Joual (Canada)

Joual 🇨🇦
Location: Canada
Definition: Dialect of French spoken in Quebec.
Keywords: Canada – North America – Dialect – Language – Community
Clusters: Resistance – Lock-in effect
Author: Emmalee Hoppe
Affiliation: Alumnus, School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London, UK

By Emmalee Hoppe, Alumnus, School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London, UK

Joual refers to the dialect of French spoken in the Canadian province of Québec. Often described as a degenerate language, the term joual became popular through Desbiens’ 1960 book Les insolences du Frère Untel (Handler 1988). Inspired by Desbiens’ experience as a teacher, the book remarked the failings of the Québec public education system, noting that: The word joual is a kind of condensed description of what it is to speak joual: to speak joual, it is precisely to say joual in place of horse. It is to talk as one supposes horses would talk if they hadn’t already opted for silence… (Desbiens 1960) According to Desbiens, a language purist, joual, the language taught in public schools, is disjointed at the seams, only suitable for communication amongst those who already speak the dialect and for the most mundane of topics (Handler 1988).

Joual maintains four key features that set it apart from other French dialects: i) archaisms, ii) unique sound patterns, iii) anglicisms, and iv) les sacrés. Beginning with archaisms, Québec had been isolated from the rest of the French-speaking world since the end of the Seven Year’s War. Joual thereby retained the patterns of 17th-century French, and many of the words and idioms used today can be traced back to Northern and Central France (Salien 1988). In addition, joual exhibits unique sound patterns, one of the most noticeable being the pronunciation of the oi diphthong, which is pronounced oé in Québec (Ossipov 1994). Moi et toi become moé et toé, for example. This phonetic trait is often subject to parody, with the implication that the speaker is poor or uneducated. In addition, spoken joual is marked by both consonant insertion and vowel deletion (Handler 1988). A final consonant t may be inserted in words such as ici or un but, resulting in icitte or un boutte (Ossipov 1994). Vowel deletion results in mass elision, such that the beginning and end of separate words blend together. For example, je suis or ça était would be pronounced as chuis or c’tait.

One of joual’s most controversial characteristics is its adoption of anglicisms. Cultural exchange is a commonplace practice, with neighbouring nations often embracing one another’s customs, traditions, or even language. It thus comes as no surprise that Québec, a French-speaking nation surrounded for decades by anglophone British colonies, would do the same. Examples of popular anglicisms include avoir le fun or un gang, with the borrowed words given a French pronunciation (Ossipov 1994). A largely unsettled debate has occurred over the extent of English penetration, however, with one side preaching against English’s destructive influence, and the other arguing that anglicisms represent a miniscule proportion of all words in joual.

The last of joual’s defining features is the presence of les sacrés. This development is a direct product of Québec’s experience with the Catholic Church. Since it was forbidden to take God’s name in vain, traditional French evolved alternate forms of expression, replacing the word Dieu with bleu or gioux (Vincent 1984). Joual, in its opposition to the establishment of the Catholic Church, subverts this convention through its use of les sacrés. Vincent (n.d.) proposes that four characteristics distinguish les sacrés québecois from other blasphemous linguistic phenomenon: i) the use of a wide range of words from the sacred domain, ii) the transformation of original pronunciation, so as to clearly separate the sacred from les sacrés, iii) the multiplication of derivatives and compound expressions, and iv) the relexification of words. Linguists have recorded over 2000 sacrés, with words such as tabernak, câlice, crises, and osti amongst the most popular (Vincent n.d.). Each word may generate dozens of new forms, creating a multitude of distinct and colourful additions to the language.

To better contextualize joual, it may be useful to compare it to similar practices, for example chiac. Chiac refers to dialect of French spoken mainly by Acadian francophones living in the Greater Moncton area of New Brunswick. Like joual, it is characterized by a primarily French syntax and structure intertwined with English vocabulary and expressions (Papen 2014). Chiac maintains historical parallels with joual as well, both being the language of a marginalized people. Unlike chiac, however, joual has been politicized in the years since the so-called Quiet Revolution of the 1960s, marked by an increasingly secularisation of society, expansion of the welfare state, and restructuring of the economy (Behiels and Hayday 2011). As religion lost its importance in Québécois society, the nation-state thus took its place as the dominant force in shaping society, with joual as a symbol of the nation. Cultural works written in joual appeared for the first time, including Tremblay’s 1968 play Les Belles-sœurs. The play centres on a Montréal kitchen, in which several working-class women recount their lives and miseries to one another (Churpała and Warmuzińska-Rogóż 2011). Les Belle-sœurs was extremely popular in Québec, but the public nature of the play thrust joual into the international spotlight for the first time, creating debate over the dual nature of the language. It acts both as a symbol of national pride and liberation, but also as one of shame.

Aquin (1988) describes joual as a "linguistic resistance movement,” in that it attempts to define the Québécois against the hegemony of both anglophone Canada and Hexagonal French, formal institutions that he characterizes as “colonizing entities.” It is for this reason that joual’s characteristic anglicisms have created so much controversy, with one linguist even going so far as to allege their ability to “undermine the speaker’s identification with a dominant language and his ability to conceptualize and fully express reality” (Handler 1988). Language pollution threatens the collective identity of Québec, making it important to safeguard joual from further contamination. Since the Quiet Revolution, the provincial government has implemented a host of language laws, all of which work to make joual the dominant and preferred language (Handler 1988).

In 1972, Tremblay applied for a $20,000 grant to take Les Belles-sœurs to Paris. Despite its widespread success in Québec, the Ministry of Cultural Affairs refused to grant Tremblay the money, ashamed of the work’s portrayal of the province and its language (Five Nights 1972). Such a refusal reveals the dual nature of joual. As a substandard form of French, joual acts, in this scenario, as a symbol of national shame. This view echoes the writings of Desbiens, among others, who insist that the language, as “the lowest common denominator,” does not properly reflect the social reality (Williams Walsh 1993). In this sense, joual stands for backwardness, a term that, for many, recalls life pre-Quiet Revolution. The recourse to Anglicisms thus “bespeaks the inability to project the collective self into external forms,” signifying joual as a cultural failure of the Québécois nation (Handler 1988).

References

Aquin, H. 1988. Writing Quebec. Edited by Anthony Purdy. Translated by P. Gibson, R. Joshee, A. Purdy, and L. Shouldice. Edmonton: The University of Alberta Press

Behiels, M. D. and Hayday, M. 2011. Québec’s ‘Quiet Revolution’: rupture and/or continuity. In: M. D. Behiels and M. Hayday, eds. Contemporary Quebec: selected readings and commentaries. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press: 157-164

Churpała, A. and Warmuzińska-Rogóż, J. 2011. ‘Les Belle-sœurs’ de Michel Tremblay – le jeu de l’ellipse et de l’abondance ou comment traduire le ‘joual.’ Synergies, (8): 83-91

Desbiens, J. 1960. Les Insolences du Frère Untel. Montréal: Les Éditions de l’Homme ltée

Five Nights [radio programme] Presented by Judith Walle. Radio Canada, 5 July 1972, 2 mins. Available at: https://www.cbc.ca/archives/entry/michel-tremblay-defends-joual [Accessed 18 January 2021]

Handler, R. 1988. Nationalism and the Politics of Culture in Quebec. Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press

Ossipov, H. 1994. French variation and the teaching of Quebec literature: a linguistic guide to la literature joualisante. The French Review 67(6): 944-953

Papen, R. A. 2014. Hybrid languages in Canada involving French: The case of Michif and Chiac. Journal of Language Contact, 7(1): 154-183

Salien, J. 1988. Quebec French: Attitudes and Pedagogical Perspectives. The Modern Language Journal 82(1): 95-102

Vincent, D. 1984. Le sacre au Québec: transgression d’un ordre religieux ou social?. In: M. Amvot and G. Bibeau, eds. Le statut culturel du français au Québec. Montreal, CA: Bibliothèque Nationale du Québec

Vincent, D. n.d. Les sacres en français québécois. Usito. Available at: https://usito.usherbrooke.ca/articles/thématiques/vincent_1. [Accessed 18 January 2021]

Williams Walsh, M. 1993. Quebecers Accused of French-Frying the Language. Los Angeles Times, 16 February. Available at: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-02-16-wr-270-story.html [Accessed 16 January 2021].