La variation linguistique dans la littérature transfuge de l’extrême contemporain (Eribon, Ernaux, Lafon, Louis)

Abstract

This article explores linguistic variation (diatopic, diaphasic, diachronic, and situational) in the specific context of French “transfuge literature” as a form of “autosociobiography” (Ernaux, 2023). The paper focuses on the cases of Annie Ernaux, Didier Eribon, Édouard Louis and Marie-Hélène Lafon. It studies and compares the stylistic uses of variation in transfuge literature, but it shows how the narration of the transfuge linguistic experience has as its core theme the shame felt as a provincial speaker from an inferior social background, as much in the new environment as in the old one. The point is to analyze the linguistic twists associated with the “habitus clivé” (Bourdieu) of any transfuge writer.