Morpho-phonetic variation in the spoken French media

A comparison of three sociolinguistic variables

Authors

  • Martin Howard University College, Cork Author

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/sols.v7i1.1

Keywords:

synchronic / diachronic variation, media language, variationist sociolinguistics, French language

Abstract

While recent studies have provided pivotal insights into the use of a range of sociolinguistic variables by speakers of Hexagonal French, this paper aims to illuminate how their usage may diverge/converge in the spoken language of the media. Based on a quantitative study of liaison realisation, /l/ deletion, and ‘ne’ deletion, the paper compares a number of trends behind their usage by journalists with those previously identified in that profession and among the general public . Results suggest that sociolinguistic variation is by no means a uniform phenomenon among journalists, but rather a number of (socio)linguistic factors impinge on such variation, just as in the case of the public. The results are discussed in terms of the differences and similarities that emerge across the variables, such that the specificity of the sociolinguistic variable in itself is seen to impact significantly on its use.

References

Ågren, J. (1973). Étude sur quelques liaisons facultatives dans le français de conversation radiophonique. Fréquences et facteurs . Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Uppsaliensis.

Armstrong, N. (1996). “Variable deletion of French /l/: linguistic, social and stylistic factors”. Journal of French Language Studies 6, 1-22.

Armstrong, N. (1998). “La variation sociolinguistique dans le lexique français”. Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie 114, 462-95.

Armstrong, N. (2001). Social and Stylistic Variation in Spoken French: A Comparative Approach. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Armstrong, N. (2002). “Variable deletion of French ‘ne’: a cross-stylistic perspective”. Language Sciences 24, 153-73.

Armstrong, N. & S. Unsworth (1999). “Sociolinguistic variation in southern French schwa”. Linguistics 37, 127-56.

Armstrong, N. & A. Smith (2002). “The influence of linguistic and social factors on the recent decline of French ‘ne’”. Journal of French Language Studies 12, 23-41.

Ashby, W. (1981a). “French liaison as a sociolinguistic phenomenon”. In W. Cressey & D. Napoli (eds.), Linguistics Symposium on Romance Languages. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 46-57.

Ashby, W. (1981b). “The loss of the negative particle in French”. Language 57, 674-87.

Ashby, W. (1984). “The elision of /l/ in French clitic pronouns and articles”. In E. Pulgram (ed.), Romanitas: Studies in Romance Linguistics. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1-16.

Ashby, W. (1988). “Français de France, français du Canada: divergence et convergence”. French Review 61, 693-702.

Ashby, W. (1991). “When does variation indicate linguistic change in progress?”. Journal of French Language Studies 1, 1-19.

Ashby, W. (1992). “The variable use of ‘on’ versus ‘tu’/‘vous’ for indefinite reference in spoken French”. Journal of French Language Studies 2, 135-57.

Ashby, W. (2001). “Un nouveau regard sur la chute du ‘ne’ en français parlé tourangeau: s’agit-il d’un changement en cours?”. Journal of French Language Studies 11, 1-22.

Ashby, W. (2003). “La liaison variable en français parlé tourangeau: une analyse en temps reel”. Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the Association for French Language Studies, Tours, September 2003, France.

Auger, J. & Y. Rose (eds.) (1997). Exploration du lexique. Québec, Université de Laval: CIRAL.

Bell, A. (1984). “Language style as audience design”. Language in Society 13, 145-204.

Bell, A. (1991). Media Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Blanche-Benveniste, C. & C. Jeanjean (1987). Le français parlé: Transcription et édition. Paris: Didier Erudition.

Booij, G. & D. De Jong (1987). “The domain of liaison: Theories and data”. Linguistics 25, 1005-25.

Bybee, J. (2001). “Frequency effects on French liaison”. In J. Bybee & P. Hopper (eds.), Frequency Effects and the Emergence of Linguistic Structures. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 337-59.

Coveney, A. (1996). Variability in Spoken French. Exeter: Elm Bank Publications.

Coveney, A. (2000). “Vestiges of ‘nous’ and the first person plural verb in informal spoken French”. Language Sciences 22, 447-81.

Coveney, A. (2003). “Anything you can do, tu can do better’: tu and vous as substitutes for indefinite on in French”. Journal of Sociolinguistics 7, 164-91.

De Jong, D. (1991). Sociolinguistic Aspects of French Liaison. Dordrecht: Foris.

Dewaele, J.-M. (2002). “Using socio-stylistic variants in advanced French interlanguage: The case of ‘nous’/‘on’”. Eurosla Yearbook II, 205-26.

Dewaele, J.-M. & V. Regan (2002). “Maîtriser la norme sociolinguistique en interlangue française”. Journal of French Language Studies 12, 123-48.

Diller, A.-M. (1983). “Subject NP structure and variable constraints; the case of ne deletion”. In R. Fasold (ed.), Variation in the Form and Use of Language. Washington DC: Georgetown University Press. 167-74.

Encrevé, P. (1988). La liaison avec et sans enchaînement. Phonologie tridimensionelle et usages du français. Paris: Seuil.

Ervin-Tripp, S. (1972). “On sociolinguistic rules: Alternation and co-occurrence”. In J. J. Gumperz & D. Hymes (eds.), Directions in Sociolinguistics: The Ethnography of Communication. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 213-50.

Forsgren, M. (2002). “Le français parlé des médias : programme pour une recherché variationniste pluri-dimensionnelle”. Romansk Forum 16, 351-58.

Gaatone, D. (1971). Etude descriptive du système de la négation en français contemporain. Geneva: Droz.

Gadet, F. (1989). Le français ordinaire. Paris: Armand Colin.

Gadet, F. (1992). Le français populaire. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.

Gadet, F. (1998). “Des fortifs aux técis: persistances et discontinuités dans la langue Populaire”. In D. Marley (ed.), Linguistic Identities and Policies in France and the French-speaking World. London: AFLS & CILT, 11-26.

Gadet, F. (2003). “Theoretical discussions in progress. Is there a French theory of variation?”. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 160, 17-40.

Gadet, F. (ed.) (2004). Le style comme perspective sur la dynamique des langues (=Langage et société 109).

Green, J. & M.-A. Hintze (1988). “A reconsideration of liaison and enchaînement”. University of Essex Occasional Papers in Languages and Linguistics, 136-68.

Green, J. & M.-A. Hintze (2002). “The maintenance of the liaison in a family network”. In M.-A. Hintze, T. Pooley, & A. Judge (eds.), French Accents: Phonological and Sociolinguistic Perspectives. London: AFLS & CILT, 24-44.

Hansen, A .- B. (1994). “Etude du Ecaduc –stabilisation en cours et variations lexicales”. Journal of French Language Studies 4, 25-54.

Howard, M. (to appear). “Sociolinguistic variation and standard Québécois French: A comparative analysis”. In M. Howard (ed.), Focus on Language Issues in Canada, [Preliminary title]. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press.

King, R. (2000). The Lexical Basis of Grammatical Borrowing. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Klausenberg, J. (1984). French Liaison and Linguistic Theory. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag.

Laks, B. (1980). Différenciation linguistique et différenciation sociale: quelques problèmes de linguistique française. Doctoral thesis, Université de Paris VIII-Vincennes.

Malécot, A. (1975). “French liaison as a function of grammatical, phonetic, and paralinguistic variables”. Phonetica 32, 161-79.

Martineau, F. (1988) “Variable deletion of que in the spoken French of Ottawa - Hull”. In D. Birdsong & J. - P. Montreuil (eds.), Advances in Romance Linguistics. Dordrecht: Foris, 275-87.

Morin, Y.-C. (1982). “De quelques /l/ non-étymologiques dans le français du Québec”. Revue québécoise de linguistique 11, 9-47.

Morin, Y.-C. & J. Kaye (1982). “The syntactic bases for French liaison”. Journal of Linguistics 18, 291-330.

Mougeon, R. & É. Beniak (1991). The Linguistic Consequences of Language Contact and Restriction: The Case of French in Ontario, Canada. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Mougeon, R. & É. Beniak (1995). “Le non-accord en nombre entre sujet et verbe en français ontarien: un cas de simplification?”. Présence francophone 46, 43-65.

Nagy, N., H. Blondeau & J. Auger (2003). “Second language acquisition and “real” French: An investigation of subject doubling in the French of Montreal Anglophones”. Language Variation and Change 15, 73-103.

Pohl, J. (1975). “L’ommision de ne dans le français contemporain”. Le français dans le monde 111, 17-23.

Pooley T. (1996). Chtimi: The Urban Vernaculars of Northern France. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

Poplack, S. & D. Walker (1986). “Going through /l/ in Canadian French”. In D. Sankoff (ed.), Diversity and Diachrony. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 173-98.

Sankoff, G. & H. Cedergren (1976). “Les contraintes linguistiques et sociales de l’élision de /l/ chez les Montréalais”. In M. Boudreault & F. Mohren (eds.), Actes du XIIIème congrès international de linguistique et philologie romanes. Québec: Les Presses de l’Université de Laval, 1101-17.

Sankoff, D. & P. Thibault (1977). “L’alternance entre les auxiliaires ‘avoir’ et ‘être’ à Montréal”. Langue française 34, 81-108.

Sankoff, G. & D. Vincent (1977). “L’emploi productif du ne dans le français parlé à Montréal”. Le français moderne XLV, 243-56.

Sankoff, G. & D. Vincent (1980). “The productive use of ‘ne’ in spoken Montréal French”. In G. Sankoff (ed.), The Social Life of Language. Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press, 295-310.

Smith, A. (1998). “French liaison: a proposed simplification”. Francophonie 17, 11-4.

Published

2007-04-19

How to Cite

Howard, M. (2007). Morpho-phonetic variation in the spoken French media: A comparison of three sociolinguistic variables. Sociolinguistic Studies, 7(1), 1-29. https://doi.org/10.1558/sols.v7i1.1

Most read articles by the same author(s)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 > >>