Supernatural folk belief expression in a French-Newfoundland community: a study of expressive form, communicative process, and social function in L'Anse-a-Canards

• Main Author: Butler, Gary Reginald
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: Memorial University of Newfoundland 1985
• Subjects: Newfoundland
• Online Access: https://research.library.mun.ca/10238/; https://research.library.mun.ca/10238/1/Butler_GaryReginald.pdf

This study focuses on the supernatural belief tradition of L'Anse-a-Canards, a small French-Newfoundland community located on the Province's isolated Port-au-Port Peninsula. Its aim is to present and examine the contents of this body of folklore, to determine the various oral modes and forms by means of which these contents are expressed, and to dis cover the social and cultural determinants which influence the oral communication of this tradition in actual performance contexts. As such, the study incorporates information from both the textual and the sociocultural levels in an effort to understand the function of oral communication as it concerns this tradition. -- The study distinguishes essentially three oral modes, which are designated as "traditum-intensive," "narrative-intensive," and "discourse-centred." The term "traditum" is employed in this study to refer to the conceptual unit of belief underlying any oral expression concerning the supernatural. Texts which are direct statements of a belief traditum, with little or no explanatory elaboration beyond the expression of that traditum, are "traditum-intensive" in that their primary textual concentration is on the basic unit of belief itself. In contrast, the "narrative-intensive" texts enlarge upon the basic traditum, which is submerged in a body of narrative-contextual elements. -- The narrative mode, which is by far the most frequent of the three, is sub-divided into generic forms defined according to the social relationship existing between the narrator and the narrative protagonist, or "hero." This criterion permits the division of narratives into the following categories: legend, local legend, community experience narrative, family experience narrative, and personal experience narrative. -- Through the quantitative analysis of relative narrative frequencies and the contextual analysis of performance, the significance of this narrative relationship as a determinant of communicative competence is demonstrated. Because of social considerations as to what ...