Variationism and the Contextualization of French

The French language has been imposed on many sub-Saharan African peoples by history, i.e. by colonization. This situation has led to the cohabitation of French with the local languages of the colonized peoples. Yet each language has its own substrate and syntax, which are activated in communicative situations. The result is linguistic interference, xenism and variationism. These linguistic facts are perceptible in the literary production of certain African writers such as Sony Labou Tansi and Mongo Béti. It is in this African social context that the issue of French variationism in the French-speaking African novel was born: "Le variationnisme du français dans La vie et demie de Sony Labou Tansi et Branle-bas en noir et blanc de Mongo Béti : Étude grammaticale et énonciative" (French variationism in Sony Labou Tansi's La vie et demie and Mongo Béti's Branle-bas in black and white: a grammatical and enunciative study).We are aware that the subject of the "variationism" of French in African writing has been and remains the subject of numerous works and studies. The risk of an impression of "déjà vu" is therefore not to be excluded.