Kate Chopin, Louisiana, French, Creoles, Acadians, race, ethnicity, class, culture

Our study views Kate Chopin’s short stories written in the last decade of the 19th century through the lens of 21st-century readers. It combines two approaches: literary and linguistic. It examines how diverse cultural communities overcome racial and ethnic barriers by concentrating on what connects different ethnic and racial groups – Creoles, Acadians (Cajuns), African Americans, Native Americans, and the dominant white Anglo society. It also focuses on stories in which cultural barriers are viewed as insurmountable, preventing mutual understanding and in some cases leading to personal tragedies. In doing so, Chopin gives a portrayal of Louisiana’s cultural diversity from multiple perspectives. The linguistic part of our study focuses on the French expressions Chopin uses in her texts and examines, in particular, their occurrences, as well as linguistic and social function. Chopin’s French-speaking characters use three varieties of French spoken at that time in Louisiana – colonial/continental French, Acadian/Cajun French, and French/Louisiana Creole. Colonial/continental French, or Louisiana standard French (the so-called “good” French), was spoken by white Creoles, the elite of the area. It is a variety of French first used by immigrants who came to Louisiana directly from France. Acadian/Cajun French is a nonstandard variety of French first spoken by immigrants (Cajuns) who came to Louisiana from Nova Scotia after 1755. French/Louisiana Creole, mostly spoken by people of color, is a French-based vernacular language that developed on the sugarcane plantations of former French colonies in Louisiana. All three varieties of French used by Chopin’s characters are analyzed in this study and put into the context of the present linguistic situation in Louisiana.