worldviews in a European language, Cam-Anglophone writers resort to indigenizing features culled from vernacular languages. This style of writing poses daunting challenges for readers who are not familiar with the cultural matrices in which the texts are written. The intent of this paper is to tease out the implications of linguistic innovation for readers of Camfranglais literature. The overriding objective is to conceptualize a model suitable for teaching Moi taximan (2001), a novel written partially in Camfranglais by Gabriel K. Fonkou.
In writing Moi taximan Fonkou functions both as a linguistic innovator and cultural mediator. The novelist goes about this double task essentially through the process of linguistic domestication—the use of linguistic elements culled from African languages to mark the work geo-linguistically. Arguing along similar lines, Gandanou (2002) observes:
Dans le roman ouest-africain de langue française, l’utilisation d’éléments linguistiques empruntés à l’une ou l’autre langue d’Afrique est un moyen utilisé le plus souvent pour marquer l’oeuvre géolinguistiquement, donner l’impression au lecteur de lire un roman ouest-africain (26).
[In the West African novel of French expression, recourse to linguistic elements culled from African languages is a device most often used to mark a work geo-linguistically, to give readers the impression that they are reading a West African novel.]
Fonkou resorts to the technique of composition in an attempt to create new words out of existing French words for the purpose of mapping the speech patterns of Cameroonians. The process of composition is defined by Noumssi and Wamba (2002) as “la formation d’une unité sémantique à partir d’éléments lexicaux susceptibles de jouir d’une autonomie dans la langue” (30) [the formation of a semantic unit from lexical elements that are able to exist autonomously in the language.] Compounds serve a variety of functions, not least of which is the denotation of concepts that do not exist in hexagonal French and culture as the following excerpt suggests: “Les premiers contacts avec les mange-mille et les gendarmes coûtent cher, mais par la suite, tout le monde se connaît et il s’établit comme un contrat tacite.”(12) [The first encounters with the mange-mille and gendarmes often cost much, but with time, people get to know one another and a sort of tacit contract is established.][1] The compound word ‘mange-mille’ is a derivative of two French words—‘manger’ [to eat] and ‘mille” [one thousand]. It is a derogatory term used by speakers of Camfranglais to describe corrupt police officers notorious for taking bribes from taxi drivers, generally in the neighborhood of 1000 CFA francs. The word “mille” is a truncation of “mille francs” [one thousand francs]. It should be noted that while this Africanizing function serves the overall purpose of giving Fonkou’s novel local flavor, it is rarely the sole reason. The majority of neologisms used in Moi taximan have stylistic and plot-related motivations within the context of the text itself. In addition to endowing the text with an African flavor, linguistic innovation permits the denotation of Cameroonian reality, rather than an approximation of it as this example illustrates:
“Entre deux clients, Justine et sa mère participaient activement à l’entretien de la chaude ambiance du secteur des ‘bayam sellam’: potins, querelles simulées, plaisanteries et fausses confidences bruyantes y provoquaient de gros éclats de rire.” (131) [Between two customers, Justine and her mother took part in the heated discussions that brought life to the ‘bayam sellam section of the market: gossip, simulated quarrels, jokes and noisy false pretenses that provoked outbursts of laughter.] ‘Bayam sellam,’ is a compound noun derived from Cameroonian Pidgin English. Literally, it means “buy” and “sell.” It is used in this novel to describe market women described by the protagonist as “des revendeuses, cette catégorie de commerçantes aggressives sans les lesquelles nos marchés perdraient leur âme.”(130) [retail traders, this category of aggressive market women without whom our markets would lose their liveliness.][2]Fonkou’s non-conformity to hexagonal French language norms may be perceived as a strategy that enables him to subvert and decolonize the Cameroonian Europhone novel. As Zabus (2007) would have it, relexification “seeks to subvert the linguistically codified, to decolonize the language of early, colonial literature” (118). Zabus’ contention echoes analyses by Bhabha (1994) that underscore the power of what he refers to as “hybridizing language” (59). Bhabha’s postulation parallels Mehrez’s (1992) view that the “ultimate goal” of postcolonial literature containing “culturo-linguistic layering” is to subvert hierarchies by bringing together the “dominant “and the “underdeveloped,” by exploding and confounding different symbolic worlds and separate systems of signification in order to create a mutual interdependence and inter-signification”(122).
The purposeful code mixing noticeable in Moi taximan serves as an effective tool not only for transposing cultural tracings into fiction but also for depicting the contextual polyglossia that sustains the text. Linguistic diversity forms the backdrop against which the narrative takes place in this novel. The main action takes place in a context where languages intermingle as the following example illustrates: “A en juger par le comportement de mon patron, je le soupçconnais de ne pas appartenir à cette classe de “tso ce lap”, de ceux qui bouffent sans avoir travaillé” (39). [Judging by the comportment of my master, I have the inkling that he did not belong in this class of de “tso ce lap”, those who harvest where they did not sowed.] Notice the denotational semantics that is achieved in the aforementioned excerpt through the novelist’s recourse to native tongue lexemes. Linguistic plurality is the hallmark of fictional writing in camfranglais as seen this other example: “Je m’installa moi-même au volant, un peu effrayé à la pensée de toutes les choses peu rassurantes qui se racontaient sur les maguidas” (57). [I, myself, sat down behind the steering wheel, a little scared by thoughts of some of the frightful things that were being said about maguidas.]
It should be noted that “maguidas” is a native tongue word culled from Fulfulde and Hausa languages spoken in Cameroon. It refers to a wealthy Northern Cameroonian, generally one who professes the Islamic faith. Recourse to indigenous language words such as these gives Fonkou the leeway to depict the phenomenon of language contact in a linguistically pluralistic context that forms the backdrop of the novel. More often than not, the primordial function of linguistic indigenization is metonymic as seen in the example above where the word “maguida” is used as a metonym for all “Northern Cameroonians.” Fonkou resorts to the technique of linguistic decolonization in an attempt to exorcize his narrative as seen in the following excerpt: “Mais, Monsieur le directeur, je paie comme un alhadji” (174) [But, Manager, I pay like an Alhadji.] The proper noun, Alhadji, refers to a Muslim who has been to Mecca as a pilgrim. Alhadjis are also associated with wealth, and therefore, deemed to not be parsimonious when paying for goods and services. Another type of creative writing trope that comes in handy in Foukou’s decolonizing process is semantic shift.
Moi taximan is replete with French words that have undergone the linguistic process of semantic shift as seen in the following excerpt: “Pour partir avec moi, mon copain avait confié son taxi à un attaquant” (149) [To come along with me, my buddy had given his taxi to a substitute driver.” The narrator employs the hexagonal French word ‘attaquant’ to describe a taxi driver’s substitute. However, in Camfranglais, this word is endowed with a secondary meaning: “a taximan that is prone to road rage.” In my translation of the novel, I rendered the word “attaquant” as “substitute driver” based on contextual clues available in the text, notably the novelist’s extra-textual material provided in a gloss: “un chauffeur de dépannage” (149)[ a driver that helps out]. Fonkou resorts to semantic shifts in a bid to fictionalize Cameroonianisms[3] as seen in this example: “Seules deux paroles toutes froissés sorties de nos poches furent entendues par le beret rouge qui nous rendit nos papiers et notre liberté (150)[The red berets who only understood the language spoken by two crumpled banknotes returned our documents and set us free.] The appropriation of the word “parole” is evident in this example. The novelist uses “parole” as a euphemism for “billet de mille francs CFA.” In the same vein, “beret rouge” is a metonym for ‘gendarme’. It should be noted that Fonkou uses the expression “parole” to satirize the endemic corruption for which Cameroonian law enforcement officers are notorious. In Cameroon, gendarmes and police officers openly take bribes from taxi drivers and other commuters, generally in the neighborhood of one thousand CFA francs.
Another noteworthy recourse to the technique of linguistic decolonization by Fonkou is seen in the following except: “Au premier passage le matin devant le poste de contrôle, tu donnes le café, et te voilà quitte pour travailler en paix jusqu’au changement d’équipe autour de treize heures” (12) [The first time you pass by the check-point in the morning, you serve coffee and then you are free to work peacefully until there is a shift at one o’clock in the afternoon.] The word “Café” used by the narrator is a camfranglais expression that has nothing to do with the coffee that people drink every day. “Donner le café” in Camfranglais parlance is equivalent to the hexagonal French expression “donner le pourboire” [give a tip] or [give a bribe]. This sort of linguistic domestication has the potential to complicate attempts at literary analysis by critics who are unfamiliar with the phenomenon of semantic neologism in African literature of French expression. In his analysis of French in West African novels, Gandonou (2002) defines semantic neologism as “l’emploi d’un mot dans un sens nouveau” (91). [The use of a word with a new meaning.]Gandonou’s definition is analogous with Bandia’s (2008) category of “semantic shift” (101) which englobes French language usage that is at variance with standard usage. There are numerous instances of recourse to semantic neologisms in Moi taximan. More often than not, their meaning is not explained in the body of the text, thus leaving the reader to conjecture the semantic signification of the expressions used in the narrative. In a few cases, Fonkou explains the meaning of the words in the body of the text as the following excerpt illustrates: “On sortait de l’opération avec un plus grand sourire si, en plus, les passagers longue distance avaient ‘proposé’, c’est-à-dire offert de payer plus cher que le tariff normal” (8) [At the end of the day, we returned home with a big smile if, in addition to the normal fare, long-distance commuters had proposed, in order words , had paid more than the normal fare].” Had the narrator not inserted the explicatory statement “c’est-à-dire offert de payer plus cher que le tariff normal,” the meaning of the utterance would have remained obscure to readers unaccustomed to Camfranglais speech patterns. Clearly, the verb “proposer” [to propose] has been endowed with new meaning in the narrative. “Proposer” in Camfranglais refers to instances where passengers pay more than the normal taxi fare. The purposeful indigenization of French in Moi taixman lends credence to the contention that the younger generation of Cameroonian writers are distancing themselves from the elite French found in novels written during the colonial era in Cameroon such as Mission terminée(1957) and Le vieux nègre et la médaille(1956) by Mongo Beti and Ferdinand Oyono respectively.
One noticeable type of mesolectal variation that occurs frequently in Moi taximan is recourse to interlingual borrowings, notably borrowings from African languages as seen in the following statement: “Tu as rencontré une nga, une wa il y a quelques mois” (106). [You met a nga, a wa a few months ago] Notice that Fonkou uses two indigenous language words here “nga” and “wa” that refer to “girl.” Camfranglais speakers have adopted these words and now use them to refer to a girl for whom one has a crush. In the majority of cases, borrowed words are not set apart from the main narrative by means of inverted commas or italics, nor are they accompanied by a French gloss. The fact that these words are not marked apart or glossed in the novel underscores the novelist’s desire to incorporate them in Cameroonian French, the more so because these borrowings represent an important aspect of the African identity of the original text. They often also convey significant attitudinal and connotational meanings (Batchelor, 2009) as seen in the following example: “Je suis entré dans le famla en épousant une fille exceptionnelle” (173). [I have been initiated into famla by virtue of my marriage to an exceptional girl]. Fonkou’s allusion to “famla” is significant given that it is culturally relevant in the narrative. “Famla” is a Bamileke[4] secret society commonly associated with sorcery and pecuniary gains. In addition to semantic neologisms and lexical borrowings, Fonkou uses longer expressions which are a result of calquing from Cameroonian languages as the following except suggests: “Tu prends n’importe quelle decision, tu es souverain, je marche avec toi” (133) [You make any decision, I will walk with you, you are sovereign]. It may be difficult to derive the meaning of this statement by simply piecing together the individual elements that make up the calque.
Fonkou’s recourse to native tongue words poses enormous textual analysis problems as seen in the following example: “La chose métallique est un djambo…” (39) [Metallic business is djambo; it is gambling...] The word “djambo,” is a Camfranglais word that translates as “gambling” in Standard English. The narrator uses this word to allude to the vicissitudes associated with the taxi industry, which is deemed risky business. Including a gloss, “it’s gambling” in the translation, clears the obfuscation. The gloss may look like translational padding but it actually fulfills the critical function of elucidating any ambiguity that may be inherent in the source text. Moi taximan defies word-for-word or literal translation on account of the word smiting that characterizes Fonkou’s writing style as the following sentence illustrates: “Dans l’après midi, je devais rembourser de l’argent dans une tontine des ressortissants de mon village natal” (7). [In the afternoon, I had to pay back money I had borrowed from members of a tontine, a thrift society of people from my village.] The word ‘tontine’ is a Camfranglais word that describes a ‘thrift society’ where members contribute and borrow money when the need arises. Without the appositional addition “a thrift society’, the reader would stumble on the semantic connotation of the word “tontine.”
Lexical truncation is another word formative process used abundantly by Fonkou for the purpose of spicing his narrative with local color and flavor as this example suggests: “J’avais remarqué dès les premiers jours que certains collègues clandos ne s’arrêtaient pas aux barrières de contrôle, ou que quand ils s’y arrêtaient, c’était pour échanger avec les contrôleurs des plaisanteries puis repartir sans avoir servi ni le café ni la bière” (12). [I had noticed from the onset that some colleagues driving clando (illegal) taxis never stopped at the police checkpoint, or only stopped there to crack jokes with the inspectors and left without serving coffee or beer] Notice that “clando” is a Camfranglais word derived by truncating the French word “clandestin” [clandestine]. Another notable example of truncation in the novel is the following statement: “Si de la condamner comme tu le fais signifie que tu ne nourris aucun préjugé d’intello, alors tant mieux pour moi.”(135)[If by damning her the way you do means that you do not nurse any intello biases, well then, so much the better for me.] Fonkou derives “intello” from the word “intellectuel” [Intellectual]. The process of truncation enables him to not only create new words; but also to transpose Cameroonianisms and indigenous cultural traces into standard French.
Moi taximan is replete with culture-specific traces. These traces have dual functions. They represent culturally bound information as well as the socio-linguistic worldview that lies behind the French text. Visible traces are used by the protagonist quite often to stress his cultural identity as seen in the extract below: “Plusieurs femmes de la concession transportèrent dans le ntang les vivres et le objets apportés par la délégation.”(155) [Many women of the compound carried foodstuff and objects brought by the delegation into the ntang.] Notice that the writer neither glosses nor italicizes the word “ntang.” This is his attempt at domesticating metropolitan French spoken in Cameroon. The word “ntang” translates as the main house belonging to the head of the compound. In this example, the visible trace is not used by the protagonist out of denotational necessity but as part of a deliberate attempt to highlight his own cultural identity and to maximize the interest of others in him as an African. Another visible trace in the novel that denotes culturally bound objects is seen in the following extract: “Non, un bon bita kola et un matango coupé d’odontol” (120) [No, a good bita kola and some matango mixed with odontol]. Fonkou uses cultural traces because the information they embody cannot be conveyed in standard French because the realities are non-existent in France. Bita kola, for example, is a fruit that grows uniquely in Africa. It has a bitter taste and functions as an aphrodisiac. It is often used ceremonially as presents to chiefs or guests. Odontol, an indigenous language word, refers to locally brewed whiskey. Fonkou culls words from Cameroon’s culinary lexicon to provide his text with a cultural substratum as seen in this excerpt: “La journée d’hier a été djidja” (19). [Yesterday was djindja]. ‘Djidja,’ a loanword from Cameroonian culinary lexicon, is derived from the English word ‘ginger.’ Cameroonians use the word ‘djidja’ to describe an extremely difficult situation akin to what metropolitan French speakers would describe as “une mer à boire”[i] [an uphill task.]
Last but not least Fonkou taps into his people’s collective memory in a bid to enrich his narrative with folklore. He has a predilection for proverbs as seen in these examples: “Ne dit-on pas au village qu’il faut feindre d’être mort pour voir comment on te pleure?”(118)[Isn’t it said in the village that you have to stage your own death in order to see how you’re mourned?] This aphorism is pregnant with meaning. It is also quite didactic. The other example weighs heavily on the law of karma: “Quand vous crachez en l’air le crachet vous retombe sur le nez” (29) [When spit into the air, your spittle falls back onto your nose.] This is the indigenized version of the occidental maxim, ‘what goes around comes around’. Finally, Fonkou offers his readers some lessons on predestination as follows: “Personne ne peut arracher le champignon de l’autre.”(55)[No one can harvest another man’s mushrooms.]
In conclusion, the intent of this paper has not been simply to provide readers with a plethora of writing styles used by Fonkou in crafting his novel. The goal has been to propose pedagogical paradigms suitable for teaching hybrid texts such as Moi taximan. The question that begs to be asked at this juncture is why is it critical for instructors of Francophone novels from Cameroon to be conversant with evolutionary trends inherent in the texts? I contend that knowledge of hexagonal French alone will not suffice to do justice to the teaching of a linguistically pluralistic ethnographic novel such as Moi taximan. Professors who teach this novel cannot but be like the text itself—at once bilingual and bicultural. Given the polytonality and multilingual composition of Moi taximan, instructors must conceive appropriate models for literary analysis. This novel irrefutably calls for a multifaceted framework for literary criticism, three of which I have discussed below.
Critical Thinking Culture-Based Model
This instructional model is based on Bloom’s Taxonomy (1956) of textual analysis. To effectively unravel the holistic message embedded in the essential elements (EEI’s) of a text, Bloom argues, instructors need to create learning tasks that enable learners to interact with textual material at six different levels: Evaluation(making value judgments about issues, resolving controversies, assessing theories, composing ideas, evaluating outcomes); Synthesis(creating a unique original product that may be in verbal form or a combination of ideas to form a new whole, using old concepts to create new ones); Analysis (organizing ideas and recognizing trends, finding the underlying structure of communication, identifying motives); Application (using and applying knowledge, problem-solving, use of facts and principles); Comprehension(interpreting, translating from one medium to the other, demonstrating, summarizing, discussing the signifier and signified interconnection); Knowledge (recall of information, discovery, and observation). This framework is germane for the textual analysis of multilayered and linguistically pluralistic novels such as Moi taximan, the more so because literary criticism calls for textual interpretation as the following model illustrates.
Hermeneutic-Exegetic Model
Hermeneutic is the Greek word for interpreter. Hermeneutics is the theory of interpretation. The theory of hermeneutics propounded by Schleiermacher and Bowie (1998) underscores the importance of interpreting not only the latent (hidden) meanings embedded in a literary text but also the situational dimensions that constitute the matrix in which the text was written. The interpretative component of the hermeneutic theory goes hand in hand with the theory of exegesis, understood to mean a thorough analysis of the content of a given text. Exegesis is a method of attempting to understand a text. The exegete studies the lexical components as well as the syntactic structure of the text in order to discern the illocutionary intent of the writer. S/he draws meaning out of the text rather than reads meaning into it. Exegesis entails interpreting a text for the purpose of expounding and revealing the essence of its messages. Inter-lingual translators often have recourse to this model in the job they perform on a daily basis in order to bridge gaps in cross-cultural communication. The Hermeneutic-Exegetic model is ethnocentric and, therefore, deemed appropriate for teaching an ethnographic novel such as Moi taximan. Schleiermacher and Bowie underscore the need to use the hermeneutic circle in the process of textual analysis because it enables the reader to lay bare the significations contained in the deep structure of a literary text. The hermeneutic circle facilitates analysis of a literary text by enabling the critique to come to grips with the fact that one’s wholesome understanding of a text is established by reference to the individual parts. Schleiermacher and Bowie note that neither the whole text nor any individual parts can be understood without reference to the others, and hence, it is a circle. The circularity inherent in hermeneutics implies that the meaning of a text is to be found within its cultural, historical, and literary contexts.
Styles-and-Strategies-Based Instructional Model(SSBI)
Cohen and Weaver (2006) conceived the Styles-and-Strategies-Based Instructional Model as a framework for teaching foreign languages. It is suitable for teaching literatures written in hybridized less commonly taught languages such as creoles, pidgins and lingua franca. The framework is based on the theory of scaffolding, a concept that stems from the idea that at the beginning of the learning process, learners need a great deal of support; gradually, this support is taken away to allow students to develop a sense of independence. This is what Cohen and Weaver call the gradual release of responsibility. Other facets of the model include: modeling, cooperative learning, activation of schemata, student learning choices and self-initiated learning. The SSBI model is a learner-focused approach to literary criticism that explicitly encourages different kinds of interactions in the classroom. Emphasis is placed on how specific learning tasks might call for certain learning style preferences and, therefore, necessitate certain instructional strategies.
Conclusion
In a nutshell, by revisiting Fonkou’s seminal novel, Moi taximan, I sought to underscore the fact that this Cameroonian novel, like others, namely Temps de chien (2001), Je parle camerounais: pour un renouveau francofaune (2001), branle-bas en noir et blanc (1999), and Trop de soleil tue l’amour (1999) is in essence, a hybrid text that defies superficial reading. Attempts at achieving linguistic decolonization noticeable throughout the text is a response to the call for new ways of writing African literature. Teachers of Cameroonian literature of French expression cannot continue to teach these texts using the same models that were used in teaching metropolitan novels like Madame Bovary (Flaubert, 1856), Le rouge et le noir (Stendhal, 1830), Le père goriot (Balzac, (1835); Germinal (Zola, 1885); L’immoraliste (Gide, 1902), La jalousie (Robbe-Grillet, 1957), Planétarium (Sarraute, 1959), La nausée (Sartre, 1938) and so on.
Whether or not Fonkou has achieved the goal of decolonizing the Cameroonian novel of French expression by obliterating the imprint of imperial French is a moot point. Literary scholars like Ngugi wa Thiong’o (1986) have argued that to qualify as indigenous, African literature has to be written in native languages. He further points out that “Literature written by Africans in European languages… can only be termed Afro-European literature; that is, the literature written by Africans in European languages” (27). Much as we value the success of Fonkou in imprinting his text with the worldview, imagination, speech patterns, and cultural characteristics of indigenous peoples, we cannot discount the fact the core of his text is written in French, a European language. In spite of the impressive linguistic innovations inherent in the novel, it is still essentially a French novel. For this writer, French is a necessary evil with which he must come to terms. Straddling two socio-cultural spheres, Foukou find himself at the cross-roads of languages. He cannot be faithful to the one without betraying the other.
NOTES
[1] All translations are mine unless otherwise indicated
[2] Bayam sellam’ trade consists precisely of buying and selling foodstuff bought wholesale at the lowest possible prices in the rural areas (farms and plantations in the villages) to resell by retail in the urban areas (Bafoussam, Douala, Nkongsamba, Yaoundé, etc.)
[3] Speech patterns of Cameroonians
[4] An ethic group in Western Cameroon
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About the author
Professor Vakunta teaches French Linguistics and Francophone Literature at the University of Indianapolis where he served as Chair of the Department of Global Languages and Cross-Cultural Cultures(2013-2018). He has under his belt several theoretical and fictional books and a sizeable number of articles in peer-reviewed journals.He also teaches for the Defense Language Institute headquartered in Monterey-California.
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