Étude des énoncés performatifs dans trop de soleil tue l’amour et perpetue de Mongo Beti

Abstract

Through the work of Austin (1970) and Searle (1972), we now know that language has the ability to act. Thus, the sole purpose of any speech is no longer to inform, but to elicit a certain effect in the interlocutor. The aim of this research, entitled "Study of performative statements in Trop de soleil tue l'amour and Perpétue by Mongo BETI", is to go beyond a simple description (typology, syntax, form) of the performative statements used in a corpus of verbal interaction, and to demonstrate their power in communicative exchanges in the French language. This raises the problem of the semantic, functional and pragmatic dynamics of African francophone literary discourse, based on performative statements. This problem stems from the postulate that performative statements, based on the enunciation situation, are acts of language that provoke certain reactions in the interlocutor. This question was analyzed using the enunciation theory of Emile Benveniste, Catherine Kerbrat Orecchioni and Dominique Maingueneau, as well as the pragmatic theory of Austin and Searle. Following our analyses, we arrived at the results that the formal and pragmatic mechanisms of performative utterances lead to the execution of an action by the addressee of the discourse. To this end, we have demonstrated through illustrations from our corpus that performative statements and the use of modalities carry semantic-pragmatic content, inciting the addressee to action. The analysis of this question required us to structure our work in two parts, each with two chapters. The first part, Theoretical Framework and Typologisation, presents structuralism as the origin of pragmatics. The second chapter, entitled Typologisation, presents the performative statements included in our corpus. The second part, Functional study of performative utterances, contains the third chapter, the correlation between modalities and performative utterances, which analyses and interprets the modalities of utterance and enunciation to which performative utterances belong. The fourth chapter is entitled Valeurs pragmatiques des énoncés performatifs dans ces romans.