SPEECH AND SOCIABILITY AT FRENCH URBAN MARKETPLACES Pragmatics & Beyond New Series Editors: Jacob L. Mey (Odense University) Herman Parret (Belgian National Science Foundation, Universities of Louvain and Antwerp) Jef Verschueren (Belgian National Science Foundation, University of Antwerp) Editorial Address: Linguistics (GER) University of Antwerp (UIA) Universiteitsplein 1 B-2610 Wilrijk Belgium Editorial Board: Norbert Dittmar (Free University of Berlin) Bruce Fraser {Boston University) John Heritage {University of Calif ornia at Los Angeles) David Holdcroft {University of Leeds) Catherine Kerbrat-Orecchioni {University of Lyon 2) Beatriz Lavandera {University of Buenos Aires) Marina Sbisà {University of Trieste) Emanuel A. Schegloff {University of California at Los Angeles) Paul O. Takahara {Kobe University) Sandra Thompson {University of California at Santa Barbara) Daniel Vanderveken {University of Quebec at Trois-Rivières) Teun A. van Dijk {University of Amsterdam) 1 Jacqueline Lindenfeld Speech and Sociability at French Urban Marketplaces SPEECH AND SOCIABILITY AT FRENCH URBAN MARKETPLACES Jacqueline Lindenfeld California State University, Northridge JOHN BENJAMINS PUBLISHING COMPANY AMSTERDAM/PHILADELPHIA 1990 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Lindenfeld, Jacqueline. Speech and sociability at French urban marketplaces / Jacqueline Lindenfeld. p. cm. - (Pragmatics & beyond; new series ; ISSN 0922-842X; 7) Includes bibliographical references. 1. French language -- Social aspects -- France. 2. France - Social life and customs - 20th century. 3. French language - Spoken French - France. 4. Markets ~ Social aspects - France. 5. Urban dialects - France. I. Title. II. Series. PC2074.75.L56 1990 306.4'4'0944 - dc20 90-31713 ISBN 90 272 5017 0 (Eur.)/1-55619-109-X (US) (alk. paper) ® Copyright 1990 - John Benjamins B.V. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publisher. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS My gratitude first goes to California State University at Northridge for granting me several leaves of absence between 1977 and 1984 which allowed me to carry out this project in a systematic fashion in France, after some preliminary work in the summers of 1975 and 1976. I am also grateful to the Laboratoire d'Anthropologie Sociale, Collège de France et Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (Paris), headed by Professor Claude Lévi-Strauss, for giving me the status of visiting research associate in 1979-1981 and 1982-1984, providing me with a high degree of intellectual stimulation. Finally, I wish to acknowledge a one-year research grant from the Conseil du Patrimoine Ethnologique (Ministère de la Culture, Paris) which gave me generous financial support for fieldwork in 1982-1983. While remaining entirely responsible for the present study and its shortcomings, I owe particular thanks to Guy Barbichon (Centre d'Ethnologie Française) and Isac Chiva (Laboratoire d'Anthropologie Sociale) whose insights and encouragements were of major significance for the pursuit of my research in France. My other special intellectual debt is to John Gumperz and Dell Hymes whose ideas permeate many parts of this book. I also wish to thank all the other researchers in France and the United States with whom I have had stimulating discussions of my work over the years. This research project could not have been accomplished without the cooperation of market vendors and customers, as well as the diligent help of city VI SPEECH AND SOCIABILITY officials in Paris, Grenoble and Rouen. As an acknowledgment of my debt to them, I hope to have captured some of the spirit of their marketplaces. Some portions of the present study have appeared in preliminary form in the following articles: - "Communicative patterns at French marketplaces", Semiotica 23, 1978, 279- 290. - "Etude des pratiques discursives sur les marchés urbains", Modèles Linguisti ques IV, 1, 1982, 185-212. - "Ethnologie urbaine et ethnographie de la communication: préliminaires à une étude sur les places marchandes. Langage et Société 30, 1984, 3-28. - "Places marchandes et évolution urbaine: Grenoble et Rouen", Revue du Monde Alpin et Rhodanien 3-4, 1984, 107-124. - "Le marché dans la ville: un lieu de sociabilité à travers la parole", Langage et Société 33, 1985, 7-31. - "Paroles rituelles sur les marchés urbains en France", Cahiers de Littérature Orale 24, 1988, 145-160. I wish to thank the journal editors for giving me permission to use the above-mentioned material in this greatly expanded and revised English-language version of my work. All translations from the French in this book are mine, except where an existing English language version is acknowledged. The preparation of this manuscript was greatly facilitated in its final stage by some financial support from the School of Social and Behavioral Sciences as well as expert technical assistance from the Computer Center at California State University, Northridge, both of which are gratefully ack nowledged here. CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER I. THEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL BACKGROUND 5 1. Background research 5 2. Data collection 16 CHAPTER II. THE ETHNOGRAPHIC CONTEXT: MARKETPLACES IN THREE FRENCH URBAN COMMUNITIES 23 1. Marketplaces in Paris 25 2. Marketplaces in Grenoble 33 3. Marketplaces in Rouen 39 CHAPTER m. VERBAL INTERACTION AT FRENCH URBAN MARKETPLACES 47 1. Vendor calls 52 2. Vendor spiel 69 3. Vendor-customer communication 90 A. Instrumental talk 91 B. Politeness routines 100 C Small talk 106 D. Jokes and playful insults 116 vüi SPEECH AND SOCIABILITY CHAPTER IV. MENTAL REPRESENTATIONS OF FRENCH URBAN MARKETPLACES 125 1. Specificity of the marketplace as a locus of social encounter 126 2. Symbolic functions of speech at the marketplace 133 3. Overall representations of the urban marketplace 140 CONCLUSION 147 REFERENCES 159 INDEX 167 INTRODUCTION This study is both particularistic and generalizing. At one level it can be seen as an investigation of French urban marketplaces as systems of communica tion, with a microscopic examination of sociability patterns in a specific cultural setting. At another level it constitutes an attempt to show some relationships between the ethnography of communication, urban anthropology and symbolic interactionism : all three lines of inquiry converge here to highlight some of the social and symbolic dimensions of traditional marketplaces in modern urban France and the role of speech in social interaction. The significance of speech reveals itself in the participants' spontaneous uses of language at the marketplace, as well as their mental representations of it as expressed in ethnographic interviews. Hence the combined use of linguistic and anthropological methods of investigation in this study, with particular emphasis on concepts drawn from interactional sociolinguistics, which considers language as an activity performed by social actors for specific purposes. The urban marketplace in France is a perfect site for the examination of verbal interaction as a form of social behavior and a factor of integration for urbanites. It is an extremely rich laboratory for the ethnographer of communica tion, offering varied samples of ritual and ordinary speech. This material lends itself to a structural and functional analysis which results in an overall picture of the marketplace as a locus of social encounter in the city. Verbal exchange in such a place, while inextricably linked to economic exchange, plays a very important role at the symbolic level: as pointed out by R. Park, a pioneer in