In the multicultural environment that France has become over time, African plurilingualism represents a dynamic intersection of language, identity, and self-narratives, reflecting both personal agency and structural constraints. Our paper explores how African migrants, and their descendants navigate multiple linguistic repertoires ̶ encompassing indigenous African languages (and the list is long!), and colonial languages, Arabic, and French, among others ̶ in shaping their sense of self and belonging. While French remains the dominant language in public and institutional spheres, African languages persist in familial, cultural, and religious spaces, often serving as markers of heritage and resistance.

Through an analysis of personal testimonies, sociolinguistic studies, and cultural expressions such as music, literature, and digital discourse, this research examines how plurilingual individuals construct self-narratives that negotiate between integration, exclusion, and identity affirmation. It highlights the ways in which language functions as both a tool for social mobility and a source of discrimination, particularly in education and employment. Additionally, it explores hybrid linguistic practices such as Verlan and multilingual rap, which offer creative spaces for self-expression among second-generation migrants.

Ultimately, this paper argues that African plurilingualism in France is not merely a linguistic reality but a key element of identity construction and cultural negotiation. Recognizing these linguistic diversities is crucial for fostering more inclusive policies and challenging monolingual narratives of “Frenchness” (or francité) in a multicultural society.

The aim of this study is to examine the linguistic practices of Afro-descendants in Angers, in order to understand the processes of configuration and reconfiguration of their language repertoires (Calinon et al., 2019), which include several languages and in particular minority languages (Blanchet, 2012). These languages are transformed during mobility through encounters with other languages, peoples and sociocultural practices. These encounters are physical, imaginary or virtual, and the representations observed among African migrants in Angers tell other stories and relationships woven with Africa, with France, marked in particular by hybridity, diversity and a structuring otherness that is still ignored in all situations where, despite recognition of the relevance of plural and complex identities (Feussi, 2014), institutional epistemologies continue to dominate. The data will be drawn from biographical interviews and participant observations analysed from an interpretative angle, using qualitative approaches that will be ethnosociolinguistic (Blanchet, 2012), critical and reflexive (Heller, 2023).

References

Blanchet, P.. 2012. La linguistique de terrain - Méthode et théorie. Une approche ethnosociolinguistique de la complexité. Rennes, PUR.

Calinon, A.-S., & N. Thamin. 2019. « De la mobilité en sociolinguistique ». In Thamin N. & M.Zakaria Ali-Benchérif, Mobilités dans l’espace migratoire Algérie France Canada,, Presses universitaires de Provence.

Feussi, V. 2014. « Être à la fois ici et ailleurs ? Diasporisation, langues et constructions identitaires à travers des Cameroon tags », Bulot, T., I. Boyer & M.-M. Bertucci (dir.), Diasporisations sociolinguistiques & précarités. Discrimination(s) et mobilité(s), Paris, L’Harmattan, pp. 123-143.

Heller, M.. 2023. Éléments d’une sociolinguistique critique. ENS Éditions.

The University of Paris 8 is characterized by a mixed, multicultural student body. Nearly 200 languages are spoken. Students from almost every nationality coexist: local and international students from Erasmus exchanges, as well as students from Africa, the West Indies, Asia, and the Americas. Among the French, there are those of “origin”, the descendants of immigrant families who have lived in France for several generations. The introduction of Language Autobiographies (LA) has made it possible to enhance their plurilingualism in two courses designed to consolidate their academic level of French. The initiative was implemented between 2019 and 2020. We are continuing this work as part of ERUA.

The LA writing process ̶ which lasts the whole semester ̶ enables the narrator to reflect on the different means deployed to acquire the languages they master at different levels. Writing leads to an awareness of one’s relationship with languages, both those transmitted by family and those acquired at school. There are also imposed, loved, hated, and secret languages.

The analysis of the corpus collected is based on a critical reading of each final production (which has been reread, modified and expanded). It often reveals the complex, sometimes ambiguous relationship that Afro-descendant students have with the French language in particular: at times it represents a gateway for access to knowledge and recognition, sometimes it evokes the traumas of colonial domination. It’s as if there’s still some kind of intranquility between the French language and them, whether they are foreigners or born in France.

This paper explores how pedagogical and performative practices become spaces of identity negotiation for Afro-descendant artists in training. Using the example of the drama school at the University del Valle in Buenaventura, Colombia, we analyze how language, accent, and self-narratives represent key stakes in the construction of artistic and professional identities.

In this artistic training context, Afro-Colombian students face a dual injunction: mastering the codes of Western dramatic theatre to gain access to national and international artistic landscapes while also being confronted with expectations that often relegate them to a folklorized representation of their culture. This tension particularly crystallizes in their relationship with language and accent, where erasing certain linguistic markers becomes a strategy to escape exoticizing assignments. At the same time, local performance practices ̶ where orality, musicality, and embodied expression are central ̶ provide resources for resistance and the reinvention of stage language. By highlighting these dynamics, this study contributes to a broader reflection on the role of languages, identity narratives, and cultural legacies in artistic training within diverse and mobile contexts. While these challenges are framed within a specific setting, they also resonate with other experiences of theatre training in plural cultural environments. Therefore, how can theatrical pedagogies be reimagined to avoid reproducing these assignments while valuing the diversity of narratives and stage languages?

References

Mignolo, W.D. (2011). The Darker Side of Western Modernity: Global Futures, Decolonial Options.

Wright M.M. (2004), Becoming Black: Creating Identity in the African Diaspora, DUP, Durham.