The overall objective of the project ExpressioNarration is to explore the relationship between orality and temporality in Occitan and French narratives. Although the use in oral narrative of temporal features such as tense (especially tense switching), connectors (linking elements such as puis, alors etc.) and frames (initial adverbials that have scope over a chunk of discourse) has been explored to quite a wide extent in some major languages such as French, there is very little research in this domain in minoritized languages. This is the case despite the fact that it is precisely in these languages that an oral tradition is often found and where therefore, phenomena such as tense usage, connectives and frames might prove to be particularly revealing in relation to the concept of orality. One of the reasons for this lack of research is the lack of suitable oral corpora in minoritized languages, especially those that are transcribed and digitised for contemporary research.
The key academic aims of this project are:
(I) to create, digitise and annotate a new and unique corpus of Occitan, with sub-corpora representing different degrees of orality, which can be used not only for the analysis of temporality in ExpressioNarration but also for other scholarly projects in oral literature, folklore or anthropology.
(2) to analyse tense usage, connectives and frames across the sub-corpora and in a corpus of French, looking at the influence of sources (e.g. published texts or oral tradition) and of performance context (natural performance as part of an oral tradition or a more staged performance in front of an audience).
(3) to make an innovative theoretical contribution to debates around the concept of 'orality', moving beyond any notions of a binary 'oral-written' divide and considering the complexities of different degrees of orality and their impact on language use.
The project also aims to publicise the importance of minoritized languages as part of our shared European cultural heritage through a series of public-facing events in France and Ireland. Although Occitan is at the centre of these events, we aim also to raise the profile of other European minoritized languages with the public, including Irish, Ulster Scots, Catalan and Breton.
Finally, the project aims, through an extensive programme of mentoring, training and research practice, to put the Marie Curie Fellow in the strongest possible position to obtain a permanent academic post.
