Summary (Opinions and attitudes of the Abidjan population to vaccination against Covid-19)

Abstract:Qualitative analysis of the psychosociological determinants of the choice of form of delinquency by young people in Côte d'Ivoire: The case of the cybercriminal (brouteur) and the child in conflict with the law (microbe)

Amegnan Lydie Kone§

Saga Bernard Loba

&

Logon Albert Thierry Djako

Abstract: This study analyzes the psychosociological determinants of the choice of delinquency type among children in conflict with the law (microbes) and cybercriminals (grazers). The research is qualitative. We interviewed a microbe and a cybercriminal. These subjects were subjected to a semi-directed interview. Their comments were analyzed using content analysis. The subjects were questioned about their socio-economic background, personality, peer influence or gang membership, drug addiction, use of mystical practices, and offences and crimes committed. The results show that personality is the most important factor in determining whether or not to become involved in delinquency, and which form of delinquency to choose.

Keywords : offender, microbe, cybercriminal.

Abstract: This study analyzes the psychological determinants of the choice of the type of delinquency by children in conflict with the law (microbe) and cybercriminals (grazers). This research is qualitative. We interviewed a microbe and a cybercriminal. These subjects were subjected to a semi-structured interview. Their words are exploited using content analysis. Subjects were interviewed for their socio-economic background, personality, peer influence or gang membership, drug addiction, use of mystical practices, misdemeanors and crimes committed. An examination of the results shows that the personality is the prominent factor, determining the shift into delinquency and the choice of the form of delinquency.

Keywords: Delinquent, Microbe, Cybercriminal.

Introduction

The world is changing. New discoveries are being made in various scientific fields: medicine, information technology, communication, psychology... As in these fields, we are confronted with new types of fashions, illnesses, ailments, delinquency or offenses punishable by law, aggressive and damaging activities legally repressed (Doron et al.).

In recent years, new types of delinquents have emerged in Côte d'Ivoire. These include "grazers" and "microbes". What they have in common is the practice of theft. But they differ in the methods they use to achieve their ends. Some use cunning, lies and computer tools. Others resort to violence, using bladed weapons. This study aims to identify the psychosociological determinants of the choice of one or other of these two forms of delinquency.

The emergence of juvenile delinquency in Africa can be traced back to the post-independence era. Depending on the era, the culture and the values promoted in society, delinquency takes on a variety of forms. Mucchieli poses three problems in this regard. According to Mucchieli, as the law is constantly evolving, certain behaviors cease to be criminalized, while others become so. Delinquency is made up of all the transgressions defined by criminal law, known and pursued by those involved in social control. 

An article published by eburnienews.net states:

In Europe and the Americas, the phenomenon of youth gangs is rampant. In France, 6 people were killed and 252 injured in 2011. This is the result of the growing activism of violent youth gangs, who no longer hesitate to attack the French police head-on. Gangs made up of an even younger population, kids, are making their appearance. A report published in the French newspaper "Le Figaro" mentions that no fewer than 313 gangs were scouring the country. It shows that the proportion of minors involved is rising sharply. They accounted for 56% of the 992 gang aficionados arrested, compared with just 40% in 2010. What's more, in recent years, experts have warned that the formation of juvenile gangs under the age of 13 has been detected in several Ile-de-France conurbations. In the absence of parental authority, these youngsters imitate the behavior of the "grown-ups" who serve as their role models, appropriating the latter's "values".      

In the 1970s, Côte d'Ivoire experienced the "Ziguéhis" and "nouchis" phenomenon, characterized by open acts of violence perpetrated by gangsters against the people of Abidjan. The main actors were well known and the phenomenon almost under control.

Since 2012, in the aftermath of the post-electoral crisis, a phenomenon of aggression and violence of a rare barbarity perpetrated with knives by young adolescents and sometimes kids has emerged. Eburnienews.net describes the microbes in these terms:

Armed with knives and always ready to spill human blood, these young murderers, who often disguise themselves as beggars, are no longer hesitating to make news in Abidjan...the microbes, as they are called, have made a bad name for themselves in some of Abidjan's districts and communes, killing their victims with knives, often in broad daylight. Aged between 9 and 15 years, these young murderers no longer hesitate to make a name for themselves. 

According to a report by the Conseil National des Droits de l'Homme en Côte d'Ivoire, CNDHCI, microbes or children in conflict with the law are mostly illiterate and frustrated at not having joined the army like their elders after the post-election crisis, due to the age criteria in force.

Originating and spreading in Abidjan's Abobo district, this phenomenon has spread to the city's various neighborhoods.

In parallel with this phenomenon, the scourge of chattering or cybercrime is evolving and multiplying its followers and victims. Cybercrime is a criminal offence committed on or through a computer system, usually connected to a network. In recent years, the democratization of computer access and the globalization of networks have been factors in the development of cybercrime, which, like the scourge of juvenile gangs, has taken on a universal character. It is recognized by many experts as the new form of crime of the ^21st century. To control it, France, for example, has set up a number of anti-cybercrime bodies.

According to Rahali, in recent years, special interest has been focused on the phenomenon of cybercrime, which is taking on worrying proportions. She refers to the unprecedented hacking of Oracle, the company that manages commercial payment terminals worldwide, and the biggest names in the USA, such as Twitter, Amazon, Ebay, CNN, the New York Times and others, all victims of a cyber-hack that disrupted their computer systems for over two hours. She deduces that evil is becoming more and more entrenched as technology advances, and in all countries.

Cybercrime is a new form of crime and delinquency that differs from traditional forms in that it takes place in a virtual space, " cyberspace ".

The phenomena of "microbes" and cybercrime have both similarities and differences. Their aim is to make a quick buck without any effort (far from working in a conventional, valued profession) for their followers, who rob their victims. Some courageously face their victims openly, while others perform the same task from behind a computer or laptop screen. The actors all belong to the younger fringe of the population.

Several factors determine the type of delinquency practiced by these "gangs". Some scientific studies emphasize the importance of gender. According to several studies, boys are more involved in delinquency than girls. However, these studies specify that this ratio varies according to the form of delinquency. As the seriousness of offences increases, girls' involvement decreases. Classic theoretical approaches link delinquency to individual (personality, character, temperament, etc.) and environmental characteristics. Agnew, quoted by Lucia and Jaquier, postulates that societal or individual stressors (failures in the pursuit of a goal, need for autonomy, grief...) drive certain individuals to engage in delinquency, preferring illegitimate opportunities to legitimate ones.

Socio-economic status is also identified as a determinant of delinquency. Research carried out by Interspeace and Indigo shows that, although an in-depth analysis of the individual trajectories of young "microbes" reveals a complexity of factors behind their inclination towards violent action, the economic and social environment in which they evolve constitutes a fairly decisive ecosystem. Indeed, the authors of this research, recounting the history of the settlement of the Abobo district, note the characteristics of the populations who live there: low income, promiscuity of housing, desertion of homes by parents, young people living on the streets due to cramped housing and the need for children to earn a living, culture of violence.

There are different types of risk factors. Some of these factors are internal, i.e. specific to the individual, while others are external. From this point of view, risk factors would be divided into five spheres of life: (1) personal aspects; (2) family; (3) peers; (4) school; and (5) community or neighborhood (Loeber & Farrington), cited by Day and Wanklyn.

Research such as that by Bowlby and Spitz suggests that risk factors experienced early in life, for example, during the prenatal and perinatal periods of development, have the most detrimental effects throughout life. These risk factors include not only maternal drug and alcohol use and birth complications, but also abuse and neglect during the first five years of life. Large siblings and poor family management are also risk factors.

Some adolescent risk factors are school performance and peer relationships. These factors tend to be stronger predictors of delinquency in adolescents and adults than risk factors present in childhood.

As noted above, the microbe and cybercriminal populations are roughly in the same age bracket (teenagers and young adults). They share a common ultimate goal: to dispossess others of their property and enrich themselves without exercising a conventional form of valued profession. The choice of modus operandi is undoubtedly linked to the individual's personality (aggressive or Machiavellian), background, level of education, socioeconomic origin and so on. What they have in common is the D factor (Moshagen & al.). According to these authors, a general component known as Factor D can be identified in the field of malice. The D-factor defines the psychological tendency to place personal interests, desires and motivations above any other aspect, be it people or other circumstances. This factor contains the entire spectrum of behaviors that make up malice. It is made up of nine obscure traits: selfishness, Machiavellianism, lack of ethics and morality, narcissism, psychological entitlement, psychopathy, sadism, social and material self-interest, and malice. Factor D can be understood, they argue, as the dark personality incorporating many of these traits.

In conducting this research, we aim to identify the factors involved in the choice of one of the two forms of delinquency under study. The overall aim is to show that the choice of delinquency is linked to certain personality traits, the adolescent's environment and level of education.

1. Methodology 

This study focuses on two types of delinquents in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire. Using a qualitative approach, our study analyzes the psychosociological determinants of the choice of delinquency among two types of young offenders: the "microbe" (a type of violent and aggressive hold-up man) and the "brouteur", a form of cybercriminal.

1. Sample

The population under study is that of delinquents in the age bracket from adolescence to young adulthood, i.e. from 12 to 25 years of age. This includes cybercriminals or "brouteurs" and "microbes" or children in conflict with the law, in Côte d'Ivoire.

We are conducting a case study of a 21-year-old "microbe" or child in conflict with the law from a family of 15 children (including 5 boys and 10 girls) and a 19-year-old cybercriminal or "grazer" from a family of 5 children (including 2 boys and 3 girls). Both are single, out of school and from disadvantaged backgrounds. The first comes from a Christian family and dropped out of school in 5th grade, while the second has a high school diploma and comes from a fetishist family.

1. Hardware

The data collection instrument used is a semi-directive interview guide. The choice of this type of interview is motivated by the fact that it offers the subject the opportunity to explain his or her answers, to substantiate them, ... In addition, it allows the researcher to ask new questions in order to produce a deeper understanding of the subject's responses. This instrument is structured around 6 points:

• biographical information (gender, age, family and sibling size, level of education) ;
• life history of the subject ;
• personality characteristics ;
• origin of delinquency ;
• relationship with drugs, alcohol and narcotics ;
• frustration tolerance.

This interview guide was used to conduct an interview with each of the two respondents.

The verbal productions thus collected are processed using thematic content analysis, the procedures of which are described in the following lines. 

1. Data analysis: implementing content analysis

The practice of content analysis, according to Aktouf, consists of 6 steps:

• reading the document ;
• definition of themes or categories ;
• definition of the unit of information or context ;
• definition of recording or coding unit ;
• determining the numbering unit.

We used the method of two independent judges. First, two analysts independently read the two interview protocols collected in order to identify the themes and sub-themes around which the respondents' discourse was organized, and to classify the opinions expressed by theme.

After careful and repeated reading of the interviews, we then identified 7 themes covering all the opinions expressed by the participants:

• personality ;
• misdemeanors and felonies ;
• desire for power;
• drug addiction ;
• peer pressure or gang membership ;
• socio-economic background and unsatisfied needs ;
• practice of mysticism.

The "Personality" theme encompasses all the statements describing an individual's relatively stable way of being, their habitual way of reacting to the various situations they face. This theme can be broken down into 7 sub-themes: "criminal", "violent", "risk-taking", "deceitful", "reckless", "carefree" and "camouflaged".

The "Misdemeanors and Crimes" theme deals with the subject's confessions to reprehensible acts or acts punishable by law that he or she has committed in the course of his or her life. This theme is divided into 5 sub-themes: "Robbery", "Theft", "Assault", "Abortion" and "Murder".

The "Desire for power" theme covers a set of opinions expressing the respondent's aspiration to power, material wealth and popularity. It comprises 6 sub-themes: "Desire to lead", "Desire for power", "Desire to be known and popular", "Refusal to submit", "Desire to be loved" and "Desire for money or wealth".

The "Addiction" theme refers to opinions describing the participant's relationship with narcotics. It is further broken down into 4 sub-themes: "Drugs", "Alcohol", "Gasoline" and "Drug sales".

The theme "Peer influence or gang membership" refers to opinions indicating either the subject's membership of a delinquent gang, or his or her influence by a criminal gang.

The theme "Socio-economic background and unsatisfied needs" deals with the subject's dissatisfaction due to his parents' inability to meet his pecuniary and/or material needs, precisely because of their financial difficulties due to their poverty.

Finally, "Mysticism" describes the individual's propensity to use the services of specialists in the occult sciences (fetishists, marabouts, clairvoyants, etc.) to ensure the success of their criminal activities.

The attribution of the various parts of the discourse to the thematic categories highlighted is based on the choice of the following three analysis criteria:

• the recording or coding unit. It enables the text to be broken down into its unitary constituents. Here, we've chosen the idea as the recording unit;
• the context unit, which is used to classify the recording units (in this case, the ideas expressed) into the various themes identified. In this work, any idea expressed by the respondent in relation to one of the above-mentioned themes is considered a context unit;
• the unit of enumeration is the frequency of appearance of ideas related to one of the above themes. The frequency of a theme corresponds to the number of times an idea relating to this theme or sub-theme is evoked in the entire interview protocol of a participant.

The practice of thematic content analysis has produced some instructive results.

• Results

The content analysis of the subjects' words and their statistical analysis have produced results that clearly show the similarities and differences between our two subjects, on the one hand, and between them, on the other. 

These results are presented in a summary table and in synthetic and detailed histograms.

Table 1: Content analysis results

		Scrambler	Microbe
THEMES	Subtopics	Frequency	%	% total	Frequency	%	% total
PERSONALITY	Violent	3	8%	42%	7	10%	34%
Criminal	2	6%	7	10%
Cunning	3	8%	4	6%
Camouflage	2	6%	5	7%
Bold	3	8%	0	0%
Risk-taker	1	3%	0	0%
Carefree	1	3%	0	0%
DESIRE FOR POWER	Desire for power	2	6%		3	4%	10%
Desire for money or wealth	4	11%	1	1%
Desire to be known and popular	2	6%	0	0%
Refusal to submit	0	0%	1	1%
Desire to lead	0	0%	2	3%
SOCIO-ECONOMIC NOMIC ORIGINS AND TION OF NEEDS	Poverty of parents or family	2	6%	8%	1	1%	4%
Unsatisfied personal needs	1	3%	2	3%
TOXICOMANIA	Drugs	1	3%	3%	3	4%	10%
Alcohol	0	0%	2	3%
Drug sales	0	0%	1	1%
Gasoline	0	0%	1	1%
MISDEMEANORS AND FELONIES	Flight	3	8%	8%	7	10%	27%
Assault	0	0%	5	7%
Robbery	0	0%	3	4%
Murder	0	0%	2	3%
Abortion	0	0%	1	1%
THE PRACTICE OF MYSTICISM		3	8%	8%	0	0%	0%
PEER INFLUENCE OR GANG MEMBERSHIP		3	8%	8%	9	13%	13%

This table presents the results of the statistical processing of the data collected during the content analysis of the subjects' discourse. Each percentage of appearance of the theme evoked by the subject is represented graphically to give the reader a better idea of the level of influence of each theme and sub-theme on the subjects' choice of type of delinquency.  

Figure 1: Histogram of overall results

The results of the content analysis of the study subjects reveal that personality is the most important factor influencing the practice of these two forms of delinquency, for both the microbe and the grazer. However, peer influence, drug addiction and the commission of misdemeanors and felonies are more important for the "microbe". The grazer is distinguished from the "microbe" by his strong desire for power and his attachment to mystical practices.

Analysis of the elements making up the sub-categories sheds more light on the personalities of these two types of offenders.

Figure 2: Histogram of personality components

In terms of personality, the "microbe" is characterized by violence, a strong criminal streak and a propensity for camouflage. The "brouteur", on the other hand, is characterized by great cunning, a strong desire for power, and a high degree of recklessness, which manifests itself in taking high risks in the practice of mysticism, despite knowing the drawbacks associated with this practice.

Figure 3: Histogram of manifestations of the desire for power

The desire for power is more obvious and prominent in the grazer than in the microbe.

Figure 4: Histogram of offences and crimes

The microbe is clearly distinguished from the grazer by the sheer number, forms and violence of the offenses and crimes committed. The aggressiveness of the grazer is masked. The child in conflict with the law interviewed for this study confessed to his aggressiveness. He said that as a child, he liked to fight and that on two occasions, his opponent had bled. His father told him he'd get into trouble whether he won or lost a fight. The fear of trouble prompted him to stop fighting. When this aggression didn't disappear, it was converted and redirected. Thus, this subject's prey had to undergo mystical aggression, forcing them to accede to the "grazer's" demands.     

Figure 5: Histogram of substance abuse levels

Grazers are characterized by one major crime: theft. They only commit crimes occasionally, according to the needs expressed by their fetishist or marabout.

Given the violence and forms of crime it commits, the microbe has recourse to several types of drug.

• Discussion

This study was motivated by the need to discover the psychosociological factors determining the choice of form of delinquency practised by young people, particularly grazers and microbes. It emerged that the criminal personality factor was prominent. However, the prominence of personality sub-factors varies according to the type of delinquency practised by the subject. Thus, we noted the strong attraction and mystical practices characteristic of cybercriminals or grazers.

This is in line with the findings of a study by Bazare et al. These authors note the practice of mysticism and associated ritual crimes by cybercriminals to bewitch their victims into complying with their financial demands, and to evade the police. These researchers also note the use of mystical practices at all levels of grafting, the characteristics and level of which vary according to the type of results expected.

A study carried out by Carignan, whose aim was to investigate how the origin of a cybercriminal can influence the characteristics of the crimes committed, reveals that the motivations of cybercriminals differ according to continent. While cybercriminals from developed countries infiltrate computer systems for ideological reasons and to challenge state authorities, those from African and Arab countries are motivated by financial gain and target individuals. These findings concur with those of the present research, which shows the low socio-economic level and unsatisfied needs of the cybercriminal studied.  

 According to the CNDHCI and Yao report, the microbes are children who fought alongside the "Invisible Commando of Abobo" during the post-electoral crisis, and were frustrated when they were not recruited and integrated into the army as promised. According to this report, they are organized in gangs. They prey on everyone they meet on their way, snatching money, cell phones, jewelry and clothing, and attacking stores. They stock up on drugs and alcohol and, under the influence of these substances, terrorize the population, robbing, beating, slashing or killing those they attack. The subject studied in this work differs from the subjects described here in his motives and mode of integration into a gang of microbes. In addition, having dropped out of school in the seventh grade, this subject falls into the category of illiterates who will have difficulty using a computer tool and the verbal exchanges characteristic of cybercriminals.

The subjects all display aggression, although in the case of cybercriminals, it's veiled under a great deal of guile; the blows inflicted on the victim are mystical and therefore concealed.

It could be said that, while the cybercriminal is in love with glory, the microbe courageously assumes his personality and his crimes and misdemeanors.

The results of this study concur with the theory of Moshagen & al. The microbe and the grazer share the D factor. In each of our subjects, the elements constituting Factor D are found at varying levels, motivating the choice or form of delinquency practised. 

Conclusion

The aim of this study was to show that the choice of type of delinquency among microbes and cybercriminals in Côte d'Ivoire is determined by personality and sociological factors. Three lessons can be drawn from it. Firstly, it confirms that personality is the most important factor in determining a person's inclination towards delinquency and the choice of the form of delinquency, in this case the phenomenon of grazing and cybercrime. Secondly, it indicates that each of the subjects was influenced by peers and the type of delinquency practised by them. Thirdly, it reveals that our two subjects have in common an average socio-economic background and dissatisfied needs.

In view of the above, it would be advisable, if we want to solve the problem caused by these two phenomena, to think about and implement a social policy that would reduce the level of poverty, enrol all school-age children in school, and promote better school supervision. Birth control, depending on social level, could also prove beneficial.

In addition, the type of programs or films broadcast by our various TV channels must be carefully selected.

However, the small size of our sample may have limited our ability to circumscribe the certainly extensive field of determinants of the choice of the form of delinquency practised by young people. Research on a larger and more varied sample will give us a better understanding of the phenomenon under study.

Works quoted

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How to cite this article:

MLA: Kone, Amegnan Lydie, Saga Bernard Loba and Logon Albert Thierry Djako. "Analyse qualitative des déterminants psychosociologiques du choix de la forme de délinquance par les jeunes en Côte d'Ivoire: Cas du cybercriminel (brouteur) et de l'enfant en conflit avec la loi (microbe)." Uirtus 1.1 (August 2021): 169-185.

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§ Université Félix Houphouët Boigny, [email protected]

Abstract (A Neo-slave Narrative Reading of Colson Whitehead's The Underground Railroad (2016))

Kpatcha Essobozou Awesso^§

Abstract: Colson Whitehead's TheUndergroundRailroad (2016) is a narrative that carries the reader to the historical context of the abolitionist movement of the nineteenth century United States of America. More than two (2) centuries after, Whitehead re-imagines this episode of African American history in a skillful readership that deserves critical attention. Why does Whitehead retell the history of the abolitionist movement known as the Underground Railroad in fiction? Why does he choose a twelve year girl, Cora as the central character? Is the theme of slavery still relevant in today's social discourses? These are some questions that call on a literary analysis of this masterpiece. The paper relies on the Neo-slave Narrative approach to analyze the rationale behind this historical novel.

Keywords: Neo-slave narrative, the Underground Railroad, Abolition, Slavery, Neo-Slave Narrative Approach.

Summary: Colson Whitehead'sThe Underground Railroad (2016) is a narrative that transports the reader into the historical context of the 19th-century abolitionist movement in the United States of America. More than two (2) centuries later, Whitehead re-imagines this episode in African-American history in a deft read that deserves critical attention. Why does Whitehead recount the history of the abolitionist movement known as the Underground Railroad in fiction? Why does he choose a twelve-year-old girl, Cora, as his central character? Is the theme of slavery still relevant in today's social discourse? All these questions call for a literary analysis of this masterpiece. This article uses the neo-slavery narrative approach to analyze the logic of this historical novel.

Keywords: Neo-slavery narrative, the Underground Railroad, abolition, slavery, neo-slavery narrative approach.

Introduction

Reimagining the past in contemporary literary creation is not new, especially if the whirling effects of this past have lasted throughout the time. For instance, in the American context, black slavery and its consequences much fueled literary imagination known as the Slave Narrative genre. This literary genre accounts for the evils of bondage, written either by former slaves or scholars outside the slavery system. Ruth Miller and Peter. J. Katopes write about Slave Narratives that, they:

have their roots in Puritan writings, particularly in journals, diaries, autobiographies, and narrations, all designed to record the Puritan experience of the "walk with God." Slave narratives use a similar form to record the flight to freedom; they are chronological in structure, episodic, and provide little, if any, transition. Events are drawn from common experience; incidents that dismay or horrify or repel are frequently recounted with a lack of passion usually associated with literature designed to demonstrate the truth. There are auction blocks, lashings, escapes, and recaptures; there are tears and prayers and exhortations; there are special providences recorded, coincidences, suspenseful moments in flight, tricks to outwit captors, all of this presented in a tone that is pervasively sober. If there is a preponderance of gloom, there is also optimism; despair mingles with joy. And the overriding purpose of the narrative is to activate the will of the reader to abolish first the slave trade and finally slavery. (21)

Miller and Katopes provide a comprehensive definition of the Slave Narrative literary genre, which emerged at the post-Civil War America as a medium of slaves' accounts of their lives in bondage. Many decades after slavery, writers still frisk in the memories of the antebellum South to bring out some untold stories with contemporary expectations. The imagination of slaves' accounts to make them relevant in contemporary context is what is known as Neo-slave Narrative, and Colson Whitehead's The Underground Railroad (2016) is an example. Ashraf H. Rushdy in his book Neo-slave Narratives: Studies in the Social Logic of a Literary Form declares that "Neo-slave narratives are modern or contemporary fictional works substantially concerned with depicting the experience or the effect of new world slavery" (533). Rushdy argues that the contemporary world exhibits some forms of enslavement typical to the historical black slavery in the Americas, and creative writers address such issues by using the slave narrative tradition. These slave narratives in contemporary literature are qualified as neo-slave narratives, since they carry the traditional slave narrative features, but have contemporary implications. Marta Frątczak opines that ''.... saving from oblivion the memory of the dispossessed, and conveying their historical experience through fiction, has always necessitated finding the way to reconcile undocumented histories with the practical demands of novelistic narration''(33). According to Frątczak, the necessity to retell slave narratives today resides in the writers' commitment to keep the slaves' memory alive and exhume untold stories in order to heal the black people's bitter past. Colson Whitehead released TheUndergroundRailroad in 2016, and Michael Szczechowski argues that:

Whitehead uses the simple premise of a slave girl's odyssey through a hellish, early^19th century southern United States and conveys his thoughts and concerns for modern-day America, specifically of the lingering effects that slavery and racism has had on Americans, and bravely paints an honest picture of the people we are.

Szczechowski is then suggesting a contemporary interpretation of Whitehead's fiction which addresses modern day societal concerns from a Slave Narrative perspective. Bernard W. Bell argues that Neo-slave Narratives "combine elements of fable, legend, and slave narrative to protest racism and justify the deeds, struggles, migrations, and spirit of black people" (289). Bell's definition takes into account black people's frustrations born from the antebellum South tradition, and that justifies their behavior among other ethnic groups in America. Bell seems to argue that, in a Neo-slave Narrative, there are some ashes of the past brought in the present to understand the behavior of the descendants of slaves in contemporary America. Angelyn Mitchell refers to the genre as "liberatory narratives", since they mostly focus ''on the enslaved protagonist's attainment of freedom" (4). Mitchell's assertion is much complex when she uses the term ''liberatory narratives.'' She seems to refer to stories, in which the protagonist forcibly attains freedom, softening by then the atrocities and inhuman conditions he had to face before reaching freedom. The reading of Whitehead's historical novel goesads me to venture on the field of Neo-slave Narrative. From the preceding critics' views, my work argues that, Colson Whitehead's creative work not only refreshes slaves' conditions of the antebellum South, but also seems much allegorically to address contemporary social injustices and how to cope with them. The paper focuses on the contemporary meaning that Whitehead's novel carries and which makes it a Neo-slave Narrative. The interest of this analysis resides in the novelist's choice of plantation Slave Narrative tradition to address contemporary racial issues in the United States. If black people still fight for freedom up to this twenty first century, it means that the ghost of slavery still haunts them and they should get rid of it. Obviously, the study is conducted from a Neo-slave Narrative perspective, which deals with contemporary creation of Slave Narratives. The Neo-slave Narrative theory helps in this context draw a contemporary meaning and relevance of Whitehead's antebellum South narrative. Apart from Whitehead's novel which is the primary source of this work, additional information will be drawn from articles, books, and other relevant materials to strengthen the point being made. The work first overviews the Neo-slave Narrative genre with reference to Whitehead's novel by discussing the meaning of the title, the thematic approach and the characterization. Further, the paper analyses the relevance of reimagining Slave Narratives in the twenty first century as a form of resistance.     

1. The Underground Railroad: A Neo-Slave Narrative

Colson Whitehead's novel is published in 2016, when the Black Lives Matter movement was already rallying thousands of people to the cause of innocent and defenseless black male victims of white police murderers. Nikita Carney writes:

The BLM movement began in 2012 when George Zimmerman was acquitted after shooting and killing 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Florida. Three Black women activists, Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi, started the movement that subsequently engaged many, including many youth of color, in social justice activism across the country (181).

The movement evolved as an outcry for justice to the innocent victims of police harassment. It is quite arguable that Whitehead's novel finds a fertile ground for debate, since it is all about a struggle for freedom, just like the contemporary Black Lives Matter movement. Whitehead's novel opens with the account of Ajarry, the grandmother of Cora, the protagonist. Ajarry is arrested and sold to slave traders at the port of Ouidah, and eventually shipped to the New World^[1] where she was sold many times to different plantation owners. Cora was resentful to escape slavery when Caesar brought the idea for the first time, (TUR 9) but when she remembered Mabel, her mother, she decided to flee. The story evolves through Cora and Caesar's hard journey northwards, stopping times to times at railroad stations, where some secret agents helped them with food and accommodation until they reached north. Ridgeway, a slave catcher was to bring Cora back to Georgia, but was ultimately defeated in a fight against Cora in a railroad station on Valentine. The Underground Railroad, though published in the twenty first century tells the story of a runaway slave girl, bringing the reader centuries back in the South American slavery tradition. Bringing back fugitive slaves' narratives in the twenty first century is Colson Whitehead's concern in The Underground Railroad, and he must have strong motives to refresh the old slavery tradition in a contemporary American society where the descendants of the former slaves are still oppressed. Colson's novel which is classified as a Neo-slave Narrative genre is part of many fictional works produced by non former slaves and out of the context of slavery, but which vividly depict the lives of black slaves on the southern plantations.

The debate around this literary genre has gained interest since its rise in the second half of the twentieth century, and according to Ashraf H. Rushdy, the Neo-slave Narrative genre is about the "contemporary narrativity of slavery" concerning "contemporary novels that assume the form, adopt the conventions, and take on the first-person voice of the antebellum slave narrative" (3). Rushdy refers to writers, who never experienced slavery, but deal with the plantation narrative style, of course with a specific purpose in mind. Valerie Smith observes that, the Neo-slave Narrative genre mostly refers to:

texts set during the period of slavery as well as those set afterwards, at any time from the era of Reconstruction until the present. They approach slavery from a myriad perspective [...] from realist novels grounded in historical research to speculative fiction, postmodern experiments, satire and works that combine these diverse methods (168).

Smith contends that, the Neo-slave Narrative genre is a writing style that alerts on the still rampant residues of bondage and injustices in America. The Neo-slave Narrative is a genre that links the past slavery pains to contemporary ones and Saidiya Hartman argues "If the ghost of slavery still haunts our present, it is because we are still looking for an exit from the prison" (133). Bridging past slavery traumas to the present forms of injustices (especially done to black people) is not only an outcry to end social injustices, but an opportunity to reveal some untold stories about slavery, and make them fit the modern social calamities. This is an alternative reception of slave narratives which were supposed to end with the last survivors of slavery. Timothy A. Spaulding observes in his work Re-forming the Past: History, the Fantastic, and the Postmodern Slave Narrative that, modern narratives on slavery ''create an alternative and fictional historiography based on a subjective, fantastic, and anti-realist representation of slavery" (2). Conclusively, a Neo-slave Narrative is the blending of Slave Narrative genre storyline with contemporary paradigms that serve as clues to draw meaning. Colson Whitehead's The Underground Railroad better fits the Neo-slave Narrative genre from its third person narrative point of view, where the reader is well informed about characters challenges and their inner thoughts. The traditional narratives by former slaves have mostly involved adults struggling to free themselves from the grids of bondage, but Whitehead's novel spots a fifteen years old Cora, a defenseless girl who is fighting alone against the whole slavery structure. Whitehead's choice of a vulnerable character foreshadows the degree of hardship ahead on the journey of freedom. Ridgeway, the villain is defeated in a close fight with the young Cora, and this implies that, the oppressed must stop running away from the evil, but he must definitely fight and cancel it from his existence. The contemporary meaning of the Slave Narrative genre is its still recurrent theme of injustice done to the most vulnerable people of the society, and which requires their own investment for total liberation, in the image of Cora.         

2. The Underground Railroad: Struggle against Institutionalized Injustice

Colson Whitehead may have enough reasons to name his fictional work after the historical anti-slavery movement known as the Underground Railroad. Junior Ranger in his article ''Discovering the Underground Railroad'' writes:

The "Underground Railroad" is not actually a train operating along hidden railroad tracks. Instead, it refers to an idea. The Underground Railroad refers to the efforts of enslaved African Americans to gain their freedom through escape and flight-and the assistance of people who opposed slavery and willingly chose to help them to escape-through the end of the U.S. Civil War.

This anti-slavery movement was according to slave holders an illegal movement and this is in response to their assumptions that the title is given to the novel, to keep a close watch on social injustices and fight them. In this perspective, it is arguable that the title of Whitehead's novel is to remind the readers that, in contemporary societies, there are still many forms of human subjugations, and philanthropists must rally with victims in their search for liberation as was the case of abolitionists. The title of Whitehead's novel is to be understood beyond the context of African Americans' bondage, which in fact provides much of the meaning to the narrative. Addressing to the Underground Railroad in the twenty first century may suggest that, there are new tales about the movement (the untold ones or the new interpretation the former ones embody today). There are hidden forms of injustices which politics fails to notice, and even when the victims raise alert, they are repressed by laws that seem too old to contemporary realities.

Colson Whitehead's novel finds place in contemporary discourse because of the continuous subjugation of the masses by a handful of powerful people. Though the institutionalized black slavery is legally abolished, it had left much stain on the victims' psyche. Their past trauma still springs whenever justice is twisted. In this part of my analysis, I consider the struggle for freedom, which is the main idea of Whitehead's novel as a relevant topic in contemporary discourse. In her research work titled Modern Representations of the Underground Railroad in Philadelphia Eldra D. Walker investigates what remains of the antislavery movement in Philadelphia and comes to the conclusion that, for the sake of memory and what it represents today, it must be preserved.

There are many ways to preserve the UGRR. One way of preserving the story of the UGRR is to preserve the documented 'stations' where fugitives sought aid. Another method is re-telling the stories of those fugitives who escaped bondage. In recent years, Congress has created laws to determine if the story of the UGRR can be preserved and how to honor the story of the UGRR. However, to truly commemorate and interpret the story of the UGRR, it must be reframed with the preservation of the stories of slavery, antislavery, and other forms of resistance (24).

In the center of Walker's argument stands the imperious need to retell or reframe the stories of those who were involved in this philanthropic system. In Whitehead's fictional context, the scenes of atrocities inflicted on black slaves meet the sympathy of Sam, one of the white conductors of the Underground Railroad. Sam's job is to feed and host fugitive slaves, and upon Cora's and Caesar's arrival at the station, he declared: "This is my job,"... "You wait here until they come and fetch you"... "You made it,"... "You're really here".... "You're a long way from Georgia,"... "South Carolina has a much more enlightened attitude toward colored advancement than the rest of the south. You'll be safe here until we can arrange the next leg of your trip. It might take time" (TUR 73, 74). Still in the hands of the conductors of the Underground Railroad, Cora and Caesar are not safe and this accurately shapes the novel's vibrant quest for freedom. Conclusively, Lander, one of the slave catchers remarks on the Valentine farm that, "Here's one delusion: that we can escape slavery. We can't. Its scars will never fade" (TUR 217). The novel finds its contemporary relevance in Lander's words, which much bend on the psychological everlasting scars of slavery, that still exist in twenty first century under various forms, and much exercised against the descendants of black slaves. The Underground Railroad is a readership that serves as a reminder of the right of all human beings, regardless any difference in the pursuit of happiness, as stipulated in the preamble of the Declaration of Independence. It is because the handful of people on power position marginalizes the right of the masses that protests and discomforts of all sorts are regularly expressed in modern societies. Whitehead displays the constant search for freedom in modern societies through the repetitive advertisements of reward (that begin some of the chapters of the narrative) for he who brings back a runaway slave to his holder (TUR 15, 68, 112, 155, 183). These advertisements are the very insidious facet of the unconstitutionally institutionalized black slavery, since runaway slaves are never safe, even once in antislavery territories. Cora, the heroine of the narrative did never rest, she was always held in motion, most of the time hiding from Ridgeway, the slave catcher and his crew. Her endless run much illustrates the unsafe human conditions, which need to be permanently improved regarding the new contexts.

The plight of the black characters in the novel is visible through the author's use of some paradigms embodying contemporary interpretation: the Griffin Building which is twelve stories high and the hob, which represents a modern psychiatric asylum or a ghetto. The Griffin Building is the highest building of the town and it hosts many businesses, among which Mr. Anderson's office of contracts in cotton (TUR 69-70). The Griffin Building with its high-tech features and the businesses its hosts represent modernity and the American capitalism, which has much developed from slaves' labor. By purposely inserting modern symbols in a story that is supposed to occur in a far remote time, the author is foreseeing the endless black slavery in the context of modern progress. The hob on Randall plantation is the cabin of the outcast women slaves (TUR 33-34), and it quietly fits a psychiatric asylum of modern times. This also helps understand how social ostracism worked on black people at the post-Civil War reduced them into psychologically disabled people overcrowded into ghettos and slums.    

3. The Underground Railroad: Empowering Women

Colson Whitehead gathers appropriate and efficient materials in the hands of his heroine for her project of running for freedom. Cora is described as a fragile and a strong female character, much lucky enough to overcome all the adversities on her way to freedom. The narrator recalls that Cora has inherited the capacity to cope with difficulties from her grandmother Ajarry and resistance from Mabel, her mother (TUR 18). Cora's odyssey from the Randall plantation in Georgia to her encounter with Ollie the last conductor of the Underground Railroad heading to California (TUR 232) is much like a fairytale. It seems that all the gods are with her and assist her whenever trouble comes. Cora represents all these social disinherited and unprivileged who struggle to achieve an average living in the midst of social challenges. Cora's young age, contrasted with the enormous challenges she faces quietly determines the strong moral character that hosts her innermost. Cora has to be empowered in one way or the other in order to endure the brutalities of plantation life and the dangers of the flight. Depicted from the image of Harriet Tubman, the well-known female figure of the historical Underground Railroad movement, Cora's omniscient thoughts guide her along her journey. She temporally lived in South Carolina under a fake identity: ''BESSIE Carpenter was the name on the papers Sam gave her at the Station'' (TUR 72). Sam is one of the white agents operating on the Underground Railroad, and his assistance allows Cora to temporally enjoy freedom before her hunter Ridgeway erupted in the city. Cora's permanent flight from one station to another well illustrates the unrest state of the contemporary marginalized, who demonstrate from various forms to have their requests heard and satisfied. She is a modern emblem of protest as she embodies many social representations like gender, race, age etc. Visibly, by choosing Cora as the protagonist, Whitehead enhances the discourse of struggle for freedom, which has formerly involved adults and much more male characters. Current protests around the world are much rallied on social networks platforms where the youth stand as key actors. Commenting on the central role played by the youth in contemporary social movements discourse, Nikita Carney observes in ''All Lives Matter, but so Does Race: Black Lives Matter and the Evolving Role of Social Media'' that, ''While the public sphere is not universally accessible, the rise of social media appears to be increasing accessibility to national discourse, particularly for youth who are coming of age with the rise of this technology'' (184). The rapid control of the internet by the youth, who ask for much freedom and justice all across the world, may have weighted on the Whitehead's choice of Cora as the central freedom fighter. Cora's early awareness about the unconstitutional aspect of slavery from now on strengthens and fuels her behavior:

The whites came to this land for a fresh start and to escape the tyranny of their masters, just as the freemen had fled theirs. But the ideals they held up for themselves, they denied others. Cora had heard Michael recite the Declaration of Independence back on the Randall plantation many times, his voice drifting through the village like an angry phantom. She didn't understand the words, most of them at any rate, but created equal was not lost on her. The white men who wrote it didn't understand it either, if all men did not truly mean all men..... Stolen bodies working stolen land. It was an engine that did not stop, its hungry boiler fed with blood (TUR 91).

For Cora, the Declaration of Independence rightly stipulates that: ''We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness'' (XLV). Cora better understood the controversy of the institutionalization of slavery after reading the above passage, and started searching for ways to readjust it. Being endowed with such great ingenuity, Cora is able to play her card through the manacles of the system, but still she is hunted by Ridgeway, the unrest slave catcher and his crew, who symbolize modern structures of hindrance to human fulfillment. Cora's final encounter with Ridgeway is a close fight in which the slave catcher is severely wounded, watching helplessly Cora run away. The scene of their fight is recalled as follows:

Tonight I will hold him close, as if in a slow dance... She waited until the slave catcher was on the third step. She spun and locked her arms around him like a chain of iron. The candle dropped. He attempted to keep his footing with her weight on him, reaching out for leverage against the wall, but she held him close like a lover and the pair tumbled down the stone steps into the darkness. They fought and grappled in the violence of their fall...Cora untwined herself from Ridgeway and crawled toward the handcar, left leg in agony. The slave catcher didn't make a sound. The big bone in the man's thigh stuck out of his trousers and his other leg bent in a gruesome arrangement (TUR 229).

Obviously, Cora could not stand her hunters' assails and Whitehead has to get her miraculously out of danger. Her victory over Ridgeway and his men makes her a heroine of black protest, and furthermore an emblem of universal freedom fighter. Nihad M. Farooq argues that ''Ridgeway hunts Cora with a particular vengeance because he had lost track of her mother, Mabel, who ran from Randall six years earlier'' (88) and this explains his ferocious assails on Cora. She has to be more than an ordinary character, doubly assisted by the Providence and the sympathy of strangers she met on her northward journey to freedom. 

4. The Underground Railroad: Reimagining the Slave Narrative Genre in the Twenty First Century

The reader may be inquisitive about the relevance of Whitehead's The Underground Railroad in the twenty first century beside the emergence of new trends in creative literature. I hold it that, reimagining a Slave Narrative genre in the contemporary context may imply an articulation of resistance against modern forms of injustices. The then plantation slavery that subjugated black people is translated into modern context of injustice, ranging from the fight for human rights to the engagement into ecological causes. Exhuming the Slave Narrative genre today in creative literature is to relight the flame of hope among desperate people, because it is a story of hard struggle to remain alive and afterward free in a country where minorities struggle to make a safer place for themselves and their descendants. Especially, for black people, a Slave Narrative genre in the twenty first century is a reminiscence of their endless journey to freedom. In Whitehead's novel, slavery is not to be solely considered as the historical Trans-Atlantic trade and servitude of Africans in the Americas, but all hindrances (mostly man made) to human fulfillment. The contemporary context of violation in human rights suggests to think of slavery beyond the historical enslavement of Africans on the American soil. It would be much incoherent if Colson Whitehead had told the story from a stereotype black slave point of view, without inserting contemporary paradigms (the high tech Griffin Building, the women hob, the clinical tests on black people) to make it meaningful for his readership. In other words, Whitehead's novel displays some features "which were not typically reflected in the slave narratives of the nineteenth century" (Von Rönn 17). If the Slave Narrative genre is still meaningful today, it is because of the various shapes slavery has taken according to Saidiya Hartman who argues that:

If slavery persists as an issue in the political life of black America, it is not because of an antiquarian obsession with bygone days or the burden of a too-long memory, but because black lives are still imperiled and devalued by a racial calculus and a political arithmetic that were entrenched centuries ago. This is the afterlife of slavery-skewed life chances, limited access to health and education, premature death, incarceration, and impoverishment (6).

These are in Hartman's words the new forms of subjugation which refresh the dark memories of the nineteenth century black enslavement, and harboring towards equal rights for all, will help cure the psychological wounds of the past trauma and turn a new page to write the common history. The American country that claims itself democratic and an example in matter of human rights enforcement is contrastively the field of many injustices toward non-whites from the colonization to the recent demonstrations of the Black Lives Matter movement. The black people's plight started when the illegal slavery system was institutionalized as a compromise to the southern states' request to save the Union. Royal, one of the free black characters operating on the Underground Railroad in the novel remarks: "And America, too, is a delusion, the grandest one of all. The white race believes-believes with all its heart-that it is their right to take the land. To kill Indians. Make war. Enslave their brothers. This nation shouldn't exist, if there is any justice in the world, for its foundations are murder, theft, and cruelty. Yet here we are'' (TUR 217). Royal then captures the illegal way used by the nation to dominate and oppress it own people and much more other countries on the international level. As long as African Americans and other minorities are forced on the margins of the American Dream, the Neo-slave Narrative genre will continue growing as a contemporary great literary form of resistance. The genre, then, becomes the cornerstone of the fight against racism, discrimination, and other forms of oppression exercised on the most vulnerable social groups by some people holding power.

Conclusion

This paper has investigated some characteristics of the Neo-slave Narrative literary genre in Colson Whitehead's novel The Underground Railroad. The argumentation stems from this question: how relevant is an antebellum Slave Narrative in the twenty first century? At the end, the analysis has revealed that Whitehead's historical novel, though released in 2016 tells the story of Cora, a fugitive slave girl. The Slave Narrative genre, which emerged at the post-Civil War era, did not fade because of its central issue which is the slaves' struggle to survive and make their stories known to their descendants. The genre has evolved with the writers' reference to modern paradigms in their works and it became a Neo-slave Narrative genre, but did not lose its plantation tradition aspect. Fundamentally, this work has argued that, Whitehead's The Underground Railroad departs from the Slave Narrative tradition to address contemporary forms of injustice that prevent African Americans and other minorities to achieve the American Dream. It is quite illusory to ignore that, though the historical slavery is abolished, other forms of enslavement and alienation are well marshaled by the hegemonic white dominant voice to keep the rest under control. The historical slavery in the novel is symbolic to any obstacle (usually man made) that threatens human happiness. The storyline that channels the ghost of slavery from Ajarry to her granddaughter Cora well illustrates the endless inhuman treatments faced by African Americans, and which are currently expressed through the demonstrations of the Black Lives Matter movement and other forms of protest. The novel is relevant in the contemporary context where human rights are being rudely violated under the conspiracy of some heartless decision makers. The paper has also argued that, Whitehead incisively attacks injustice through Ridgeway's brutality on the young and defenseless Cora. The Slave Narrative genre (which deals with the protagonist's endeavor to achieve freedom) finds its relevance in contemporary context because it addresses the same issue of freedom, but under other forms, and with other actors, which not forcibly black people. This is to say that, no one is spared from the social oppression, and even the most vulnerable must stand up like Cora and fight, if they aspire to survival. Moreover, the study has argued that, by reimagining the slaves' hard struggle to freedom in the context of current challenges, Whitehead simply reminds us that slavery still exists, but under various shapes, and Cora's fight must incite optimism in people who have lost faith in the possible attainment of the American Dream.

Works Cited

Bell, Bernard. W. The Afro-American Novel and its Traditions. USA: The University of Massachusetts Press, 1987.

Carney, Nikita. ''All Lives Matter, but so Does Race: Black Lives Matter and the Evolving Role of Social Media.'' Humanity & Society, Vol. 40. 2, 2016, pp. 180-199.

Farooq, Nihad. M. "A Useful Delusion: Valentine Farm and the Flight for Freedom.'' Utopian Studies, Vol. 30, No. 1, 2019, pp. 87-110.

Frątczak, Martha, "History as Now: Allegorical (Re)visions of the Slave Experience in Caryl Phillips's Crossing the River (1993)." Commonwealth Essays and Studies 40.1. 2017, pp 33-43.

Hartman, Saidiya. Lose Your Mother: A Journey Along the Atlantic Slave Route. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007.

Miller, Ruth. and Peter, J. Katopes. ''Slave Narratives'' in Thomas M. Inge, Maurice Duke and Jackson R. Bryer (eds) Black American Writers. Palgrave Macmillan, London. 1987, pp 21-46.

Mitchell, Angelyn. The Freedom to Remember: Narrative, Slavery and Gender in Contemporary Black Women's Fiction. London: Rutgers University Press, 2002.

Ranger, J. Discovering the Underground Railroad https://www.nps.gov/common/uploads/teachers/lessonplans/UGRR-Junior-Ranger-Activity-Booklet.pdf. Accessed: 04/04/2022.

Rushdy, Ashraf. H. Neo-slave Narratives: Studies in the Social Logic of a Literary Form. New York: Oxford UP, 1999.

Smith, Valerie. ''Neo-slave Narratives'' in Audrey Fisch (Ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the African American Slave Narrative. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007, pp. 168 - 185.

Spaulding, Timothy. A. Re-forming the Past: History, the Fantastic, and the Postmodern Slave Narrative. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2005.

Szczechowski, Michael. '21, on The Underground Railroad. From https://sites.udel.edu/honors/michael-szczechowski-21-on-the-underground-railroad/ Accessed 30/03/2022.

The Declaration of Independence 1776: https://uscode.house.gov/download/annualhistoricalarchives/pdf/OrganicLaws2006/decind.pdf Accessed: 04/04/2022.

Von Rönn, Stephanie. The Re-creation of History: Narrative Constructions in the African- American Neo-slave Narrative. Saarbrücken: Verlag, 2008.

Walker, Eldra. D. Modern Representations of the Underground Railroad in Philadelphia. A Thesis in Historic Preservation Presented to the Faculties of the University of Pennsylvania in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Historic Preservation, 2007.

Whitehead, Colson. The Underground Railroad. New York: Doubleday, 2016.

How to cite this article:

MLA: Awesso, Kpatcha Essobozou. "A Neo-slave Narrative Reading of Colson Whitehead's The Underground Railroad (2016)". Uirtus 2.1. (April 2022): 265-280.

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§ University of Kara, Togo / [email protected]

[1] Colson Whitehead. The Underground Railroad(New York: Doubleday, 2016), 9 Subsequent quotations from this edition will be marked (TUR) followed by the page number.

Abstract (Diastratic variation in Kabiyè, the Gur language of Togo)

Palakyém Mouzou^§

Résumé : Linguistic homogeneity is a rare phenomenon among speakers of a single language. The societal use of a language such as Kabiye gives way to linguistic heterogeneity characterized by dynamic lexical variation among certain categories of speakers. What factors underlie such lexical variation? Taken as part of the wider phenomena of language contact, but described from a lexicological angle, this article takes as its substrate the diversity of neological and stylistic processes in all the categories observed. It considers diastratic variation as one aspect of lexical variation and the very basis of linguistic dynamics. Several variables, both internal and external to languages and speakers, are involved in this variation. The data underlying the present study were collected in the prefecture of Kozah from various socio-professional categories of the population.

Keywords: diastratic variation, lexical creation, kabiyè. 

Abstract: Linguistic homogeneity is a rare phenomenon that can be observed among speakers of a single language. The societal practice of a language such as Kabiye leaves room for linguistic heterogeneity characterized by a rather dynamic lexical variation between certain categories of speakers. So, what are the factors underlying such lexical variation? Taken as a whole of language contact phenomena but described from a lexicological perspective, this article takes as its substrate the diversity of neological and stylistic processes in all the categories observed. It considers diastratic variation as one aspect of lexical variation and the very basis of linguistic dynamics. Several variables both internal and external to languages and speakers are involved in this variation. The data underlying the present study were collected in the prefecture of Kozah from the different socio-professional categories of the population.

Keywords: Diastratic Variation, Lexical Creation, Kabiyè. 

Introduction

In linguistic practice, it's easy to see how lexies vary within the same language, both diachronically and synchronically. As Jean Dubois (504) points out, linguistic variation is the "phenomenon whereby, in everyday use, a given language is never identical to what it was at another time, in another place or in another social group". It reflects the linguistic cosmopolitanism of a society, and the concrete manifestation of the eminently social nature of language. In lexicology and sociolinguistics, there are generally five types of variation linked to time, place, social dimension and situation: diachronic variation, diatopic variation, diaphasic variation, diametrical variation and diastratic variation. It is precisely this last type that interests us in a series of studies that we intend to carry out in order to account for the linguistic dynamism and vitality enjoyed by the Kabiyè language, a Gur language from the eastern branch of the Gurunsi languages, spoken in Togo and Benin. Kabiye is spoken by a population of 1,423,964 speakers, or 22.9% of the resident population, according to figures from the latest General Census of Population and Housing (2010), published in 2015. Several works have been carried out on Kabiyè, but none of these have so far touched on the various phenomena of linguistic variation in general, and even less on diastratic variation in particular. The aim of the present study is to identify and describe the different language variations according to the social classes of children, young people and the elderly. The main questions to be addressed in this study are as follows: How does diastatic variation manifest itself in Kabyè? What are the structures of diastratic variation in Kabyè? We postulate that diastratic variation manifests itself through various factors: age, gender, social class. It is then observed across various strata, namely: the child stratum, the youth stratum and the elderly stratum. This study takes both a lexicological and sociolinguistic perspective, and will address three main points. The first will present the theoretical framework and methodology used in this work. The second will examine the factors of diastratic variation as an integral part of social and demographic variation. Finally, the third section will analyze the structures of the various lexies used by different age groups, in order to highlight the bases of differentiation.

1. Theoretical and methodological frameworks

In the following lines, we outline the theoretical orientations of this study and the methodology that enabled us to gather the data submitted for analysis.

1.1 Theoretical framework 

Linguistic variation is central to the study of language use. Indeed, it is impossible to study the linguistic forms used in natural texts, for example, without being confronted with the problems of linguistic variability. As François Gadet (7) puts it, "there is no language that its speakers do not use in a variety of forms". He adds that linguists "grasp this differentiation by speaking of varieties to designate different ways of speaking, of variation for diversified phenomena in synchronicity, and of change for dynamics in diachronicity". Variability is inherent in human language: a single speaker uses several linguistic forms on different occasions, and different speakers of the same language express the same meanings using different forms. Much of this variation is highly systematic, with speakers of the same language choosing pronunciation, word choice and grammar according to a number of non-linguistic factors. These factors include the speaker's purpose in communicating, the relationship between him and his interlocutor, the conditions of production and the various social affiliations that affect him.

The present study of diastratic variation in Kabiye draws on the theory of panlectal variation developed in the context of sociolinguistics. This theory is mainly based on the work of Robert Chaudenson, successively extended and enriched by Meyerhoff and Nagy, on the one hand, and Gudrun Ledegen and Isabelle Leglise, on the other. This theory considers language contact as one of the explanatory factors for the variations observed in a language. According to Gudrun Ledegen and Isabelle Leglise (6), work within the framework of this theory "focuses on the nature and respective importance of the extrasystemic, intrasystemic and intersystemic factors that determine the variations observed".

The phenomena of interest to the researcher within the framework of this theory are summarized as follows in the table below:

Changes that are essentially intrasystemic, in which interference would at best only have a reinforcing role (e.g. going to the doctor, washing one's hands).	Changes in which the intrasystemic and intersystemic converge, with interference leading to restructurings of the same type as those that could be carried out by the intrasystemic route alone (e.g. going to the doctor, washing one's hands).
Changes occurring in areas of potential variability in French and constituting specific variants directly derived from the non-French model by intersystemic transfer (e.g. retourner back, chercher pour...).	Changes appearing in the diasystem but outside the F0 and arising from an individual adaptation of a bilingual's dual competence, to compensate for a "failure" in the dominated language (e.g. leaving on a trip).

1.2 Methodological framework

Data collection took place entirely in Kara, in the commune of Kozah. We began with semi-direct observation, in which we attended informal discussions between people of different ages at home and in other places (tchakpalodrome, public fountains and local markets). We intervened from time to time to introduce certain subjects, so as to better perceive the variation between the different classes.

In addition to the data already collected, we felt it would be useful to draw up a questionnaire containing 70 words in French. The choice of words was made to reflect the variation between children, young people and the elderly. We passed the questions to the informants, and they returned them to us in Kabiye. These data, entirely recorded by a dictaphone, were then transcribed and analyzed. 

2. Factors in diastratic variation in kabiyè

Diastratic language variation is social and demographic variation, i.e. linguistic variation linked to social groups and life in society. It explains the differences in usage between different social strata, thus integrating socio-lects. Indeed, at the same time and in the same region, speakers with different demographic and social characteristics have different ways of speaking. The study of this variation accounts, for example, for the differences between the language of young and old, between the language of rural and urban groups, for linguistic differences between professional groups or, finally, for differences according to speakers' levels of education. Diastatic variation manifests itself through several factors: gender, age and social class.

2.1. The age

Age is the factor most likely to affect linguistic variation. It is considered the factor that best demonstrates whether there is a change within a community for the same speech. Studies have shown that adults use standard and traditional variants, while young people favor non-standard forms. Terry Nadasdi et al. demonstrate an association between the self-talk variant of speakers under 30 and the auto-talk variant of "middle-aged" speakers (92). Age is the main factor in the disappearance of the traditional variant. We also note that the linguistic behavior of some speaker groups depends on their age categories. 

In Kabiye, the following differences can be observed:

	Children	Young people	Mature age
1	chair	kpéya	kpelaɣ́	abalãkó
2	(the) eat	mam-mam	tɔkɩyɛ	tɔ́ɔ́náɣ
3	faecal matter	puuú	pɩ́ndʋ	awayɩ́
4	yam	hɛyɛ	hɛyɛ	hɛyɛ
5	radio	radiiyo	aradiyo	wɛlɛsɩ
6	pen	bik	bik	tɔlíɩm cɩ́kaɣ

As this table shows, the notion of a chair is expressed in different ways, but the language used by young people and children is similar, whereas that used by middle-aged people is totally different. Similarly, the lexies used by young and mature speakers to express the idea of eating are close, whereas those used by children are totally different. The third lexicon (fecal matter), on the other hand, is very different. There are cases of borrowings rendered differently, even though the children's and young people's lexies are close, whereas the middle-aged use a different lexie altogether. In example 5, all age categories use borrowings, the only difference being that children and young people use a borrowing of French origin, while the third category uses a borrowing of English origin. Example 6, also a loan, is rendered by a totally different lexeme. The children and young people use the same lexicon, which is none other than a brand of pen widely used in French-speaking Africa, and more specifically in Togo. Older people use a lexeme that has been created within the language itself. In all cases, there is lexical variation between the three age categories. The only exception is in example 4, where all categories have the same lexis. In part 3, we'll come back to the lexies specific to these different age categories, not to explain them, but to give the structure of the lexies used.

2.2. Gender

In their everyday practices, men and women also speak differently, because they don't always have the same linguistic representations. Some of these representations may be perceived positively by men, but not by women. Depending on these representations, which are socioculturally embedded, the use of lexia will vary from one gender to another. Anne Violin-Wigent (12) has already concluded that "the tendency of women over 40 to retain more regional vocabulary than men of the same age is reversed for women under 40, who show a stronger tendency to abandon regional vocabulary than men of the same age". This situation, while indicative of gender variation, is not identical in Kabiye society, where women's linguistic behavior is generally more conservative or closer to the norm than that of men. This is all the more remarkable when it comes to expressing themselves on subjects related to sexuality or parts of the human body.

By way of illustration, to say ''sexual intercourse'', ''sex'', ''derrières de la femme'', ''faire la cour'' women will use the lexies, kʋzʋʋ (7a),taŋnʋ́ ( 8c), pʋyʋ (9a), ɖánʋʋ (10a) where men will rather say yalaɣ (7b), ladɩyɛ/kodíye (8b),tɔbɩŋ ( 9b),ɖaʋ́tʋʋ (10b) ...

Younger women seem to reject older vocabulary and increasingly prefer to pronounce the same lexies as men of the same age. So we'll hear lexies like akpadɩyʋ́( 11), hilúu (12) or mɩlʋ́ʋ (13) to mean ''old person, gluttony or stealing.

2.3. Social classes

Social classes contribute most to linguistic variation, each with its own terminology and expressions. Whether blacksmiths, weavers, carpenters, priests, dressmakers, healers, merchants... or farmers, the various socio-professional groups contribute enormously to lexical enrichment and, by the same token, to linguistic variation. Even within the same socio-professional group, there is no such thing as linguistic homogeneity between different lectors. By lect, we mean a specific language reserved for specialists in a single field or sub-field. It is therefore a subset of a sociolect. A doctor, for example, would use a first lect to converse with his medical colleagues, a second to converse with his assistants and, finally, a third lect to converse with his patients.

A blacksmith, for example, will distinguish hakuu (14 ) from agooza hakuu (14a) and hakuukɩwasʋʋ (14b), whereas the ordinary citizen will simply say hakuu. Similarly, a dressmaker, to designate habit, coat, bra, garment sleeve and boubou, will use tóko (15), niŋkaɣ tóko (15a),hɩlatoko (15b), tokohamʋ́ʋ (15c) and tóko waa (15d) whereas the lambda citizen will simply say tóko (15). One of the most illustrative examples of lexical variation comes from the field of traditional medicine. Ninety-two percent of the people we interviewed used the lexicon kɔ́yɛ (16) to refer to the product, whereas one of the healers we interviewed clearly told us that the lexicon kɔ́yɛ is very vague and ultimately refers to nothing in his case. Here are the different occurrences with their meanings. 

(16a) Heu taa kɔ́yɛ: species of pink-flowered herbaceous plant with hairy stems and leaves used to make an infusion for infants.

(16b) Kelá kɔ́yɛ: leguminous and medicinal plant species for tooth care

(16c) Kɔ́yɛ kɩ́ɖaɣlɩyɛ: clove

(16d) Kɔ́yɛ kɩmɩzɩyɛ́ : sprayed product

(16th) Kɔ́yɛ kpooloo: species of spice similar to "kɔyɛ kɩ́daɣlɩyɛ" but larger.

(16f) Tɛtɛ wondu kɔ́yɛ: insecticide

(16g) Ɛlɛyɛ kɔ́yɛ: species of medicinal plant used in the treatment of vertigo and epilepsy.

(16h) Limiye kɔyɛ: antiphlebitis product

(16i) Ladɩhoka kɔyɛ : product against hernia 

It's undeniable, then, that not all speakers use the same lexies, and therefore can't master them all; the use and technicality of lexies will inevitably depend on the needs one feels.

3. Structuring of variation by age group

The aim of this third point is to analyze the structures of the various lexies used according to the different age classes. The Kabiye people frequently distinguish three levels of age classes for living people: children, young people and the elderly/mature. We'll expand the examples, then analyze them according to the processes that gave rise to them.

3.1. Children's classroom

Depending on their age and the level of development of their phonatory apparatus, children have a particular way of expressing themselves. This is by no means equivalent to language difficulties. Rather, it has to do with linguistic incompetence, which is normal for their age. It's an innate act of the language faculty, which can be seen as a universal grammar, i.e. a set of principles that guide the child in learning the language. Since this faculty is unique to the human being, the child can make a grammar of his language. According to Noam Chomsky, the reason why children don't produce certain sentences at any stage of their learning is that the constructions involved are excluded from the outset by the principles of universal grammar. In other words, there are sentences that are logically possible, but which are not observed in the productions of children learning their language. This justifies the level of children's mastery of the language.

Let's take a look at a few examples from the data collected during the observation, which will serve as a basis for analysis:

(17) pópó / pimpim ῞motocylette῞

(18) lↄyiyɛ / vúm vúm ῝voiture ῝

(19) ninεtɩ ῞lunettes ῞

(20) yídee ῝argent῝

(21) cuucuú ῞chiot῞

(22) yeyee ῝fleur῝

(23) kokoyikoo ῞poule῞

(24) kɔyɛ ῝product῞

(25) peyaɣ́ ῞tabouret῝

(26) sʋyʋm ῞boisson῝ 

(27) puú ῝matières fécales῝

Our corpus shows that children construct language grammar through imitation, onomatopoeia, vowel changes and consonant changes. Onomatopoeia, an interjection uttered to simulate a particular noise associated with a being, animal or object, is quite common among children. Examples (17), (18), (21) and (23) illustrate this. To designate motorcycle, car, puppy and hen, the children we met prefer to imitate the noise of the machines or the barking of the dog and the crowing of the hen.

Phonetically, there are vowel and consonant changes. For example, the first syllable of ninεtɩ, borrowed from the French ''lunette'', undergoes a vowel variation. The child prefers to use unrounded vowels instead of going back and forth between rounded and unrounded. He therefore pronounces the front, unrounded vowel of first aperture [i], which is of the same nature as [ε] of different aperture, instead of the front, rounded vowel of first aperture. Similarly, several consonants have undergone changes in relation to the language norm. We note this mainly in initial position, where the deaf labiovelar consonant [kp] of kpokpo and kpélaɣ is replaced by the deaf bilabial [p] in examples (17) and (25); [l] of lynεtɩ and lidee is replaced by the labiodental nasal [n] in example (19) and the semivowel [y] in example (20) respectively. No morphological variation is observed in examples (22), (24) and (26), but there is tonal variation.

3.2. Youth class 

Kabiye youths' language practices are comparable to those of many other youth groups in other cultures. They use a jargon-filled vocabulary, generally borrowed, to express modern notions. Their utterances are littered with so many devices that they are rarely understood by other classes when discussion takes place among them. The lexies, which can be described as authentic, are reserved for exchanges with parents and other members of the community, to whom they owe total respect. Let's take a look at some examples:

(27) tↄkɩyɛ ῝manger῞

(28) lambᾶndυ ῞sexe masculin῝

(29) fɛtʋ́ʋ ῞avoir des rapports sexuels῝

(30) tόmo ῝motocyclette῞

(31) týva ῝voiture῞

(32) daák ῝lunette῞

(33) cãtána ῝argent῞

(34) dɔɔg ῝chien῞

(35) hέrύυ ῝fleur῞

(36) tɔbʋʋ́ ῝copine῞

(37) gꭇãŋma ῝grand maman῞

(38) ŋma ῞maman῝

An examination of the lexicons used by the youth class reveals a number of neological and stylistic devices. Let's take a look at journal, including verlan, borrowing and synecdoche. Verlan is a slang procedure that consists in inverting the syllables of certain lexies or locutions. In the corpus submitted to our analysis, verlan is observed in examples (30) and (31) where young people use tόmo and tyva in place of ''moto'' and ''voiture''. We therefore note two processes: first a borrowing and then verlan.

Borrowing is, according to Christian Loubier, "the process by which users of a language adopt wholly, or partially, a linguistic unit or feature (phonological, lexical, semantic, syntactic, etc.) from another language" (21). It is observed in examples (32), (34) and (37) where the lexies daák, dɔɔg and gꭇãŋma are borrowed respectively from English ''dark'' and ''dog'' on the one hand and French ''grand maman'' on the other. Of course, the English lexicon dark is equivalent to black, not glasses. But in their usage, this lexicon means "glasses", originally part of "dark glasses" and now used for all types of eyewear, including medical lenses. Diachronically, ŋma in examples (37) and (38) is used by children to designate "mom". It is therefore an infantile syllabic contraction in the language acquisition process that has come to be used by young and even mature people.

Synecdoche is a stylistic device that consists in designating the whole by a part. In examples (28), (29) and (36), the lexies lambᾶndυ ''foreskin'',fɛtʋ́ʋ ''the gesture of going back and forth'' and tɔbʋʋ́ ''behind a woman'' are just parts of a whole.

All these slang-colored lexies confirm that language practices are not only dynamic, but also continuously changing.

3.3. The elderly class

Mature people often use authentic words in their various utterances, except in situations where they are imitating their children or young people with the aim of reprimanding or correcting them. They are the guardians of traditional speech and rarely favor lexical variations. This class allows us to perceive the various linguistic changes brought about by the other classes in society. In Kabiye society, the elderly are not subject to the influence of the school. The examples, some of which already have synonyms in the children's and young people's classes, allow us to assess this.

(39) tɔɔ́wʋ ῞manger῝

(40) hɩ́nɛ ῞male sex῝

(41) awayɩ ῞matières fécales῝

(42) kpόkpό ῞motocyclette῝

(43) lɔɔrɩ́yɛ ῞voiture῝

(44) ɛsɛ́ñɩnɩŋ ῞lunette῝

(45) kόbo ῞argent῝

(46) haɣ́ ῞chien῝

(47) hέtυ ῞fleur῝

(48) ɖooyú ῞poule῝

(49) ɛjam ῝handicapé῞

(50) ekpéni mʋlʋ́m ῞il/she died.e῞

(51) ɛvɛ́yɩ́ ῝il/she died῞

(52) pɩsaυ tↄláa ῞le pagne est tombé῝

(53) ɛwɩláyɩ́ níyé ῞il/she reprimanded῝

Overall, the above examples confirm that older people retain the authentic vocabulary or lexicon of the language. Considering the data, we can make the following synonymic binomials, putting the most traditional lexies first: (39) tɔɔ́wʋ /(27) tↄkɩyɛ for ῞le manger῞; (40) hɩ́nɛ /(28) lambᾶndυ for ῞sexe masculin῞; (41) awayɩ /(27) puú for ῞matières fécales῞ ; (44) ɛsɛ́ñɩnɩŋ /(32) daák for ῞lunettes῞; (45) kόbo /(33) cãtána for ῞silver῞; (46) haɣ́ /(21) cuucuú for ῞chien῞ and finally (47) hέtυ /(22) yeyee for ῞fleur῝.

Mature speakers also use connotative expressions that are linked not only to language levels, but also to linguistic taboos, as demonstrated by Leonard Bloomfield (1933, p. 155). According to Jean Dubois et al. (2012, p.111), connotation designates "a set of secondary meanings brought about by the use of a particular linguistic material and which are added to the conceptual or cognitive, fundamental or stable meaning, the object of the linguistic community's consensus, which constitutes the denotation". For example, the lexicon (41) awayɩ "fecal matter" literally means "outside". In traditional homes, toilets are not housed in the house. To satisfy this natural need, family members therefore go "outside" to free themselves before returning. The same applies to the lexies (50) ekpéni mʋlʋ́m and (51) ɛvɛ́yɩ́ whose denoted meanings are literally and respectively "he/she brought the flour" and "he/she is no more" to mean "he/she has passed away". 

The other lexies, notably (42), (43) and (45), are onomatopoeia and borrowings from English and Hausa respectively.

Conclusion

Diastratic variation as a phenomenon of language contact is clearly visible in the language practices of Togolese populations, particularly in the Kabiyè community. It is unquestionably a phenomenon that highlights linguistic changes according to the social milieu to which a speaker belongs (social class, professional group, gender, age, etc.). It depends on three general factors: intralinguistic, interlinguistic and extralinguistic. The intersection of these factors has enabled us, within the framework of this study, to take into account age, gender and social class, which are quite evident in the Kabiyè society whose language is described.

Examination of the data revealed a real variation between different age categories, genders and socio-professional sectors. What emerges is that the use of various neological and stylistic devices enriches the language's vocabulary and diversifies its usage. These include onomatopoeia, borrowing, synecdoche, transfer of meaning and connotation.

This highly enriching and interesting exercise invites us to delve into other types of variation as well, to better describe the different contours of linguistic variation.

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How to cite this article:

MLA: Mouzou, Palakyém. "Diastratic variation in Kabiyè, a Gur language of Togo". Uirtus 1.2 (December 2021): 233-247.

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§ University of Kara / [email protected]

Summary (Figuration of failure in Georges Perec's Les choses)