Throughout the story, Chopin has characters speak in local dialects. The primary dialect in the story is Acadian, meaning it comes from the descendants of the French-speaking Acadian people who moved from Canada and the Northeastern United States to Louisiana in the 17th and 18th centuries. The following passage demonstrates the way that Chopin moves between the Acadian dialect of the characters (in this case, Calixta) and the common language use of the narrator:
“Hé, Bobinôt! Mais w’at ’s the matta? W’at you standin’ planté là like ole Ma’ame Tina’s cow in the bog, you?”
That was good. That was an excellent thrust at Bobinôt, who had forgotten the figure of the dance with his mind bent on other things, and it started a clamor of laughter at his expense. He joined good-naturedly.
The way that Chopin captures the Acadian dialect is quite extreme and likely hard for non-Acadian readers to understand. Here she mixes French with uncommon contractions of words, unusual spellings, and uniquely Acadian grammar (such as ending a sentence with the subject repeated). Calixta’s dialogue essentially translates to, “Hey, Bobinôt! What’s the matter with you? Why are you dancing like a cow?”
Chopin’s transition back into common English helps readers unfamiliar with the dialect understand what has happened—Calixta has clearly insulted Bobinôt and yet he feels that it was “an excellent thrust” because he had “forgotten the figure of the dance” and likely looked like a cow. That Bobinôt joins in with the laughter “good-naturedly” shows that he loves Calixta so deeply he doesn’t even mind when she makes a joke at his expense.
