#fr i imagined this as some deep detailed essay with proper APA citations

[edelegs]

Reading Way Too Much Into Petra’s Language

So basically I study second language acquisition and I have been meaning to do a deep dive into Petra’s language use from the moment I first read her dialogue. (On a slightly unrelated note, the Black Eagles house really is just targeted content for queer linguistics grad students). I’d intended for this to be some grand project where I take Petra’s speech patterns and classify them according to theories in second language acquisition (SLA) - but that involves explaining too much Fire Emblem lore to Serious Linguists, so instead I’m going to use my class notes to analyze Petra’s speech patterns and explain why I feel she is a good representation of how narratives should treat non-native speakers of the majority language. (sources will be fast and loose, I’m sorry professors) 

I first want to mention the idea of “native speakerism”, particularly the fact that its use as a measure of proficiency and/or an expected standard of language use is flawed. Today, there are more non-native speakers of English than native speakers as a result of globalization, native speakers do not use language perfectly, and not all varieties of English are viewed equally (e.g. “native English speaker” never seems to refer to Indian English or AAVE). Much of today’s literature on SLA advocates for a focus on successful communication rather than native-like competency. From this perspective, Petra has achieved this goal: she seems to have no problem communicating with her peers outside of some trouble with idioms. Her peers always understand what she is saying, regardless of misconjugated verbs or odd phrasing. However, it is clear that Petra holds herself to these native-speaker standards. She is also the only non-native speaker of Fódlandish to be portrayed as a language learner. Despite this, I will try to avoid describing her language according to this standard. 

Of the non-Fódlan nations in the game, only Brigid, Duscur, and Dagda speak a different language than Fòdlanish. (I don’t recall anything about Almyra’s native language, because I’m 99% sure Claude didn’t mention it). Dedue in particular gives the audience a concrete timeline for his language acquisition - in a support with Dimitri, he mentions that he didn’t use honourifics for him in the past because he was still learning Fòdlandish. This puts him in a Fòdlandish-speaking environment from a young age. Shamir references speaking Dadgan in her A support with Byleth, but there’s no mention of how long she had been learning the language. Her background as a mercenary would be a logical justification for her strong proficiency (training one’s accent away is rare and often not feasible, but I sincerely believe the writers did not put this much thought into that). 

This means that language in the game only seems to matter for Petra’s character. Her background as a political pawn serves as her motivation. Petra is sent to the Empire five years before the events of the story as leverage against a Brigidian uprising. In their C-support, Hubert mentions that Petra could barely use the language when they met. This suggests that Petra has interacted with Adrestian nobility prior to attending Garegg Mach. At school, her environment is still largely made up of members of the nobility, especially as a member of the Black Eagles. (Not all noble speech is created equally, however. Put a pin in that). 

There are three notable features of Petra’s English: over-reliance and misuse of verbs “to be” and “to have”, an overgeneralization of the suffix -ness, and contraction avoidance. In general, Petra uses “have” to describe states of being: “I have gratitude”, “I have sorrow”, “he has much concentration”. This pattern reminds me of the French auxiliary verbs “être” and “avoir”, which leads me to believe that Petra is experiencing transfer from her first language. An English learner of French might say “je suis 24 ans” (I am 24 years) instead of the accepted form “j’ai 24 ans” (I have 24 years). Petra is likely making a similar mistake. From this, I suggest that Brigidian might use an equivalent form of “have” for states of being (or uses the same verb for “to be” and “to have”). What is strange is that this pattern does not significantly change in her A-supports with the others. She does make more use of “to be”, though it remains largely unconjugated (e.g. “we will be winning”, “I will be sharing my heart with all of you”, “I want to be smoking the meat, so that we can be preserving it”). 

There is an order for the development of English morpheme accuracy (Pienenmann’s Processability Theory, 1989). -ing is typically acquired first, which is seen in Petra’s language. It is followed by plural -s, then -be, when to use “a” versus “the”, irregular past, regular past -ed, third person -s, and possessive ‘s. Petra does not seem to follow this pattern exactly. She does not typically misuse articles (a/the), but her use of be is still largely unconjugated. She also uses the past perfect form more often than the simple past (from Hubert/Petra C: ”I had more youth then”, “I have learned much . . .” “and meeting you and Lady Edelgard has had great value for me”). There are instances when she does use the simple past (Caspar/Petra: “you are not the one who did the killing”, “our parents had conflict”) but this use is inconsistent. This blatantly contradicts Anderson and Shirai’s (1996) Aspect Hypothesis, which states that simple past is acquired much earlier on than past perfect. Similarly, Petra’s overuse of -ness is likely a similar developmental issue (though I cannot find a developmental hierarchy outlining this). 

One explanation for this (aside from “I am reading way more into this than the writers/translators did”) lies in Petra’s social networks. Since coming to Fòdlan, Petra has largely been surrounded by nobles. The use of past perfect, as well as contraction avoidance, might’ve been influenced by the noble’s speech patterns. A side effect of transcribing literally every line of Petra dialogue for the bigger-scale project I’d initially planned was noticing which Black Eagles use contractions and which don’t. Those who are concerned with maintaining their image - Edelgard, Hubert, and Ferdinand - either do not use contractions or use them much less than the others. Linhardt, Bernadetta, and Caspar all don’t care about how others perceive them, and as a result their speech is much more casual. Petra is a highly conscious learner who likely aspires to achieve the speech of the former group. As the future Queen of Brigid, she aims to be perceived as Edelgard’s equal and bring more respect and dignity for her nation. One way for her to do this is through language. Petra perceives herself as lacking proficiency and is embarrassed by her grasp on the language. She is a perfectionist in everything she does and this extends to language. In her supports with Byleth, she corrects herself often. One of her advice box questions expresses frustration about her lack of progress with speaking. She is proud of herself when she uses an expression correctly (e.g. [smiling] “I have had practicing of that phrase”). The realism of her tense acquisition aside, Petra’s aspirations lead her to model her speech after that of her distinguished peers. 

Should Petra’s language have been written to more closely mirror real-world English acquisition patterns? Considering that I doubt this question has crossed other players’ minds, this is largely unnecessary. What should be asked is this: how is Petra treated by the narrative as a second language speaker? The answer is: surprisingly well! Though there are times when her misunderstanding of common expressions is used for humour, nobody treats Petra as if she’s lesser for being Brigidian or a non-native speaker. In fact, the person who’s hardest on Petra’s language is Petra herself. There are no incidences (at least within the Black Eagles) where others perceive her as less intelligent or less worthy of respect. It could be easy to read her character as “quirky foreigner”, but that dismisses the fact that her peers do not see her this way. This game is far from perfect at portraying differences in race/nationality (looking at you, Dedue), but Petra Macneary--hunter, friend, and badass queen--is a pleasant surprise. 

#long post #and i mean loooooong post #petra macneary #fe3h #black eagles #fr i imagined this as some deep detailed essay with proper APA citations #but i procrastinated too long and overwhelmed myself #so it exists but like this #meta #character analysis #fire emblem three houses #i transcribed every line of Petra dialogue for this