Elien Declercq

The fate of a migrant language in Northern France (1880–1914): Flemish in song repertoire

Abstract New research on the history of nineteenth-century Flemish migration into the North of France shows ample evidence of a complex pattern of transfer procedures taking place between the source and target cultures, both via institutions such as newspapers, magazines and associations and via practices such as popular theatre, almanacs and songs. The strong local embedding of migrant communities within a specific urban setting, i.e. industrial cities (Roubaix, Tourcoing, Lille), as well as the strong integration policy of the target culture, explain how and why Flemish cultural items are transferred and undergo a process of formal and functional hybridisation with the available institutional, linguistic and discursive models of the target culture. The following paper examines one type of transferred items, i.e. Flemish language elements, that are given particular emphasis in popular songs constructed by Flemish second-generation migrants. The analysis of these songs aims to show how procedures such as codeswitching and codemixing are used by migrant singers in order to construct a new hybrid language that may escape both uniform rejection and assimilation by the target culture.

L'univers de la chanson ouvrière dans l'agglomération de Lille-Roubaix-Tourcoing (1870–1914)

Dans le Nord industriel de la France, la vie culturelle en milieu populaire se developpe considerablement au cours du xixe siecle. Elle compte parmi ses expressions majeures une litterature orale qui cherche a s’articuler sur le contexte d’enonciation de la communaute ouvriere. Le present article vise a reconstruire un pan de cette litterature orale : la chanson ouvriere dans l’agglomeration industrielle de Lille-Roubaix-Tourcoing ; il s’agira plus precisement d’examiner des traits institutionnels tels que la figure du chansonnier, la societe, le public, les canaux de distribution ainsi que les caracteristiques discursives majeures de la chanson ouvriere.