UNIVERSITY OF LAGOS, NIGERIA The 437th Inaugural Lecture Series (2025) BY I PROFESSOR AKANBI MUDASIRU ILUPEJU .• PROFESSOR AKANBI MUDASIRU ILUPEJU N.C.E. (lbadan), BA (Ed.), MA., Ph.D. (Lagos) Professor of French (Sociolinguistics in French, Translation and Applied Linguistics) '< • ...... " ••.. to' •• 4 • '; } t". JE N'EN AI PAS BESOIN: HELP ME WITH THE TRANSLATION An Inaugural Lecture Delivered at the Nurudeen Alao Hall, Distance Learning Institute (DU), University of Lagos, on Wednesday 18 June, 2025 By PROFESSOR AKANBI MUDASIRU ILUPEJU N.C.E. (Ibadan), BA (Ed.), MA., Ph.D. (Lagos) Professor of French (Sociolinguistics in French, Translator and Applied Linguistics) Department of European Languages and Integration Studies Faculty of Arts University of Lagos, Nigeria iii Dedication Copyright © 2025 Professor Akanbi Mudasiru lIupeju To The memory of my Father Alhaji Tijani Adigun Gbadamosi lIupeju All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the author -iv- -v- ISSN: 1119-4456 Published by University of Lagos Press and Bookshop Ltd Works and Physical Planning Complex P.O. Box 132, University of Lagos Akoka, Yaba, Lagos, Nigeria E-mail: press@unilag.edu.ng Tel: 08092925635 PROTOCOL The Vice Chancellor, The Deputy Vice Chancellor (Development Services), The Deputy Vice Chancellor (Academic and Research), The Deputy Vice Chancellor (Management and Services), The Registrar, The Bursar, The University Librarian, The Provost, College of Medicine, The Dean, Faculty of Arts, Deans of Other Faculties, Members of the University Senate, Heads of Departments, Your Lordships (Temporal and Spiritual), Your Royal Majesties and Highnesses, Distinguish~ Academic and Professional Colleagues, Distinguished Non-Teaching Colleagues (Administrative and Technical), Dear Students (Past and Present), Members of the Press (Print and Electronic Media), Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen. Preamble Permit me to begin by saying that I hadn't intended to study French because, for me, it wasn't a priority course of study. I had grown up speaking a dialect of French as my second language of course, after my mother tongue of Yoruba. I could also speak Dioula, the vehicular language of our neighbourhood at that time. So, I didn't think I needed French to advance in my chosen field of endeavour, since I already had it. Ever so keen on human rights, I had wanted to be a lawyer. In my West African School Certificate Examination (WASCE), I had eight credits in one sitting, including English and Mathematics. So, how did I eventually become a scholar in French? Well, it is a story with quite an interesting beginning. A certain Teejay Adebayo had obtained a direct entry form on my behalf, filling out the French Education field. In the end, my admission letter was delivered to my hometown! -1- I started primary school education at 11 years old. My illiterate mother had resolved: "Muda gbodo kawe" [Muda must get an education]. She did her best to pay fully for my primary and secondary education and partly for my higher education - all of which took place in Abidjan and Nigeria. May I mention that I attended primary and secondary schools run by the Baptist Mission; as such, I am what you can call a 'Baptist Muslim'. Interestingly, my university education began when I turned 28, after the birth of my first daughter. Since 1988, I am yet to be released by the University of Lagos, where I obtained my other degrees as a staff candidate after my bachelor's. Title: JE N'EN AI PAS BESOIN: HELP ME WITH THE TRANSLATION QUI SUIS-JE? Introduction My work is situated within the realm of macro/micro-sociolinguistics. It is therefore, pertinent that we understand the concerns of this subfield of linguistics in order to follow the sequence of this inaugural. The Macro-Sociolinguistic Approach Macro-sociolinguistics addresses issues of linguistic domination - for example, the dominance of language A over language B. It investigates the concept of diglossia, which reflects the unequal relationship between two languages and highlights the harmonious and stable character presented by the term bilingualism. Diglossia is considered unstable because by removing the low variety, it evolves either in the lexicon of the dominated language or the dominant language. This approach, moreover, allows for the study of language policy, language planning and language development, i.e. language management. Thus, in the macro-sociolinguistic approach, taking the French language as an example, the focus is on terms such as: • The pressure of the French school model The appropriation of French • Communication situations (sabir, pidgin, etc.) Elementary French -2- • French as a foreign language for occasional use. Macro-sociolinguistics exposes and analyzes the evolu.tionof language at the local and national levels in a country. It takes into account the sociocultural instruments that triggered the change in the s~atusof !he language for the benefit of users. It demonstrates how this evolution affects the traditional structure of a language. The macro-sociolinguistic approach also leads to: . - the history of the establishment and develop~e~t of a language, The inventory of structural features of the van.etlesof a language in use: phonetics, morphology, syntax and I~xls; .. Analysis of the relationships that the vanous van~tle~ of. th.e language maintain with each other to show the resultmg lingUistic discontinuity; . Analysis of the situations in which the la~guage ~s used by highlighting the problems linked to the teachmg of ihls language and its use in the media, etc.; . Conclusive reflections on the maintenance or evolution of the language. The Micro-Sociolinguistic Approach . . The micro-sociolinguistic approach takes the subject as the start~ng point for studying social factors related to language u~e. ~y operatmg at the level of the speaking individual, it places the subject In a ~roup ~f belonging or a reference group, i.e. within the framework of a lingUistic identity. Micro-sociolinguisticsallows for the study of the influence of extra- linguistic variables on the linguistic practices ?f.speakers. It start from the hypothesis of a simple, one-way det:rmlnlsm of factors. such as social or ethnic origin, age, place of residence. These sO~locul!ural elements will help to understand the speakers' ways of speakmg. MI~ro- sociolinguistics uses observational participation, which ~lIo~s a view from within the group. This is opposed to indirect observatl~n mthe.fo~m of interviews. This approach is also known as interaclionist sociolinguistics. -3- Why French for Nigeria? By the fate of history, Nigeria is bordered by francophone countries: Republic of Niger to the North, Republic of Benin to the West, Chad to the North-east and Cameroon to the East. Moreover, countries from Cameroon down to the Republic of Congo all speak French. Similarly, most of the 16 West African countries, except Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Cape Verde, Gambia, and Guinea-Bissau, all speak French. We may therefore view French as essential to Nigeria as water is to life. This is not just for linguistic reasons but also for political, economic and c~ltural purposes. This situation puts the average Nigerian at a dlsadv~ntage ~om'pared to their ECOWAS neighbours, virtually rendenng the Nlgenan a second-class citizen of the subregion. O.molawa(197~) reported that the teaching of French in Nigeria began Wlt~ the establlshm~nt of the first secondary school in the country, which was founded In Lagos by the Church Mission Society (CMS) in 1858. By 1882, the Colonial Office in London had proscribed the teaching of any 'foreign language' in its territories. This development occurred 24 years after the formal introduction of French into the curriculum of Nigerian secondary schools. Nevertheless, private schools run by the English were allowed to present their students for external examinations in French Language. The beneficiaries were, of course, privileged Nigerians. By 1940, examinations in French were being offered in Nigerian elite schools. Therefore, Nigerians have long appreciated the value of the French language - even in the face of the British protection of their colonial interests against the French Assimilation and Association policies around Nigerian borders. ~fter independence.in 1960, Nigeria introduced the French Language ~ntothe school cur~culum for the first time. At that time, many newly Independent English-speaking West African countries suddenly reali~ed that they couldn't speak the language of their neighbours. This led, In 1961, to the recommendation of the Commission for Technical Cooperation in Africa (CTAC) in Yaounde, Cameroon, that another -4- European language, other than the colonial master's language, be considered not only as a means of communication between francophone and Anglophone countries but as an international language. The broader objective was to facilitate interactions among other countries of the world. Between 1963 and 1964, the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) ratified the Yaounde recommendation and included it in its examination syllabus. At the Yaounde conference, the participating Heads of State and Heads of Government believed that knowledge of French for the Anglophones and knowledge of English for the francophones would, among other things: a) promote the dignity of both African men and women; b) accelerate intimate relationships among countries; c) promote African unity and solidarity. This. recommendation was implemented right after the conference. Thus, English was made compulsory in secondary schools by all francophone countries and French by English-speaking African countries. Regrettably, it may be due to constant military interventions in the polity that Nigeria did not fully implement the linguistic agreement of 1961. On their part, the francophones not only made English compulsory in their secondary schools but also went a step further by making other foreign European languages, e.g., Spanish and German, available to their students who were willing to take them up to the baccalaureate level. In all the francophone countries today, English Language is compulsory at the junior and secondary levels, regardless of the student's career orientation - whether in the arts, social sciences, business/accounting or pure sciences. Unfortunately, Nigeria, which should have been a model for other African countries, continues to renege on this agreement. French, when offered in our schools, is only taken by students to complement their -5- ~u~ject choice if they cannot offer Arabic or Physical Education at the Junror secondary level, since these subjects are considered alternatives. At the senior secondary level, French is not available at all; as.a re~ult, rnos.tstudent.srealise their deficiency only after getting into uruversity, particularly In faculties where French is required for waduation (e.g., Business Management Science and the Sciences). It ISsad to note that this is one of the consequences of poor educational policies. In a study on the subject matter, Ogunola (1986) found that 10 out of 12 French teachers believed that French has no solid foundation in Nigeria "because French is considered a weak alternative subject in the school timetable." According to Obadan (1985), the learning of the Fren?h la.nguageis limited to the classroom, given that society does not consider It useful after school. French was not required as a prerequisite for securing a job in the civil service. However, the current trend of globalisation has proved the contradiction wrong. Given its consequences for the country, both the government and the corporate sector have been making efforts to bridge this linguistic gap, with little or no progress has been made so far. "Speak my language and I make you my confidant" - that is the attitude of foreign investors when they explore other countries for business. Any agent who speaks the language of their foreign partner will find more ~avourin their business transactions than the one who always needs an Inte~reter to conduct business discussions. Language, especially a foreign language, facilitates investment opportunities in any given country. The French and Africa's francophone countries find it easier to invest in countries where French is spoken, especially by administrators of such countries, because the French language embodies the French way of life. France is known as a country of rich culture and tradition, the home of an a.rtof living that many people identify with fashion, food and great arc~ltectu~e. This reputation is indeed a great privilege. However, behind thiS attractive French facade actually lies an ultra-modem -6- economy that is bursting with energy and new ideas. France is the world's fourth-largest industrial power, with basic indicators that put it in a strong position for the future. The country has achieved results within an open economy, based on cooperation with fellow European Union (EU) members and a commitment to stimulating world trade via agreements with foreign partners. France is now the world's fourth-largest exporter of goods and the second-largest exporter of services. As a prime mover in the creation of the EU, France continues to be at the forefront of efforts to strengthen that organisation. Beyond that framework, it also strives to bolster the wider world economy by promoting trade and other forms of international cooperation. The country's industrial and service sectors are nurtured by international cooperation within the European arena and the larger outside world. For sure, any country needing EU presence and development support will require French endorsement. For decades, Nigeria has been a business partner of France. E.N. Kwofie (1985:22) observes the following about the France-Nigeria business educational and cultural relationship: «The importance of French in Franco-Nigerian relations for example was high and has conceivably increased further. Between 1975 and 1977, Nigeria was France's first trade partner in all of Black Africa; it ranked 16th among all foreign suppliers to France behind the USSR, but preceding Algeria, Canada and the Ivory Coast in rank. Trade between Nigeria and France has steadily increased, with imports rising from N619 million in 1983 to N699 million in 1984 and exports from N619 million in 1983 to N1.9 billion in 1984.» In the 1980s, Nigerian Airways acquired four French-built Airbus A310 at the cost of N160m. The schedules of maintenance for those planes range between three years and ten years. Needless to say, the transfer of technology here required not only technical but also linguistic -7- cooperation between the French and Nigerians. Today, Nigeria remains France's number one partner in West Africa. According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) 2024: Nigeria's exports to France soared to over N3.9 trillion (approximately $2.4 billion) in the first half of 2024, securing ~ra~~e's position as Nigeria's top export destination among mdlvldual countries... far surpassing the N2.3 trillion recorded in 2023, ... marking a substantial increase in trade between the two nations. The ed~cational and cultural cooperation level between Nigeria and France ISalso remarkable. For example, there is a French Association of Nigeria, which, apart from fostering relations between Nigeria and France, runs many schools in the country with children from 34 nations. Through !hi~ additional m~di~m, Nigeria continues to be a "melting pot", a large Alliance Francaise for diverse peoples and cultures both ~oreign and African. These are just few examples iIIustrati~g the Importance of French as a tool in the cooperative endeavours of both Nigeria and France, as well as between other West African countries and Fra~ce, without neglecting the academic and technological cooperation between France and the University of Lagos over the years. :rO?~y, however, this relationship has been taken over by private 1n?lvl?uals who. benefit from the cooperation at the expense of the ~I~e~an collective. From their privileged position in government, such individuals scuttle government policies for their selfish interests. Such ?ehavi?ur, it n~eds to be said, has been aided by governmental inconsistency with regard to policy enactment and implementation. Regarding career advancement with French, some Nigerians have ?ee.n f~rtunat~ ~nough to rise to the top of multinational companies and institutions. Similarly, some have been limited in their career growth due to a lack of working knowledge of French, the study of which they were -8- denied in their school days. Those who were more fortunate either studied French abroad or took special French courses at private French institutions in the country. Interestingly, the Franco-Nigeria Chamber of Commerce was managed for many years by Mr. Akin. Akinbola, a Nigerian who is today now an employer of labour representing many French companies in the country with his PROMOSALONS NIGERIA, CAMEROUN & GABON. He is an alumnus of the University of Lagos. The Chamber was once chaired by another seasoned Nigerian businessman, Engineer Akin Laguda. Moreover, the committee of the Alliance Francaise of Lagos was chaired by the late Chief Okoya-Thomas for fifty years. Chief Okoya- Thomas never needed a special appointment to meet with any French President. Many believed many believed he had a significant influenceon all ambassadorial appointments from Nigeria to France. Similarly, French ambassadors to Nigeria always craved his support during their time in office. There is no doubt that Chief Okoya- Thomas, who did business with C.F.A.O. (Compagnie Francaise de I'Afrique Occidentale), a multinational French agglomeration, benefited immensely from his contact with the French language. Today, he has been succeeded by one of his children, Mrs. Tosin Bakare, as the Chairperson of the Board of Alliance Francaise, Lagos. In July 2018, French President Emmanuel Macron was in the country to honour Chief Mike Adenuga, durilJg the donation of the Mike Adenuga Centre at Ikoyi to Alliance Francaise, Lagos. Also on the list of those benefiting from the French influence are famous musicians such as Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, Femi Anikulapo-Kuti, Seun Anikulapo-Kuti, and Lagbaja. On the diplomatic stage, Nigeria has lost many strategic opportunities because of our officials' inability to use a second international language. For example, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo lost the post of Secretary General of the UNO (United Nations Organisation) to the Egyptian Boutros Boutros-Ghali, who was fluent in Arabic, English and French. Moreover, after the long tenure of the Senegalese Babakar Ndiaye at -9- structure of another European language, English. The letters of the English alphabet are not pronounced the same when they occur in a word. However, in French, the 'A' is [a] and the 'I' is [i]. In this regard, it seems necessary to teach the correct pronunciation of French through the alphabet. Let me briefly demonstrate this point. The letter A is pronounced [ei] in English; in the words "basket", "palm", "America", "appointment", "amendment", the "a" is pronounced [a]. The letter "I" is pronounced [ail but it comes out as [i] in the following words: "bit", "artificial" "artisan", "artist", "article", "articulate", "bill", "big", "bishop" and "wig". The letter "E" is pronounced [i]; however, in the following words it is pronounced as [E]: "elephant", "element" and "elaborate". If the pronunciation of English vowels leads to pronunciation interference in learning French, some English consonants do not fare any better. The English "G" is pronounced almost like the French "J". The same goes for the English "J", which is pronounced like the French "G". Understanding this consonant nuance helps the learner to spell their name correctly, especially over the phone. The teacher, I believe, does not teach the recitation of the alphabet but rather highlights the relevance of the linguistic differences of the two European languages that the learner is supposed to master. Artificial Sentences Consider the following sentences: "The sky is blue" and "There are seven days in a week". In a French or francophone context, these sentences may seem artificial, but they may not be so in an English context. To start with, "The sky is blue" can be used to teach a consonantal link or a grammatical point of agreement between the subject of the verb and it's adjective. This sentence would only be isolated in a communication situation, which is the subject of today's lesson. I am not sure the teacher will come to class for teaching "The sky is blue" unless they want to teach colour adjectives. -12- Second, the expression "there is" poses a gra.mma~ical problem for the English-speaking learner wishing to ~m.mun~cat~ In ~rench ..One w~y to address this problem is to highlight Similar slt~atlons ~nEnglish. While in French "jJ ya" can indicate singular or plural, In English there are two expressions to convey both. Let's see these examples: . 11Y a un homme.-7 «There is a man». 11y a deux hommes -7 «There are two men» .. Thus the expression "il ya" means "there is" or "there are" in English. Of c~urse, the learner also knows that in English there ~re seve~ days in a week, but the important information the student retains here IS.that "there is" can represent either the singular or the plural..1 do n~t .~II~ve . that this statement is really introduced to reinforce a polnt of c~vlh~at~o~ as such. Let us say that it is not useless to teach so-called artifiCial notions. Oralisation of Actions . I completely agree with Mr. Fancelli that we should not use expressions in isolation and that we should put them in a situation ~f contextual communication It should be emphasised here that expressions such as "I wash myselr, "I put on my shoes", "I comb. my h~i:' an.d "I ~alk to school" would only be used to describe the dally activities In which we will see the use of common pronominal verbs and other complementary verbs relating to daily activities. Let us understand that words do not carry meaning except in the context they are used and for the purpose . they are supposed to achieve. For a French person or a francophone who has French as their mother tongue or second language, these expressions may not correspond to any real ~~e. On the contrary, a student of FLE perceives it differently, because .ItISn~t only their senses that interest them but also their tones, espe~lally since t~e structural positions of the words in a French sentence differ from theirs. Vocabulary Lists To me, a situation where the teacher draws up a list of common words frequently used by students in order to make them learn such words -13- does not seem old-fashioned, as Mr. Fancelli claimed. For the student to be able to use words such as le professeur, les eliwes, le tableau, la craie, la chaise, le nez and les oreilles, they must first know what thesewords mean. Imagine a situation where the student is asked to go to the "tableau". The first problem that will arise for the student is the semantic of what a 'tableau" is. This is one of the problems the teacher intends to solve by developing a list of common words for students. The goal is not to make them memorise these words by heart, as in one of La Fontaine's tales. Certainly, I see no harm if the teacher has his students repeat a list of words if only for them to remember their correct pronunciation. Every pedagogical method or methodology, old or new, has its advantages. For me, a good method answers the relevant questions of the day's lesson. I do not believe that the so-called "communicative" method excludes the development of a list of new words from the text being processed. To say "that such a vocabulary will ultimately only be useful within the class" is to say nothing. The student only has his French class to practise his language skills because, after the French course, other school subjects such as natural science and mathematics are all taught in English. Moreover, whether at home, on the street, in the market or in the hospital, communication is done in English. It is important to remember that as the student progresses in their learning, they are exposed to other language situations according to the imperatives of the lessons in the recommended texts. It should also be noted that the French language is not taught in Nigeria solely for the purpose of communication. Not only mustbe able to communicate in French according to the requirements of the communication context, but assimilating and correctly demonstrating the notions of the language in writing are also essential. How best can we test French proficiency? I believe it is through writing! The oral production of the majority of students of French as a foreign language shows phonetic interference from their mother tongues or from English, a situation that affects their spoken intelligibility. We will not elaborate on this point in this reply, as -14- we have already addressed it in our other contributions. The question "Qu'est-ce quec'est?" As far as I know, the expression «qu'est-ce que c'est?» is not abusive. It is not taughtsolely for the purpose of pointing to objects. First, there is the phonological problem posed by this syntagm. Studentsoften struggle to master its pronunciation, leading to its frequent appearance in interrogations. Instead of [kEskasE], students tend to say [kEskEskEs?].The frequency of the phrase helps simulate the usual phonics of the students. Secondly, "What is this?" is introduced to distinguish between "Who is it?" and "What is it?" when identifying objects and people. It is also taught to clarify grammar points in the answers «c'est un/une ...ce sont... and c'est...». Since usage accepts either the answer «C'est...» or «ce sont...» ("It's... or "these are...") to denote objects in the plural, students need this grammatical clarification. Let's not lose sight of the fact that we are dealing with beginners, whether they are adults or not. Moreover, there is no question of imagining that "one of these learners" in a French- speaking country would ask the question "what is it" to his friend to identify an object. We are not dealing with francophone learners who have French as a second language or sometimes, as their apparent mother tongue. However, the English-speaking student who would ask their friend "qu'est-ce que c'est?" would not be seen as a 'savage'. On the contrary, the friend would answer him, with all pride: "C'est un/une ..." or "Ce sont des..." For them, they will only reuse, outside the classroom, a new concept leamed in French class. "Tell me, what is this weird device?" This interrogative expression would only find its place among advanced students in FLE. Otherwise, it contains indicators that are incomprehensible to beginners. Imagine the teacher showing beginner students a stapler and saying, "What is this weird device?" He would have to explain the words "device" and "weird" before they could even respond. This type of questioning is superfluous. -15- I remember a class moment, 43 years ago. The teacher asked beginners the following questions: 1. [Showing a book] The teacher says, «Qu'est-ce?» The students respond, «C'est un cahier» 2. [Showing a ruler] The teacher says, «Que c'est?» ... The students respond, «C'est une regie». The students were happy to be able to correctly name the objects, much to the satisfaction of their teacher. However, the teacher, realising his error, reframed the question as follows: [Showing a book] The teacher says, «Ou'est-ce que c'est?» Students: [No answer because they are confused]. The Right Choices The choice between the "usable" and the necessary is a problem of relativism. Saying "Bonjour, classe" in an FFL class is more acceptable than in a French-as-a-mother tongue or French-as-a-second-Ianguage class. "Bonjour, classe" is the transposition of a moment in an English class where the teacher will have to say, "Good morning, class" and the students answer, "Good morning, sir". To the same students, the response to "Bonjour, classe" will be, "Bonjour, monsieur" or "Bonjour, madame". "Bonjour les enfants" would not have its place in a FLE class, especially if the teacher is not the age of a parent. It is a question of culture. I want to end this part of the presentation with the following questions and remarks: Who determines the communicability of a communicative method? Is it the teacher or the learner? The Nigerian student, for example, learns French for academic purposes in most cases. Thus, they wants to master his grammar. The communicative method as presented to us by Mr. Fancelli, will only have its place in Nigeria among adult-transient-students (e.g., Alliances Francaises), the Diplome Elementaire de la Langue Francaise (D.E.L.F.) or the Diplome Approfondi de la Langue Francaise (DAL.F.) Tests- are not designed, 4 C'est-a-dire, au moment de la red action de son article au Nigeria. Le DELF et Le -16- to my knowledge, on the basis of the communicative method that Mr. Fancelli suggests. SLet us also add that the Nigerian Ministry of Education continues to ignore the communicative method for teaching French in primary and secondary schools, especially where learners have to take the French Language tests at the JSSCE6 and SSCE7 levels. Even the recent so- called communicative methods (e.g., Studio 100), published in France to ensure the teaching of French as a foreign language, still focus on the teaching of traditional grammar. Twenty Years of French Practice and Teaching in Nigeria The history of preferential vocations of many French teachers in Nigeria will reveal many interesting testimonies. However, what should interest French teachers at this point will not be less than the quantification and qualification of what we have been able to do with French in a hostile English-speaking environment such as Nigeria. Successive Nigerian governments are well aware of the importance of the French language for the country's regional economic survival (see Njoku 1999: 47), especially in light of its humongous population and location among francophone countries. Many administrative texts confirm the successive language policies on French the status of optional foreign language and compulsory foreign language on the list of school subjects in the first cycle of secondary education (Molu et al., 1999: 39-46; Osunfisan, 1999:116). In reality, the optional status of French is maintained more in public schools than in the private ones, which view French proficiency as prestigious. In this segment, the observations and suggestions of French teacher- researchers over the past twenty years are highlighted in order to DALF etaient encore naissants au Nigeria. Ce paragraphe est une modificatSion a la version envoyee a l'editeur du Francais dans le Monde. 6 Junior School Certificate Examinations. 7 Senior School Certificate Examinations. -17- assess the situation on the ground, vis-a-vis the practice and teaching of French in Nigeria. The areas that have interested us are limited to publications on language acquisition and translation as a profession. The other areas, such as literature and applied linguistic studies, seem too academic to serve our present purposes. Our timeline covers 1995 (the year of our first article on French in Nigeria) to 2015. lIupeju (1998: 42-47) notes the proliferation of textbooks (see also Njoku, 1999:48) for teaching French as a foreign language in Nigeria. For him, most of the books hinder the adequate acquisition of French because they hardly meet the daily needs and aspirations of learners. To remedy this phenomenon, lIupeju proposes designing a unique method for answering the following questions: i. What group of students should it address? ii. What should its content be? iii. What role should French teacher training institutions play? lIupeju (1998) further proposes pedagogy for: i. the teaching of structural grammar; ii. teaching language levels - the aspirations of young people and the needs of society; iii. the teaching of French-language literature; iv. the teaching of French-speaking culture and civilisation. It concludes 'by elucidating the inherent merits of choosing a single method. The NOUVEL HORIZON series, directed by Tunde Ajiboye, was created in 1998 for the two secondary cycles aimed at teaching and learning French. Volumes 1 to 3 are intended for the first cycle (Junior Secondary School 1-3), while only volume 4 is intended for the second cycle (Senior Secondary School 1-3). These textbooks generally meet the content requirements of the WASCE French syllabus. The NOUVEL HORIZON 1-3 series underwent annual revisions between 1998 and -18- 2014, although the revision of volume 4 ceased in 2013. Apart from the practical content written in French, which does not hinder the learner's understanding, thanks to the popularity of the series' team leader, the material has been quite popular with French teachers in Nigeria. As lIupeju (1998: 44-47) suggested, the NEW HORIZON provides both learners and teachers with: . i. a teacher's book; ii. a student's book: and iii. a workbook for each volume. Mojola et al. (2001) also designed a three-volume manual (Je dernare, etc.) that offers learners and teachers the following: i. 'a teacher's book; ii. a student's book; and iii. a workbook for each volume. We do not have statistical data from schools that adopt this manual, but it is certain that its use is restricted to a part of Western Nigeria covered by the authors' workplaces. Some volumes of the series are not available in most Lagos bookstores, even the big ones. On his part, Popoola (1998:69-77) argues that: «... the teacher is dependent on the type of method used and that his teaching approach is considerably influenced by the textbook and the materials at his disposal.» To facilitate the task of the teacher in meeting the interests and specific needs of their students, he offers them the communicative method, whose advantages over other methods are elaborated. Adesola (1999:72-79) sees the 1990s as the point of proliferation of specialised private schools for teaching French for professional purposes. He noted that such schools were common in the highbrow areas of Lagos, where job opportunities could be more easily secured. Today, Abuja, the country's political capital, competes with Lagos in terms of its administrative status, the presence of French-speaking embassies, French cultural centres and French institutes, among others. -19- Furthermore, lIupeju (2002:51-64) analyses the French syllabi for the WASCE, NERC and CFTD in the. second cycle of secondary school. The French programme at the Senior Secondary School (SSS) level is. ~naly~ed in ?etail, with numerous gaps shown in the methodological Intentions of I~Soverly vast content, given the available time. Regarding the shortcomings observed, the study proposes adequate solutions for a 'rationa~'ap~lication for the pedagogy of the required language skills, namely listening, speaking, reading, writing and critical reflection. lIupeju (2002) also adds that the CFTD document, which serves as a "Small pedagogical guide for the preparation of candidates for S.S.S.C.E" in French, gives details for approaching each method chosen, although it is not yet available to the teachers for whom it is ?esi~ne? Today, only scholarship teachers from the French Embassy In Nlgena who have undergone refresher training at the three centres located in Jos, Ibadan and Enugu are in possession of this important document. Learnin~ French outside ?f France involves various forms of language co~tact Interference. Alabl (2009: 133-163), provides an inventory of the points of language that causes errors and syntactic, semantic, phonetic and morphological deviations among Nigerian uRiversity learners of French as he identified them at the French Village in Nigeria. Among the structural problems identified, the most striking is the one caused by multiple registrat~onsof multidisciplinary courses complementary to French. He bases his fear on the fact that the majority of students who served as samples did not demonstrate a solid foundation in French thus adding to the issue of ethnic differentiation. It should be noted that all the problems of interference of languages searched to which. , suggestions have been made, persist among our students. It is either that the proposed solutions are not reliable or feasible, or that those for whom they are intended are not aware of them, or they just ignore them. The proof is that the majority of students in departments where French is taught in my establishment return from the VFN after an academic year with little or no improvement not only in their oral productions but also in writing. -20- 'I.' In his analysis of temporal errors due to contact with the French and Etsak<;>languages, Igbeneghu (2010:239-260) suggests that teachers take into account the data provided (3.0. and 4.0.) on the parametric divergences of the time of the two languages, especially with regard to the displacement of temporal constituents. He is of the opinion that this warning will allow teachers of French in a multilingual class to provide themselves with solutions to the anticipated problems. Similarly, Gandu (2011:176-208), focusing on 30 northern federal schools, examines phonic and graphic interferences among Hausa- speaking students learning French. She observes that the major pronunciation problems were isolated in students only in the production of vowels and semi-vowels in discrete groups, with issues with consonants being reflected only in syllabic groups. Yet, pronounced in isolation, none of the examined vowels and consonants caused articulation problems in native Hausa speakers (LNHAF). Nevertheless, LNHAFs face difficulties when articulating vowels into discrete units and sound sequences. She notes that English rather than Hausa is the root ofmajority of the problems of articulation of certain vowels and consonants in syllabic and discrete situations. Ebine and Houenon (2013:135-146) also observe similar issues in the articulation of French phones among Yoruba speakers. In their examinations of segmental and suprasegmental component problems, they isolate phonemes present in Yoruba but absent in French from those present in French but absent in Yoruba. To remedy this problem, Gandu (2011:1999-2001) suggests refresher courses in phonology and corrective phonetics focused on the major languages of Igbo, Hausa and Yoruba to teachers of French in secondary schools. The author also suggests increasing the time allocated to French on the timetable, since time insufficiency has also been identified as a cause of poor performance. Despite these observations and recommendations, the difficulties in .correctly articulating the French sounds are far from eliminated, not only among the LNHAF but also among Yoruba-speaking and Igbo-speaking -21- students. We testify to this phenomenon in the themes of university dissertation projects (Alaya, 2014; Omaghoni, 2015; Adebayo, 2015). The handicap engendered by assigning gender to nouns in French among Igbo-speaking leamers was the focus of Iteogu (2013:116-124). According to him, French has too many inconsistencies in its grammar, especially in the arbitrary assignment of gender to nouns. For him, since Igbo lacks gender attribution, the Igbo-speaking student is faced with linguistic practice contradictions that slow down their momentum for the French language after the first cycle of secondary school. This remark is not limited to the Igbo language because no major Nigerian language permits gender attribution to nouns (Alabi, 2009; Emordi, 2004). Although the teaching of French continues to face various challenges, most of which are solvable, French language proficiency in Nigeria has produced practical economic and social benefits. In these areas, we must mention the practice of translation and the integration of people from the subregion. This instance justifies the articles and communications published during the period covered by our presentation. Johnson (1999:81-85) points out that the art of translation is not only a- vocation for many French teachers but also something undertaken at conference centres in the country and especially for Pentecostal churches with branches in neighbouring French-speaking countries. To meet these expectations alongside her financial reporting obligations, the Department of European Languages of the University of Lagos finally incorporated, in 1991, the training of translators and interpreters into its programme. The Department acknowledges the contributions of the following individuals to the professionalisation of translation and interpretation in Nigeria: Wole Soyinka, Ekundayo Simpson, alga Simpson, John Olaoye Abioye, and Modupe Bode-Thomas. We also acknowledge the support of the French govemment, which initiated the translation programme in Okigwe/Uturu, and the Alliance Francaise for the degree programme in translation. -22- Let me report, however, that after three to four successful sessions, the translation/interpretation programme failed to attract as many students as had been expected. One constraint was the profeSSional status attached to the master's programme. On the contrary, centres such as the Alliance Francaise and the French Village in Nigeria, where non- university diplomas are granted, conti~ue to attr~ct large numbers of translators wishing to become profeSSionals.For over a decade, the Nigerian Institute of Translators and Interpreters (NITI), under the guidance of Professor Simpson Ekundayo, ha~ .brought to~et~er university teachers and professionals who have JOinedthe Nlgenan Association of Translators and Interpreters for annual .ref~esher programmes to fill the gap and respon~ to the needs and aspirations of clandestine practitioners of the profession. It is important to emphasise that the field of tra~slation/ interpretation (especially English/French or ~rench/E~gh~h) represent~ an administrative or professional vocation that IS Vital to the survival of Nigerian diplomacy on all international axe~. Obisakin.(2012:537.-547) shares his experience as a translator and Interpreter In the service of his country -for thirty years. He deployed his mas~ery of .European languages, including French, in seeking to unite regional and intercontinental governments in Nigeria fro~ 1981 to 2.010.Thus, the practice of translation and interpretation (Enghsh/Fren?h. or French/English) not only puts bread on the table for Nlgenan practitioners but also serves ~s a too~of diplomatic ascendancy for the people and their government internationally. Anglophones and francophones will never be able to underst.and~a~h other unless they create structures for true bilingual integration w~thln geographically homoqeneous comm~nities suc~ as ~heWest Afncan subregion or Africa in general. For Anole (2011. 264). In order for «... African countries to fully benefit from the blessings coming from suc.h an arrangement, French and English will be the two languages that Will serve as languages of communication and research.» -23- The linguistic threat vis-a-vis the teaching and practice of French is expressed by Obi~je and Adebisi (2012:240-256) when they question the state of teaching French and Chinese in Nigeria. They observed tha!. «... economic considerations are paramount, as they have facIlitated the pe~etration of Chinese in contemporary Nigeria.» It is shown that e~en I.fFrench remains unquestionably the second foreign ~anguageof Niqeria, the presenceof Chinese, which is anchored on the Internationaleconomic power of China, will take the centre stage if the actors and the partners of the promotion of French do not avoid complacency. Added. t~ this caveat ~sthis reality at the University of Lagos, where subscripton to the Chinese programme is rising at the expense of French. Faced with a weak presence of the French aut~orities in this university, the administrative authorities do not hide ~hel~p.referencefor aggressive Chinese linguistic domination in the institution.Among other things, China sponsors two of the four years of ou~ stu.dent~'Chinese bachelor's degree programme at a Chinese unlv~rslo/. Finally, the only preliminary year programme that supports studies In French has now been deemed unviable by the University (sessions2013/2014 and 2014/2015). The ph~no~en~ in th!s story vis-a-vis the practice and teaching of French In ~Igerra persist and continue to be the subject of discussion at academic conferences of associations of French teachers at all cycles of language training. The teaching of a foreign language is always . st~uctured o~ the precise objective of achieving communicativeness, with spoken proficiency being especially preferred. Regrettably, however, most Nigerian learners of French do not have access to contexts of oral communication.The communicative approac~, ~hich ~s.mostly suggested for French pedagogy, is ignored b~the Nlgenan ~Inlstry of Education. Most textbooks, usually designed wl!hout the assistance of the competent authorities responsible for pnmary and secondary establishments, only present mechanical formulae and lack audio-visual supporting material. Even when audio aids are provided,they are mostly not used for the benefit of the learner. Th~ end .sought by the teaching of French in Nigeria will only be achieved If all the actors unite the design a Frenchtextbook for all levels -24- of education and training in French. Key players such as the Nigeria Association of French Teachers and the University French Teachers' Association of Nigeria need to present a common front to advance strong arguments for the establishment of a state-sponsored workshop for the documentation and design of practical works that will motivate, in the short and long terms, learners and professionals to communicate in French. Moreover, as Owhotu (1999:38) has suggested, we believe that it is no longer a question of whether computers are desirable or useful but how to train teachers and students on using them, as well as what types of software and media will be most adaptable to the widest audience of learners as needed. Ejigbo and the French Language in Nigeria Ejigbo is a town in the western part of Nigeria where the majority of the inhabitants speak Yoruba. It is surrounded by other large Yoruba metropolises such as Iwo 35km northeast, Ogbomoso 30km north and 24km from Ede. It is also about 20 kilometres from Osogbo, the capital of Osun State. Ejigbo is the main town of·the Municipality of Ejigbo, which has about fifty other less-populated towns and villages. Its latitude is 71/20 North and its longitude is 41/20 East. It is populated by 95,881 inhabitants (2005 Census). Although Ejigbo is not close to any French-speaking town, the nearest French-speaking entity is Benin Republic, which is located more than 300km away. Ejigbo is a unique city in Nigeria for its linguistic situation. While Yoruba is the local language of Ejigbo, French serves as the second language of communication, even though English remains Nigeria's official language. . Brief History of the Establishment of the French According to the Ogiyan of Ejigbo, His Majesty King Omowunuola Oyeyode Oyesosin 11, in an interview we had with him on his farm at Ejigbo in 2004, the residents of Ejigbo are considered international citizens. The fact that French is spoken on the streets of Ejigbo as if it were a French-speaking city could be described as fortuitous. It is the -25- result of the efforts of a people who have benefited positively from the pole that has been extended to them. For over a century, the people of Ejigbo ~ave visited French-speaking countries. Over seven to eight generations went there, even though it wasn't of their own accord, but out of n~cessity. Initially, the population that emigrated from Ejigbo did not go directly to the Ivory Coast. First, they went to Dahomey (now the Republic of Benin) and then moved to Ghana, from where they moved to the Ivory Coast, where many Ejigbo indigenes have managed to thrive. Indeed, these immigrants were in search of more lenient skies to provide for their needs. When the first group arrived in a foreign land, they attracted their relatives there. This attraction was facilitated by wealth, good health and success to such an extent that every family would want their daughter to marry a native of Ejigbo residing in Ivory Co~st because the difference was clear. Looking closely at the city, one notices that the beautiful Brazilian-style houses were built by the residents of Ejigbo in Ivory Coast. ~rri~ing in French-speaking countries, especially Cote d'lvoire, these Immigrants needed to communicate with the local population and conduct business. This Ejigbo diaspora mainly uses Street French for communication. Nowadays, it is hard to find people in Ejigbo who speak ?nly English, as French is dominant there. Ejigbo people can be found In places such as Cotonou and Porto-Novo (also called Ajase) in the Republic of Benin, tome, Palimey, Lama-Kara and Atakpame in Togo, Ouagadougou and Bobo-Dioulasso in Burkina Faso, Bamako in Mali, Dakar in Senegal, Nouakchott in Mauritania, and even in Cameroon's Douala and Yaounde. In fact, they are likely to be found wherever :ren~h is spok~n, whether in Africa or Europe. This dual linguistic Identity makes It easy for people of Ejigbo origins to secure dual natio~ality in French-speaking countries. In Ivory Coast, for example, the Ejlgbo work as educational inspectors, health workers and town hall officers. The case of Togo is unique in that Ejigbo descendants who were born there before 1991 are fully integrated into the country's political, social and economic life, being full citizens. A case in point is the Tidjani twins. -26- While one served as a General in the Togolese Army and Minister of Defence under the late General Gnassingbe Eyadema (former Togolese Head of State who reigned for almost four decades), the other was the rector of the country's only federal university and is currently an economic advisor to the Togolese government. [The brothers bear the facial marks of the royal family of Ejigbo]. Similarly, the parents of the Togolese international footballer Emmanuel Adebayor, as ~ell as those of the Ivorian featherweight champion for 1989, Waby Spider, are also from Ejigbo. According to the Ogiyan, in the 1960s, Ivorian authorities estimate~ !he Nigerian population to be around 1.2 ~i~lion. Among .~he 1.2 million registered inhabitants, 800,000 were orlqinally from Ejlgbo. Aware of their massive presence on Ivorian soil, the Ejigbo w~nt so far as to choose in each city and town of Cote d'lvoire a community leader called "Oba" (king). As such, we have "Oba de Bouake", "Oba of Abobo", "Oba of Dabou" "Oba of Grand-Bassam", "Oba of Treichville" and so on. However, the "Oba of Adjame", a suburb of Abidjan, is recognised as the supreme authority of the Yoruba community in Ivory .Coas~.All the Ejigbo community leaders in Ivory Coast are ~nown to ~IS ~ajesty the King the Ogiyan of Ejigbo. Interestingly, there ISa street In Ejlgbo called 'Oba'Abidjan' and hardly does one find a Nigerian in Ivory Coast who identifies as hailing from Ibadan or Ogbomoso, as every Yoruba person in the country seems to prefer to claim Ejigbo origins. Indeed, Ivory Coast is more or less the second homeland of the Ejigbo. Writing his dissertation in 1972, Oba Omowonuol~ Oye~ode Oye~?sin 11 had titled it "The impact of the emigration of the inhabitants of Ejlg~o in Ivory Coast on Ejigbo". He noted that one of the consequences of thiS emigration was the construction of ultramodern church~s and mos~ues in Ejigbo town halls. In his memoirs, the Oba descn~ed t~e .Ejlgbo economy as thriving on "cash-back" savings because Ejlgbo Indlgene~ are not used to spending their money in their city, as most of their supplies come from the Ivory Coast. All o.f the church~~ and 53 mosques in the main town of Ejigbo were built by communities of the Ejigbo living in the Ivory Coast. They have branches in Ivory Coast, from -27- which the money and materials are sent home to reinvest in the developme~t.of thei~ city. The Ejigbo Central Mosque, built at a cost of over one blll~on ~al.ra, was the handiwork of the Ejigbo in the Ivory Coast: C~rtalnly, It IS hard to find any project that does not have the financial Input of the Ejigbo in the diaspora. It will interest us to know that there is a terminus in Ejigbo where buses and coaches to Abidjan cost less than in Lagos. T? obtain comparative results in our survey for this lecture, we chose different places of investigation such as shops, markets, places of cultural ceremonies, and bus stations. Sources of Ejigbo French Natural source: Adults, both men and women, aged 30 to over 70 have attested to the fact that they learned to speak French without having attended. forma! school. According to His Majesty: "". the need to communicate With the = population required the learning of a form of the French language In order to conduct their business. While the population of Ejigbo abroad does not speak standard French nevertheless, they do use Street French as a means of communication.': T.h.eyI.earned to ~peak French on the streets of large French-speaking c~tles In West Afnca. Once back in their native land, the citizens of the city ~se French to distinguish themselves from those who have remained b.ehind. In imitating the speech of the so-called 'Tegunde" (those coming from abroad), the inhabitants of the city came up with blended expressions such as: -~ibo 10 gb,e seau mi ~i ~~(Where did you move my bucket?) Instead of: Nlbo 10 gbe bucket ml SI I? (Equivalent of the French word seau), which would have been the speech of a typical English-speaking Yoruba person. -Pantalon re ti doti (your pants are dirty) instead of: "Trousers re ti doti." -~etit ttete, gbogbo i9.ba ti mo ba ti ri grand frere Saka, 0 ma n gene mi. (Little brother, every time I find myself in front of big brother Saka, I feel -28- embarrassed.) Instead of: "Junior, gbogbo lqba ti mo ba ti ri brother Saka, I am disturbed." Foreign source: Many school-age children were born abroad, especially in Cote d'lvoire, Togo and Benin. Some of their parents were victims of political and sociocultural unrest in 1958/1968 and the years after the death of President Felix Houphouet-Boigny in Cote d'lvoire, during which foreigners faced extreme xenophobia. Since then, Ejigbo parents have been sending their children home. No doubt, the Ejigbo welcome the "Tegunde" with open arms. There is also the category of children who come to Ejigbo to continue their primary education. There are two categories of these: i. those who have completed primary education in an English- speaking school in the Nigerian community up to primary five. Primary 6 is compulsory in Nigeria to allow access to the exams leading to the Nigerian primary school certificate. ii. those who have completed primary and or secondary education in a French-speaking lvorian school but have not had the opportunity to continue their studies at an advanced level. Those individuals were forced to continue their education in Nigeria. Ejigbo remains the home for these dropouts, the majority of whom are admitted to primary school there for English upgrade. Naturally, this group of children communicates with each other in French. According to 25-year-old Abass Lukman, one of our interviewees at the Ejigbo Saturday market, many residents speak good French because they came from Abidjan: i. Ici y ales beaucoup de gens qui par/ent fran~ais bien ; parce que les gens qui sont ici la i son beaucoup a Abidj an la-bas. Donc quand i vient quand i s'en va la et puis i revient ici pour nous exp/iquer et nous on parle fran~ais ensemble et puis on sort ensemble tout ~a la avec ... Bien sOr que oui, j'ai frequente la-bas ...j'ai frequente un peu la-bas et j e suis venu ici pour frequenter le reste ... -29- Schoo./:A~ a ~ch~ol subj~ct, French is compulsory in lower secondary education In Nlgena, despite the shortage of qualified French teachers This re~lity allows any high school student in the municipality of Ejigb~ t~ a~ulre a standard form of the French language. Thus, we observe a significant percentage of French teachers in Nigeria who come from the municipality of Ejigbo. Yet, the majority of advanced studies students from the municipality of Ejigbo do not offer French up to the bachelor's lev~!. The city needs. children who major in other disciplines for the political and ~c~nomlc advancement of the municipality of Ejigbo. Nonetheless, It IS rare not to have a national of Ejigbo in French Language departments at higher education institutions in Nigeria. Types of French Spoken Non-standard French: [DEFINE IT FIRST] Non-standard French may be spoken by people who may nevertheless be fluent in English or Yoruba. This raises the issue of a lack of respect for endogenous norms. One of the interviewees at the Ejigbo Saturday market reported thus: ~e m'appelle.Amina~uMudasir... oui je suis fait commer9ant la-bas. Je fats vs-vtens... Yale diminuation (diminution), qu~n~les sans (gens) dondandent (demandent) le credit-la... O~t,ses~pour les ,senfants(Ies enfants) pour ecole, ceux qui frequentes. 9a cest model nouvaute ( nouveau model) meme. C'est sporte; I sont ecrit sport la-dessus. Popula~ French in Abidjan (PFA): PFA is a 'pidgin' that differs from ~ren?h In terms of usage and grammar. According to Hattiger, PFA is Identified by three kinds of constructions: i. Forms and constructions that do not conform to the target language and also reveal phenomena of reduction in relation to it. ii. Forms and constructions that do not conform to the target language but do not reveal phenomena of reduction in relation to it. -30- iii. Shapes and constructions that conform to the target language. PFA reflects in the speech of city inhabitants. Regardless of the intellectual level, age or social class of the speaker, this speech form is quite common, especially among those who shuttle between both places, as in the following examples: i. . Si tu as ton I'arzan, tu vas faire au marche. (Avec ton argent en poche, tu pourras t'acheter des choses au rnarche.) H. On n'a pas troav« lui a la maisson. (11 n'etait pas chez lui.) Hi. Le chauffeur-la, on a ne lui devant moi. (Ce chauffeur est ne en ma presence.) iv. Moi, je roulejusqu'a zord'hui, zene jamais cogne quequ'in. (11y a longtemps que je suis chauffeur, je n'ai jamais eu d'accident.) v. Mon papa est ne beaucoup de zenfants a Abidj an labas. (Mon pere a mis beaucoup d'enfants au monde a Abidjan.) vi. Avant Abidjan c'etait mieux plus que maintenant hein! (Avant, il etait mieux a Abidjan qu'il est maintenant.) Nouchi (speech of young Abidjanese): Abidjan is the most frequently French-speaking city, hosting the majority of the Ejigbo economic migrants and settlers. The nouchi or speech of young Abidjanese is unique to Ejigbo inhabitants who have lived in the Ivory Coast. This speech form is marked by three types of borrowings: borrowings from Ivorian languages, borrowings from Western languages and borrowings from words from unknown sources. The expressions below were collected during our investigation: . i. lis I'ont momon au marche. (11 I'ont derobe au marche.) ii. Fais attention sinon iI va te daba.( Fais attention sinon il va te battre.) iii. 11parte dj ou (11 parte sans reflechir) iv. Les gens sont en train de gnangnan au terrain. (Les gens sont en train de se battre au terrain.) v. Je vais chez ma love ce soir. ( Je vais chez ma petite amie ce soir.) vi. La go est est une tsm. (La fille est tres jolie.) -31- vii. Ne me prends pas pour un gaou. Ne me prends pas pour un paysan/ imbecile.) Language Mix and Code Mixing (French + African language): This is the most frequent linguistic phenomenon among users of French in Ejigbo. Conversations are done either by alternating the structure of French with that of Yoruba to convey an opinion at the right point, or by mixing words or expressions from one or more African languages (including Yoruba) with French. The following interview with Pa Johnson (aged 80+) attests to this fact: ... itumo na ?Mo ni itumo na. On a bezon (besoin) aux enfants aui va fait cl /'eeole de Ejigbo. Aux enfants ont sont beaueoup. Y a pas de travail/er; ya pas de cl /'eeole. Tu vas monter ailleurs ou bienavant. A kan n bi won sile ni, ko si iranlowo latodo ij oba. 1. Social Status of the Speakers artisans ~ chauffeurs o ouwiers o cornmercants ~ eleves • craftsmen (having stayed in French-speaking countries) 15% • public bus drivers (local/international) 25% • workers (local/foreign) 10% • merchants (local/international) 30% • eleves (local ne a l'etranqer) 20% -32- 2. Communication Situations Favourable to French 1. Meeting of two knowledgeable speakers 80% 2. Exchange of secrets (e.g., at school) 10% 3. Reunion 40% 4. Sports / festive meetings 20% 5. Market day (every Saturday) 60% 3. Other Foreign Languages 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% I- II- I- ,Q) !- r:;-0!- I-- 2> ..•••• 1 flcol~ ),.- ,..., +-' ~~ 10 series11 I--- • Dioula (Ivory Coast) 60% • Ewe (Togo) 30% • Baoule (Ivory Coast) 30% • Fante (Ghana) 10% • Others (Mossi, Kabye, etc.) 10% -33- The statistical representations of the data on tables 1, 2 and 3 show different sociolinguistic situations in Ejigbo in relation to French. Table 5.1 shows that the vocations of those who use French on a daily basis are diverse. The majority of traders living in the city and those who "go wine" are (30%) followed by local and international professional drivers (25%). Local students who were born in a French-speaking country make up 20%. These are the true francophones of Ejigbo because they use French as if it were their mother tongue; Yoruba comes second, and English third in their interactions. Craftsmen with 15% take the fourth position ahead of workers, who are only 10%. If we consider the origin of the French speakers, according to our study, the establishment of French at Ejigbo was greatly influenced by exits outside Nigeria. Table 2 presents communication situations that promote the use of French in Ejigbo. If 80% is at the level of meetings with informed speakers, this is justified by the fact that French is only spoken by people who have a notion of the language, whether at school (10%), during sporting/festive meetings (20%) or at the market, where we have a large percentage (60%). Forty (40%) of reunions are at the level of random encounters at Ejigbo of people who know each other (either nationals of Ejigbo or visitors from neighbouring towns who have also stayed in a French-speaking country). The linguistic representation of Table 3 shows Ivorian influence in Ejigbo. Dioula, the lingua franca and commercial language of Ivory Coast and especially Abidjan, where a majority of Ejigbo indigenes in Ivory Coast reside, is spoken by 60% of respondents, in addition to 30% of Baoule. The presence of Ewe from Togo (30%), Fante from Ghana (10%), Mossi (Burkina Faso) and Kabye (Togo), etc., creates a situation of foreign multilingualism in Ejigbo. Because of its origins, Ejigbo has never been a French-speaking city but rather a Yoruba one where various Yoruba dialects (Oyo, Ife and Ijesa) are spoken. If French is spoken in Ejigbo, an English-speaking city, is due to the fact that a large population of the inhabitants of the city has spent a long time in French-speaking countries such as Cote -34- d'lvoire, Benin Republic, Togo, Mali, and Burkina Faso mainly for economic reasons. Based on social class variation, there are four varieties of French in Ejigbo, namely: non-standard French, popular French from Abidjan, slang French, and French alternated with Yoruba. Of c.ourse,Stand~rd French also exists, especially in the school setting and IS spoken mainly by children of Ejigbo who were born abroad and undertook high~r French studies. Outside of Ejigbo, such people use French as their patois or mother tongue. As for English usage in Ejigbo, it is r~served for purely educational, administrative and political activities. Ultimately, the dominant language of the city remains Yoruba, which is spoken by all residents, including Nigerians who do not have Yoruba as their mother tongue or first language. The language of the king's court is Yoruba, although code-mixing also occurs frequently among the chiefs, especially the mixing of Yoruba with an African language. Research may also focus on the structure of French spoken in Ejigbo. Street French in Cote d'lvoire, Togo and Benin As a potential powerhouse for the French language, Black Africa is a. source of hope for maintaining the status of French as an international language. Given that French is strongly linked to the image of France, recent political and economic events in French-speaking sub-Sa~aran Africa have been concerning. A typical scenario is the devaluation of the CFA franc without prior consultations with the leaders of countries using it. The "disengagement vis-a-vis the so-called countries of the field" for a reorientation towards Europe and, above all, towards Portuguese-speaking or English-speaking African countries h~s also worsened the situation. At the same time, difficulties are clted in obtaining visas for French-speaking African students and the expulsion at the end of the 1990s and the early 2000s of undocumented immigrants from France. However, thanks to the elite trained in France, the imported French language has become a dynamic and essential element for expressing African realities. -35- Nowadays, French-speaking intellectuals have been known to advocate the abandonment of French in favour of English. To materialise this threat, we cite the exodus of French-speaking African students to American universities. A large number of new French- speaking leaders who graduated from English-speaking or English- speaking universities have emerged. The leaders seem to prefer English and have been forging special ties with leaders of countries where English is either a native tongue or a foreign language,especially the United States of America and China. Today, dialectalised French is gaining more ground, posing the risk of impeding mutual intelligibility among users of different varieties of French. It is good that educational authorities in French-speaking African countries are already aware of this. And during conferences involving education officials from the continent, the major concern is usually how to implement quality teaching of the official language. It should be noted that the more French is spoken alongside African languages, the more variations will arise in all linguistic domains - pronunciation, morphology, syntax, vocabulary and semantics. It is possible that any educated local French speaker can make choices among varieties within their reach for communication purposes. However, people who have learned French only through contact and who know only the variety specific to their immediate environment are hardly in a position to make choices among the varieties of French spoken on African soil. A third group is that of urbanised young francophones. These speakers use slang varieties from the different local vehicular languages. Thanks to meetings and summits of the Francophonie aimed at improving the quality of French spoken outside France, some of the countrieswhere the risks of creolisationwere relativelyserious, such as Cote d'lvoire, the pastiche headings imitating the variety dialect have begun to disappear in newspapers (cf. Lafage, S. 1999:1-10). -36- Mode of acquisition of French in Toga, Benin and Ivory Coast According to the documents we have collected, we.ar~ able to clas.sify the French-speakingpopulation of the three countnes In our ~t~~y Into three categories, taking into account their mode of acqulsinon of French: 1 Those who speak French without ever having been to school.2: Those who have attended school up to a certain level - nursery/primary- secondary. 3: Those with secondary school education. We present the sources of acquisition of French among .the three categoriesof Frenchspeakers in the thr~e co~ntries~ystematically from the colonial era to the present day. Despite beingan Im~rted langua~e, French language in the three countries under this study ISn~t ~ foreign language. Considered as a second language, after the .lndlge~ous mother tongues, French plays a very important. role In nat~onal communication. This language has gradually occupied an undeniable place in daily practice (polit~cs, ad~~nistrati?n, .technical, ju~tice, commerce, etc.) and in the media (television, radlo, Cinema,magazines, newspapers, etc.). Theoretically, learning French is supposed to take place at school in.the three countries; however, even people without form~l e~ucatl~n, especially in urban areas, have also been known to acquire thiSoffiCial language, thanks to direct contact with competent speakers of Fr~~ch. For this category of people, French may rank third or fourth position, depending on the order of their linguistic acquisition. In the three countries under study, French was not established in the same way or during the same historical period. T~er~ were periods of French/German colonisation of the mandated territories followed by a return to French, as in the case of Togo. The linguistic proble,:,s a~d conflicts of the three countries have never been the same. Despite thiS fact, the French spoken in Cote d'lvoire, Togo and Benin attests t? convergencesvis-a-vis the large number of African languages and their diversity. According to Lafage, S. (op. cit: 2): -37- ... le fran9ais pant;;en Afrique noire peut attester des traits de convergences remarquables (certaines specificites lexicales ou morphosyntaxiques, d'ailleurs plus souvent imputable au fran9ais lui-meme et cl son mode d'acquisition ou cl des facteurs d'ordre socio sementicue« qU'cl des problemes d'interferences avec les parleurs locaux). It is obvious in the three countries that the sociolinguistic situation is so different from on~ country to another that national characteristics typify the oral production of French, such that we can easily identify a speaker's nationality. However, for the fairly schooled and the educated, spoken French is closer to the exogenous norm. From the independence in the 1950s through the 1960s, teaching was conducted in two ways: in French and the African language. In Ivory Coast, the language of instruction is purely French. In Togo and Benin, we see instructional bilingualism at school. African languages and ~ren~h. a~e used mainly in primary school. Thus, we can explain the lingUistic Interferences in the communications of Togolese or Beninese vis-a-vis French. Thanks to this education, which is democratised and sufficiently financed by the state, national teachers have been trained and sent to all corners of the countries concerned. By replacing French cooperators with national teachers - the fruits of Africanised programmes-the teaching of French has been endogenised. The economic and sociopolitical crises of the 1980s contributed to creating a critical situation in the teaching and learning of French in schools in French-speaking African countries. Considering themselves neglected by France in the face of socioeconomic problems, countries such as Togo, Benin and Cote d'lvoire started to aspire for more democracy. Thus, the period 1985-1998 increased the diffusion of Fr~nch while weakening its normative quality. In a way, there is a reinforcement of differentiating endogenous standards to the detriment of the imported academic standard. -38- In the early 1990s, with the advent of multiparty politics, there was an astonishing proliferation of local press in the three countries under study. Newspapers of all persuasions multiplied in order, at first, to propagate the ideologies of the nascent parties. The birth of the freedom of tone of a very relaxed French language is: ... plus semblable au mesolecte oral (de norme endogene) voire parfois aux varietes locales basilectales plus on moins pastichees, ... qu'au fran9ais cl tendance normative des publications officielles anterieures (Lafage, S (op. cit. :4). It also greatly contributed to the dissemination of Street French outside the big cities, which had, until then, been one of the sources of relaxed French. The group of new newspaper editors, made up of less professional and less knowledgeable journalists, played a significant role in pidginising French in French-speaking West Africa. The frequent disruption of schooling by teachers' strikes at all levels led to the white years. Normal school years became rare in all the countries in our study from the end of the 1980s and through the 1990s. Graduate unemployment since the 1980s has aggravated this problem. These phenomena have slowed the momentum towards instruction in French in favour, in certain Islamised regions, of Koranic schools. As a result, there has been a very significant decline in schooling, especially at the primary level. Some parents of students have been neglected in two ways by the French system of schooling for their children, that is, in the continuity of school attendance and the lack of opportunities to use their French studies diploma. Thus, Lafage, S. (op. cit.: 4) sums up the thinking of these French-speaking parents by observing: Le dogme de la toute-puissance du diplome, facteur de la promotion sociale, s'est effrite et la population s'interroge sur I'excellence de la formation par une ecole des Blancs qui semble couper I'enfant africain de ses racines et le rendre, s'iI y a descolarisation, cl la fois inapte cl se reinserer -39- dans son milieu rural traditionnel d'origine ... Large commercial cities such as Lome, Cotonou and Abidjan have witnessed the rural exodus of a large population of school dropouts from primary and secondary school. For these school dropouts, who speak various untaught mother tongues, contacts in the street are only made in various varieties of urban French. Thus, the streets of the major commercial cities of French-speaking countries have become the most favourable places for learning both vehicular and Street French. The Street, as Tschiggfrey (1994:14) said, is also: ... le lieu de rencontre privi/egie desjeunes desreuvres qui, comme dans toute societe, ont elabore un code crypte permettant la reconnaissance a l'interieur du groupe et la distinction par rapport au reste du monde. . . Furthermore, N'Guessan, J. K (1990:53) explains the acquisition of Street French thus: On sail en particulier que le fran9ais populaire ivoirien (FP~ le fran9ais de Moussa est, du point de vue sociolinguistique, un pidgin ne de I'effort d'appropriation de la langue fran9aise...par des populations peu ou pas lettrees. Des interferences de toutes natures (phonetique, morphologique, lexicale, syntaxique, semantique), issues des langues nationales, se retrouvent fatalement dans le (FPI), mais aussi dans le fran9ais standard. A cross-breeding of experience, especially of the types of vehicular French from tome, Abidjan and Cotonou, leads to an expansion of slang French specific to West Africa. Within this French, we find some words coming from Beninese, Togolese and, more often, Ivorian particularities. As we found in the course of our research, words are often modified, truncated, associated with elements of another language, derived, compounded or changed in meaning by metaphor or metonymy: -40- Je vais te daba (big mouth daba in Bambara) means in French: I'm going to beat you. Un nouchi (moustache in Bambara) to designate a young delinquent. Digaules in Benin: tall men are sometimes called digaules (this word is the deformation of the name of General de Gaulle, former President of the French Republic, who was renowned for his tallness). Mi-to-rank means get in line. It is also the deformation of the name of President Francois Mitterrand. Regarde-moi ce gbevu (gbevu means little thug in Mina). 11 .a une rnaniere de kplamasse (in Mina, kplama-education, mass-listening), but in this context, kplamasse means bad student. (From personal sources) Particular and very productive phenomena in West African French The relevant phenomena we now address are quite productive in the forms and functions of French in francophone West Africa. Among others, these phenomena include: borrowing, code switching, syntagmatic economy, paradigmatic economy, phonotico-phonological deformation, and semantic deformation. We will now define the terms and other notions that are semantically variant but associated with them. a} b} c} d} e} f) . Borrowing is also called xenism, which is a term applied to a foreign word that designates an unknown or very particular reality and whose use is necessarily accompanied by an explanatory metalinguistic mark at the bottom of the page of a written text (Louis Guilbert 1975:285). Borrowing uses derivation and composition to extract from the word its own meaning, the understanding of which depends on the reader's sociocultural environment. In other words, it strictly conforms to a French morphosyntactic model. For example, the word dibiterie, formed from the Wolof radical dibi, which means meat and the French suffix - erie, means the place where dibi is sold and prepared. The word -41- dibiterie is frequently used by merchants of Senegalese origin residing in the major cities of the countries under study. They mainly use it among themselves, nationals of the same country. French, which can hardly play the role of an African language, is coloured and enriched by contact with African realities. From this, it borrows the needed words from African languages. The daba, the cora and the anango are as familiar and indispensable to a West African francophone as the plough, the accordion and the tie to a Frenchman. This is how Senghor describes the situation: Quand nous disons koras, balafons, tam-tam, et non harpes, pianos, et tambours, nous n'entendons pas faire pittoresque: nous appelons "un chat un chat". Nous ecttvons, d'abord, j e ne dis pas seulement, pour les Franyais d'Afrique et, si les Franyais de France y trouvent du pittoresque, nous serons pres de le regretter. Le message, I'image n'est pas la, elle est dans la simple denomination des choses. (Senghor L. S., 1962). Generally, borrowings follow the rules of French syntax, which is not modified by this massive contribution of new elements. This notion does not spare borrowings from African languages. Here, the French markings for gender and number are used, such as for the following words: une "daba" des "dabas" - (agricultural implement) une "sitou" des "sitous" - (stick with teeth) une "hilaire" des "hilaires" - (tillage implement) un "navetane" des "navetanes" - (agricultural worker) une "cebette" des "cebettes"- (small edible mollusk) (cf. Dumont, 1995: 29). Our research on the French spoken by francophones in West Africa has led us to observe phenomena of appropriation of French by francophones. Borrowing is an integral part of this appropriation. The borrowed elements highlight here reflect all the historical, cultural and sociolinguistic situations specific to the countries under study. -42- Nevertheless, some realities presented here are inher~nt ~o the linguistic situation of other non-French-speaking countries In the subregion. There are, thus, borrowings that come from.the cont~ct of French with Portuguese, Spanish, English, and African vehicular languages. Borrowings from Portuguese . The first European evangelists to have travelled along the West ~frlcan coasts were probably the Portuguese from the 15th century. DUringthe slave trade, they became the local chefs'.best customers and partners. They were followed by Brazilian traders In the 18th c~ntury. Thus,.the first European language that came into contact ~Ith West Afncan languages was Portuguese. Portuguese exp~esslons entered the lexicon of local languages, which were later modified and transfe.rredto French - the language of the last master coloniser of Tog~, Be.mn,and the Ivory Coast. Portuguese traces in local French, especially In Togo, include the following: . • apatam derived from patamar-perro~, lig~t construction consisting of a roof made of palm leaves: In Benin, the word also designates the level of intermediate course or preparatory ~~. . rtit'secci - hurdles made up of palm leaves woven Into p~ Ions. bourbouille derived from borbulha - skin irritation leading to small red pimples. recade derived from recados -messenger. caberer derived from cabeceiro - leader or strong man. T~ese words are deeply embedded in the French of ~est Afncan speakerswho identify them as part of the French lexicon. InTo~o, some of the Portuguese words have undergone a.t~ansfor~atlon or deformation either by derivation or by composition specific to the Togolese. • • • • Therefore, we have words such as: • apatam- apatamer = build an apatam. • recade - rscadere = send a message (cf. Anzorge 1997:239). -43- Borrowings from Spanish Contact between Spanish and French in West Africa was not as widespread as that of other European languages. Nevertheless, borrowings from Spanish are likely part of the travel words borrowed from Amerindian or African languages. It is also obvious that these borrowings result from the fact that Spanish is taught in colleges and high schools as a living language" (LV2). Thus, we have, among others, words such as: • dengue derived from denguero - epidemic disease. • ganga (sandgrouse) - bird with reddish plumage barred with black. • calada - dry cake made from coconut. Borrowings from English In the 19th century, descendants of slaves from Latin America settled in the coastal parts of the Gulf of Benin - the present-day Togo and Benin. However, before this period, - starting from 1662, English traders left Jamestown (now Accra) and spread throughout the Gulf of Benin. They were followed by Anglican missionaries who introduced education in English around 1847. It should be noted that, in Togo from 1897 to 1914, Catholic schools preferred to provide lessons in English despite the presence of the German administration. Today in Togo, the influence of English is even more present in local French than in German. In addition, Cote d'lvoire, Togo and Benin have English- speaking neighbours - Cote d'lvoire sits between Liberia to the southwest and Ghana to the east, while Togo has Ghana to the east. West Benin shares its eastern border with Nigeria. The influence of English in the three major cities under study - Abidjan, Lome, and Cotonou - is quite significant. The reasons are simple: a) The movement of border populations to English-speaking towns occurs mostly in a matter of minutes, especially from Lorne to Aflao in Ghana, from Elubo to Nee - the border towns between Ghana and Cote d'lvoire in the south-west, and from Cotonou to Badagry in Nigeria. b) Since the colonial era, English has been a compulsory subject in middle schools and high schools in French-speaking West Africa. We note that some French-speaking managers have an -44- impeccable command of English across all professions combined. Borrowings from English cover not only Standard English but also pidginised English.The majority of English loanwords are shared by the three countries under study. Nevertheless, some borrowings from English are localised. While we intend to further elaborate on localised borrowings in our final work, we cite the following examples for now: Mamiwata de mummy and water- goddess of the sea {an African belief), goalier de goal and the French suffix -ier, which means goalkeeper. fansi de fancy (phonetic integration) to designate a cotton fabric inferior to Dutch waxes or English waxes. fabric wax, loincloth wax - formed from the English word wax and French terms. • Shoemaker - shoeshiner (semantic integration). Usually, shoe - shoe, maker - fabricator = shoemaker or cobbler. Tchaler - Charlie - proper name becomes a common name. kili - kill or crush (to kill in English) Bizi - from business. These words have all undergone phonological alterations. The loanwords below are used by school speakers as they appear in the media, textbooks and official instructions: concert - party - form of popular theatre self-help - collective work policy pick-up - small truck for collecting luggage or goods washman - launderer master - monsieur, borrowed from Ghanaian travellers (West African francophones call all Ghanaian workers master) king-size - name given to filter-tipped cigarettes (frequent use of the word has made it synonymous with all filter-tipped cigarettes). Passenger loans Apart from the presence of elements of European or American -45- languages in West African French, there are also borrowings from non- local African languages in the French of each country under study. It is mainly borrowings that are integrated into French either by the displacement of African populations within French-speaking Africa or by the displacement of the French themselves during the period of colonisation. Indeed, borrowings are noted from languages such as Arabic, Bantu, Ewe, Manding, Wolof, Mina, Fon, etc. Here are some examples with their derivation sources: • Samara or Sambara borrowed from Arabic - sort of bare shoe - leather or plastic foot. • Bamgala or mangala, borrowed from Bantu - a word designating the male sex (especially the penis). • tchoukoutou, abbreviated as tchouk - derived from Kabye - local beer made from fermented millet in Togo. In Cote d'lvoire it is called koutoukou (kutuku). • condi - from Kabye - means initiation. t# • aller au condi - a compound form - go to condi - go to be initiated. (From personal sources) The majority of borrowings from travellers are included in the reference texts of school textbooks produced by African authors from the countries under study. Thus, uninformed local speakers consider these types of loanwords to be French words, especially when they are used outside of their sources of derivation. gbaseur - herbalist Zernidian - from Fon which means take me suddenly or quickly. In French, this term designates a commercial motorcycle. zem designates a commercial motorcycle driver oleya - from Mina, the equivalent of Zemidj an abroni - from Twi meaning second-hand clothes, second-hand clothes seller or thrift store kente - from Ashanti, designating loincloth made up of narrow woven and very colourful bands. Twi and Ashanti are Ghanaian languages. sodabi - from Fon, life water (local brandy). chapalot [Uapalo] -local alcoholic drink made from millet or corn - disputed origin - no longer used in Togo and Benin. • fonio - millet • metee or neri - kind of tree • magnan - from man'ya - kind of ant • aba - sort of hoe • macou - silence • gbass - from dioula baasi - medicine gbasser-toinfluence• • • • • • • • • -46- The use of borrowings is not a choice of language but a deliberate decision on the part of speakers who want to distinguish themselves from others. We see it, like other French-speaking researchers who work on the inventory of the lexical particularities of French in Black Africa, as a new appropriation of French. these words are borrowed from Mandingo derivatives of gbass Code switching Code switching is a very productive trend in oral French among the speech categories. When two or more French speakers from the same linguistic source engage in conversation, they display a tendency to drive home certain points using words from their dialects. This linguistic cross-breeding often manifests itself in less formal communication situations (cf. Wenezoui-Dechamps, 1995). In essence, code switching originates from Anglo-Saxon terms coined by E. Haugen (1956) such as code switching, code mixing and code changing. In the translation of Discourse Strategies by Gumperz, these terms are translated as "code alternation", "alternation of codes" (Hamers and Blanc), "alternation of languages" (Gardner-Chloros), and linguistic cross-breeding (Sesep N'sial). Today, the term "code switching" is favoured by sociolinguists to explain the phenomenon of "mixed speech". -47- Example: Instead of saying: tu vas partager I'argent en parts egales. peo?le ~r~fer to say: tu vas partager I'argent tcMtcM. Tchetche ,In baou!e (from the Akan dialect of Cote d'lvoire) means « a parts egales », Thus, ~limination of the discourse code depends on the alternatives of co"~ctlve representation and the strategy assumed or imputed to the subject (ct. Alexandre Duchene, 1999). Nevert~eless, lingUists like .Ba~lon confuse "linguistic interference with borrowln.g fro~ code sWitching or mixed speech. However the explanation glv~n by G.ardner-Chloros (1983:27-28), quoted by Alexandre Duchene (op. c1t.:9), makes it possible to distinguish these phenomena, when she notes: . .... dans I'interference et I'emprunt la distance entre les deu~ langues ~enda et;,eabolie, ce qui n'est par le cas dans ~ediscoun; miae. ... I mterference et I'integration sont des mstances d~ nivellement ou de rapprochement des deux c?d~s tandls que dans le code-switching, le caractere dls~mc~des deux codes est preserve [. ..] On parle de code- sWltch/~g da~s la situation ou des locuteurs bilingues qui ~?urralent tslre con verger leurs deux langues - puisque I mterlocuteur pette aussi les deux langues en question - ne le font pas, au moms su-dele de certaines limites. Ac?ording to M. Wenez?ui-Dechamps, M. (1987:2), the meeting of Afncan languages (L1) with French (L2) gives rise to another language (L3) due to th~ phenomenon of mixed discourse. According to her, in the Fre~ch/Afncan language mix, French words are not integrated and at any tlm~. She also notes that in this croSS-breeding, there is either an .alternatlon of utterances or fragments of utterances in French and Afncan languages o.rutterances in which French words are present and bear the morphological marks of African languages. Thus, she notes: -48- Tout est fait pour que les termes franc;ais soient reconnus comme tels : les verbes modaux sont ainsi flechis en fran~ais ... les deux tiers des enonces mixtes commencent par un mot fran~ais ; il s'agit le plus souvent de terrnes servant a introduire le discours qui permet d'adapter le message a la situation d'enonciation. In this phenomenon, French has equivalent words but they are not used, and it therefore seems to establish a complementarity. Here, the message is constructed in French through an application of the grammatical rules of the language, but it is updated and stated with reference to African languages. According to Duchene, A. (op.cit:10): ... /'alternance de code pe ut intervenir de maniere « fluide » c'est-a-dire sans penser, sans hesitation, mais le plus sou vent if est tevoas« par certains facteurs d'ordre stylistique ... , comme des exclamations, des questions, des hesitations, des explications, etc. procedes auxquels if faudrait aj outer le « tag-switching », c'est-a-dire /'emploi d'expressions comme « n'est-ce pas? alors, ... bon, mais, et puis» etc. Sociolinguists recognise that code switching is clearly categorisable within a sociocultural context. This phenomenon is the prerogative of bilinguals who have a good knowledge of French and use it every day and at any time in different communication. These bilinguals, either students or civil servants, alternate African languages with French on all occasions of daily communication between peers with the same L1, in addition to French. Here is an interaction between two Yoruba speakers from Cotonou discussing the economic impact of the closure of the Nigeria-Benin borders in 1984 by the regime of General Buhari: « Tu sais, aWQn Nigerians wQn kef ronu meme pe awa kan n souffrir ti w6n M ti bOda won. A une provocation politique wQn a ti bQda wQn. Or, ti Qja koba wa lat'ek6, econorniquement gbogbo Beninois 16n j e i'ya re, surtout awa Aj ase .. ». -49- Traduction francaise : Tu sais, les Nigerians (le gouvemement nigerian) ne savent pas qu'en fermant leurs frontieres ce sont les Beninois qui en souffrent. A une provocation politique, ils ferment leurs frontieres. Or, lorsque des marchandises ne viennentpas de Lagos economiquement par/ant, tous les Beninois en souffrent, surtout nous les Porto-Noviens (ville et la capitale politique du Benin). Just imagine, the Nigerians (the Nigerian government) do not realise that by closing their borders, it is the Beninese who suffer. With a little political provocation, they close their borders. However, when goods no longer come from Lagos, economically speaking, all Beninese suffer, especially those of us Porto Novians (Porto-Novo is the political capital of the Benin Republic). This type of mixed discourse is what Wenezoui-Dechamps, M. (op. cit.) calls L3 des francophones Africains. Thus, for each francophone in Abidjan, tome and Cotonou, we have: Franc-Yorou, Franc-Baoule, Franc-Dioula, Franc-Beta, Franc-Fon, Franc-Kablye, Franc- Mina, etc., because the nationals of each country under study are found in these major cities. This phenomenon is often amplified by French-speaking West African musicians. Their type of song in mixed languages work as a model for young people who have only a limited knowledge of French. Morphosyntactic deformation Some French words are distorted in Street French. This gives rise to new usages and meanings. Using a mechanism of reciprocal borrowings (from French and one of the African languages in contact), the French language integrates into its local variety lexemes of its own particularities, endowed with altered signifiers by their passages into the borrowing language. In the foflowing statement: « Vous deux-la! Quechia ? Et puis vous etes en train de vous gnagna. -50- (Pourquoi vous vous battez tous les deux ?) (Why are you two fighting?) . . a) Quechia is the deformation of qu'est-ce qu'l y a? But In this context it means pourquoi. . b) Gnagna is a word whose origin we do not know, but which has the meaning of fighting in this context. Semantic deformation This phenomenon is due to the issues of ~pying words and expressions from the African mother tongu~, which w.e now ~II L1, which are transposed into French (L2). This results In confusion of meaning in the use of lexical units in L~. T~e use of. wor~s and expressions thus copied apparently remains In conformity with the standard of French, but the problem is that a native speakerwould not be able to attribute to it the same meaning or the same meaning ~s that of the transmitter. This phenomenon disrupts mutual understanding. In the following statement: « 11disait a ses families qu'il voyagerait demain ». "Famille" has the meaning of "parents", which is not necessarily "dad and mama". Explaining this phenomenon, N'Guessan J.K. (1999:17) states: Des termes du lexique franqais soit se sont enrichi~ ~'un sens nouveau plus ou moins derive de leur sens ongmel, soit sont employes avec des acceptions nouve/~es en rupture avec leur sens premier sous la press/On: du vocabulaire de Lg1. He goes on to make it clear that .. ,une phrase construite a partir des mots et expressions issus de ces mutations reste en general acceptable, sur le plan grammatical s'entend. Nous nous lui donnons souvent -51- un sens qui n'est pas celui que voulait exprimer ... (1)'e/fwe. We will limit our examples in this work to cases where the sphere of use of a lexeme in L1 includes severallexemes in L2. Let's see the following statements: i. avec mon poste de radio, je peux comprendre les nouvelles. ii. le petit poste de radio ... me fait entendre toutes les affaires qui se passent. iii. je prefere le petit poste de radio pour comprendre les musiques. In: i. Understanding is used instead of listening. ii. Hearing is used instead of learning. iii. Understanding is used instead of listening. These cases of lexical confusion result from the semantic area covered by the French words: to understand, to hear, to listen, to learn to that of the Baoule verb ti, which can, depending on the context, mean to inform, to listen, to learn, to understand, to hear, and as well the Yoruba verb gbO, which depending on the context, can mean to listen, to hear, to understand. Other instances of semantic confusion are: 1. J'ai demande la route. - J'ai demande a partir. 2. Est-ce que mes irete« sont la ? - Est-ce que mes freres sont en bonne sante ? 3. La ou i e suis - Quand a moi. 4. Le petit poste n'a pas encore dure. - Le petit poste ne s'est pas encore use. 5. J'ai dura un mois a I'hOpital. - Je suis reste (pendant) un mois a l'hOpital. 6. Tu dures trop sur ce travail- Tu traines (mets trop de temps sur) ce travail. -52- Syntagmatic economy . The words are not only defined and illustrated but are also used In simple and complex statements. In this example, Give th~ bana.na, t~e three words give, the, and banana, contract a syntaqrnatic relationship (F. de Saussure). Syntagmatic economy, also known as the la~ of le~st effort, leads to phenomena of semantic change that make It possible to s~eak and understand at a lower cost. Instead of asking for a glass of whiskey, we would just say a whiskey. Similarly, the name M.etro, which is an abbreviation of the adjective metropolitan, now desiqnates any ~rban railway, especially underground. The designation. M~tro se~antlcally takes over the expression metropolitan railway, which ISconsidered too long (cf. Baylon 1995:101-212). Thus, we speak of syntagmatic economy when we use fewer words or phonemes where we could use more. Examples of syntagmatic economy abound in Street French or West African French. For the purposes of the present work, we cite the following examples: . i. Kouadio often yeye in front of his friends. (Kouadlo often dresses like European artists). ii. The "toubabou" of the house will soon accuse us (toubabou, a Malinke word for Europeans). In this context "the toubabou" means the man or woman behaving in a refined or civilised manner, who puts things in the required order. Hi. La go a momo mon pia. (The girl stole my money.) The go means the girl (fille); momo (voler) means to steal; pia (argent) means money. These words underlined in (Hi) are neither French nor any of the African languages in direct contact with French; th~y are slan~ from the street language of the capitals of French West African countries. -53- Paradigmatic economy According to C. Baylon (op. cit.101-212), the words of any language maintain between them paradigmatic relations. These relationships mainly determine the choice of words that users make when expressing themselves. The user makes the choice between a group of words of which only one is actualised in different segments of statements. For example, in «une femme belle», «une femme laide» (a beautiful woman", "an ugly woman"); it is quite obvious to users of French that beautiful is the opposite of ugly. Thus, beautiful is in a paradigmatic relationship with ugly. Bra mogo in Dioula means at home and by extension - brother. ii. 'frere, pas gue le wari comme (fa.. ." (Brother, share the money fairly). Here, the paradigmatic econo