Performative Features in Adults' Haitian Creole Narratives

Abstract

This study evaluated structures and patterns of the narrative performance from 10 native Haitian adults (5 women and 5 men). Haitian Creole narratives were (a) analyzed and coded for nine West African features (repetition, parallelism, detailing, tonality, ideophone, digression, imagery, allusion, and symbolism) and (b) analyzed for nonverbal behaviors associated with speech using five gesticulation characteristics (hand, arm, feet, head movements, and facial expressions). Results suggested that Haitian Creole narratives most frequently utilized three patterns of West African storytelling features: tonality, repetition, and detailing. Keywords narrative, HaitianHaiti has a literacy rate of 49% in individuals over 15 years of age (http:// unstats.un.org/unsd/demographic/products/socind/) and, as a result, the oral tradition of storytelling is strongly embraced even to this day. Beginning in the 17th and 18th centuries, professional Haitian storytellers (maıtre conte) would tell oral stories at night to entertain and educate fellow workers (Chamoiseau, 1988), a practice that continues to this day. However, there is very little formal scholarly information available regarding Haitian narrative Imagination, Cognition and Personality: Consciousness in