“Life Languages” of the Francophone and Germanophone Diaspora: Preserving Louisiana French and Pennsylvania German through Written and Non-Written Life Narratives

Abstract

In recent years, there has been increased interest in the multilingual cultural production of creators in the United States (cf. Li and Wen, 2015; Rim, 2009), particularly in the context of increasing discrimination against multilingual agents in the nation from members of the public (cf. Acevedo, 2019; Díez, 2019), from English-only movements (Barker et al., 2001; Schildkraut, 2003) and from public figures (CNN, 2015). However, while research in some areas of multicultural and multilingual identity continues to grow (cf. Li and Wen, 2015; Rim,
2009), there remains little focus on the French- and German-speaking communities that reside
there, despite the long heritage of these groups (cf. Ancelet, 1994; Louden, 2016; Rabalais, 2017, 2021).

This means that there is little understanding of the way in which the French and German languages are used in the United States and how these communities have preserved their unique
identity as Francophones and Germanophones in a predominately Anglophone country, nor is there much information on how members have signalled their belonging to said community through life narratives.

This thesis seeks to bring attention to the methods of depicting life used by these communities, with a focus on the way in which the languages spoken by these communities – namely Louisiana French and Pennsylvania German – are utilised, both in their written forms and in conjunction with non-written forms of narrative, as a method of linguistic and cultural preservation. Using life writing theory (Lejeune, 1989; Smith and Watson) and theories on cultural and linguistic metissage (cf. Bakhtin, 1981; Bradley, 2019; Glissant, 1989), this thesis problematises the concept of “life writing” informed by biopolitical theory (e.g. Agamben, 1998; 1975, 1997, 2004; Puumeister, 2009) with the aim of determining the effectiveness of writing as a means of portraying and preserving ‘life’ for these communities (e.g. Romaine, 2008).