Les doublets synonymiques chez Hervé Burel (1905) ou comment casser l’entre-soi

Abstract

In his autobiography composed in Breton around 1905 entitled Histor eur famill eus Breïz Isel, Hervé Burel (1858-1943), a peasant, made extensive use of a rhetorical device that is the subject of the analysis presented here, namely the synonymic doublet. How did this ancient Latin rhetorical device come to be used by an anticlerical Breton-speaking peasant from Léon at the end of the 19th century? Beyond the emerging diglossic context in which this work was written, which could partly explain this discursive phenomenon, is it possible that the author was using this device to issue a sociolinguistic challenge? Could he have been using literature to put forward a claim for more social justice?

Keywords

• Burel (Hervé)
• literature
• autobiography
• Breton (language)
• people
• rhetoric