The Colonised Voice: Phonological Paradox, Somatic Memory, and the Oblicist Framework — A Theoretical Framework and Preliminary Protocols

This preprint introduces phonotraumatology, a transdisciplinary framework investigating the intersection of phonological performance, somatic memory, and colonial history. It documents a recurring phonological paradox observed among Afro-diasporic French speakers: full articulatory mastery of typologically complex L1 phonemes (e.g. labio-velar stops), alongside systematic difficulty with phonologically simpler French consonant clusters (/tʁ/, /fʁ/, /dʁ/) when these occur in lexical items carrying a colonial-administrative charge. Drawing on phonological transfer theory, trauma neuroscience (van der Kolk, Rauch et al.), Exemplar Phonology, and postcolonial theory (Fanon, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o), the paper proposes that this selective blocking may reflect "somatography" — the inscription of colonial violence in pre-articulatory encoding mechanisms. It introduces the Oblicist framework (Siewe Mingueu, 2026) and its hypothesised graphemic de-traumatisation procedure as a candidate mechanism for disrupting this inhibition. The paper specifies the PTPO-2026 experimental protocol (three sub-protocols: Paradox, Amplification, Intervention), a 52-item reading task with phonologically matched colonial-charge and neutral-control stimuli, and a full Praat-based annotation methodology. Informal pilot observations from volunteer participants are reported as feasibility data, alongside a reflexive methodological note on participant recruitment resistance — itself discussed as a candidate second-order manifestation of the phenomenon under investigation. Status: theoretical framework and protocol specification. All neurobiological claims are framed as hypotheses pending empirical validation. This is a living document; subsequent versions will incorporate formal annotation results as data collection proceeds (target n ≥ 80).