Chapter published in:
The Social Dynamics of Pronominal Systems: A comparative approach
Edited by Paul Bouissac
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 304] 2019
► pp. 133–150

Forms and functions of French personal pronouns in social interactions and literary texts

| University of Toronto
The morphology and grammatical functions of French personal pronouns are first introduced with reference to their Latin origin in the context of the Indo-European language family. Considering that the forms of personal pronouns are necessarily grounded in the preliterate emergence of language and that the metalinguistic characterization of their grammatical functions glosses over their signalling values as spatial or territorial markers, this chapter endeavours to probe the ways in which these pronouns not only reflect but also, more importantly create or enforce social structures in learning and acculturation processes. From this point of view, personal pronouns in their contexts of use can be considered as speech acts in as much as they create equality of status, intimacy, bonding, or dominance, and can transform any of these kinds of relations into one another. Evidence is drawn from personal experience in the form of revealing anecdotes and from the use of the social and interpersonal power of pronouns in literary texts that purport to portray face-to-face and epistolary interactions.
Keywords: personal pronouns in French, semiotics and pragmatics of pronouns, speech acts, social monitoring, cultural revolution, literary creativity
Published online: 23 July 2019
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.304.06bou
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