Une « pronounance » amérindienne ? Les enjeux des pronoms dans les premières autobiographies amérindiennes
Abstract
This article intends to focus on the narrative and identity issues at stake in the use of personal pronouns (I, me, you, he/she, them…) in autobiographies written in English by some Native Americans in the 18th and 19th centuries. What do these pronouns disclose about the author, his/her identity and his/her place within colonial society? Do pronouns have the same value from an author to the author? Do they have a particular importance as they appear in autobiographical narratives? Do they reveal something particular about the circumstances of the Indigenous peoples in the dominant Anglo-American society? Do they participate in the creation of a literature of “survivance” within a literature of “dominance”, to use terms favored by Ojibwa/Anishinabe author Gerald Vizenor? These “pronoun poses” will be further analyzed through Vizenor’s notion of “pronounance” in order to show that pronouns enable Native American autobiographers to “pronounce” their own narrative sovereignty, even in the English language.
Keywords: autobiography, Native Americans, pronounance, Vizenor, identity
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