Identité, narration, représentation et métaphores : la préface de Dieu d’eau de Griaule

My paper is an analysis of Marcel Griaule’s prologue to Dieu d'eau, his famous and classic ethnography of the Dogon. His paratext is an important and concentrated case to investigate the process through which an author conceives his work. By a cognitive linguistic approach, my study tries to examine, more particularly, some mechanisms through which Griaule provides a specific narration to his work. Interestingly, in his prologue it is possible to analyze some relationships concerning linguistic principles, some textual narratives and several concepts generally used in the book. His prologue is thus essential to read an ethnography in a double way: as a text containing some concepts associate with the Dogon and as a “narrative thinking” of these concepts. As a consequence, the central question in my paper is: how and how much do narrative choices produce a scientific text aspiring to be a representation of a different culture? Griaule’s discourse is obviously connected with cultural issues but what is also relevant here, from the narrative point of view, is Griaule’s way to represent himself in the text and the features associated with a certain idea of Africa. My purpose is indeed to focus on these joint narratives and cultural relationships.