Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-t5pn6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T18:05:49.071Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

(e) in Normandy: The sociolinguistics, phonology and phonetics of the Loi de Position

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 August 2018

DAMIEN HALL Open the ORCID record for DAMIEN HALL [Opens in a new window]
DAMIEN HALL*
Affiliation:
Newcastle University
*
Address for correspondence: e-mail: damien.hall@newcastle.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article uses the pronunciation of stressed Intonational Phrase-final /ε/ and /e/ in two communities in Normandy, France, to illustrate the convergence of two sociolinguistic processes on the same phonological result: increasing application of the Loi de Position. In both communities (one rural and further from Paris, one urban and closer to Paris), there is now no consistent community-wide phonetic distinction between the two phonemes in that environment. It is suggested that the Loi de Position is already widely applied in the rural site, but speakers are still conscious of the formal norm whereby it is not applied; for the urban site, apparent-time changes for this variable reflect changes in Parisian speech. The theoretical implications of the study concerning speakers’ organisation of their vowel-space, and concerning the increasing application of the Loi de Position in the French of France, are examined. These conclusions are reached by per-speaker analysis of F1 and F2 separately from each other (rare in French linguistics). As a measure of community cohesion, the article introduces to linguistics the coefficient of variation (more common in biology and medicine).

Type
Article
Information
Journal of French Language Studies , Volume 29 , Issue 1 , March 2019 , pp. 1 - 33
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Armstrong, N., and Pooley, T. (2010). Social and Linguistic Change in European French. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Avanzi, M. (2017). Atlas du français de nos régions. Malakoff: Armand Colin.Google Scholar
Battye, A., Hintze, M.-A., and Rowlett, P. (2000). The French Language Today: A Linguistic Introduction, 2nd edn. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Boersma, P. and Weenink, D. (1992–2017). Praat: doing phonetics by computer. http://www.praat.orgGoogle Scholar
Boula de Mareüil, P., Woehrling, C., and Adda-Decker, M. (2013). Contribution of automatic speech processing to the study of Northern/Southern French. Language Sciences, 39: 75–82.Google Scholar
Boula de Mareüil, P., Goldman, J.-P., Rilliard, A., Scherrer, Y., and Vernier, F. (2017). Cartopho. Laboratoire d'Informatique pour la Mécanique et les Sciences de l'Ingénieur / Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (LIMSI/CNRS). https://cartopho.limsi.fr/Google Scholar
Boula de Mareüil, P., Rilliard, A., and Vernier, F. (2018 to appear). A Speaking Atlas of the Regional Languages of France. Paper presented at the 11th International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (7–12 May 2018, Miyazaki, Japan).Google Scholar
CALLIOPE [Tubach, J.-P. et al.] (1989). La parole et son traitement automatique. Paris: Masson.Google Scholar
Carton, F. and Lebègue, M, (1989). Atlas linguistique et ethnographique picard (vol. 1). Paris: Éditions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique.Google Scholar
Carton, F., Rossi, M., Autesserre, D., and Léon, P.R. (1983). Les accents des Français. Paris: Hachette. http://accentsdefrance.free.frGoogle Scholar
Delattre, P. (1951). Principes de phonétique française à l'usage des étudiants anglo-américains, 2nd edn. Middlebury: Middlebury College École Française d’Été.Google Scholar
Denes, P.B., and Pinson, E.N. (1993). The Speech Chain: The Physics and Biology of Spoken Language, 2nd edn. New York: Freeman.Google Scholar
Deyhime, G. (1967a). Enquête sur la Phonologie du Français Contemporain [first part]. La Linguistique, 1: 97–108.Google Scholar
Deyhime, G. (1967b). Enquête sur la phonologie du français contemporain [second part]. La Linguistique, 2: 57–84.Google Scholar
Durand, J. (1976). Generative Phonology, Dependency Phonology and Southern French. Lingua e Stile, 11: 3–23.Google Scholar
Durand, J. and Lyche, C. (2004). Structure et variation dans quelques systèmes vocaliques du français: l'enquête Phonologie du Français Contemporain. In: Coveney, A., Hintze, M.-A. and Sanders, C. (eds), Variation et francophonie. Paris: L'Harmattan, pp. 217–240.Google Scholar
Durand, J., Lyche, C. and Laks, B. (2002). Protocole d'enquête (mai 2002). Bulletin PFC, 1: 7–20.Google Scholar
Durand, P. (1985). Variabilité acoustique et invariance en français: consonnes occlusives et voyelles. Paris: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique.Google Scholar
Fagyal, Zs., Hassa, S. and Ngom, F. (2002). L'opposition [e]–[ɛ] en syllabes ouvertes de fin de mot en français parisien: étude acoustique préliminaire. XXIVèmes Journées d’Étude sur la Parole, Nancy, 24–27 juin 2002: 165–168.Google Scholar
Fédération Départementale des Foyers Ruraux de la Seine-Maritime (FDFRSM). [1985]. Présentation du Dialecte Cauchois. N.p.Google Scholar
Feinstein, A.R. (2002). Principles of Medical Statistics. Boca Raton: Chapman & Hall / CRC.Google Scholar
Flutre, L.-F. (1977). Du moyen picard au picard moderne. Amiens: Musée de Picardie.Google Scholar
Fougeron, C., and Smith, C.L. (1999). French. In: International Phonetic Association. Handbook of the International Phonetic Association. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 78–81.Google Scholar
Grevisse, M., and Goosse, A. (2016). Le Bon Usage: grammaire française, 16th edn. Paris and Louvain-la-Neuve: Duculot.Google Scholar
Hall, D. (2008). A sociolinguistic study of the Regional French of Normandy. PhD thesis, University of Pennsylvania. http://repository.upenn.edu/dissertations/AAI3346125/Google Scholar
Hall, D. and Lyche, C. (2010). Conversation à Darnétal (Seine-Maritime): la télévision dans les loisirs. In: Detey, S., Durand, J., Laks, B. and Lyche, C. (eds), Les variétés du français parlé dans l'espace francophone: Ressources pour l'enseignement. Paris: Ophrys, pp. DVD 35—DVD 46. http://www.projet-pfc.net/dvdophrys/Google Scholar
Hansen, A.B. (2013). A study of young Parisian speech: some trends in pronunciation. In Gess, R.S., Lyche, C. and Meisenburg, T. (eds), Phonological Variation in French: Illustrations from Three Continents. Amsterdam: Benjamins, pp. 151–172.Google Scholar
Hansen, A.B. and Juillard, C. (2011). La phonologie parisienne à trente ans d'intervalle – Les voyelles à double timbre. Journal of French Language Studies, 21: 313–359.Google Scholar
Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques (INSEE). (2010). Évolution et structure de la population en 2007. https://insee.fr/fr/statistiques/2044737Google Scholar
INSEE. (2016). INSEE en bref: Pour comprendre. . . la mesure des populations étrangère et immigrée. https://www.insee.fr/fr/information/2546465Google Scholar
Jones, M.C. (2014). Variation and Change in Mainland and Insular Norman: A Study of Superstrate Influence. Leiden / Boston: Brill.Google Scholar
Kaufmann, J. (n.d.). Reply to question ‘What do you consider a good standard deviation?’. https://www.researchgate.net/post/What_do_you_consider_a_good_standard_deviationGoogle Scholar
Labov, W. (1994). Principles of Linguistic Change, Volume 1: Internal Factors. Malden: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Labov, W. (2001). Principles of Linguistic Change, Volume 2: Social Factors. Malden: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Labov, W., Ash, S., and Boberg, C. (2006). The Atlas of North American English: phonetics, phonology and sound change: a multimedia reference tool. Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Labov, W., Cohen, P., Robins, C. and Lewis, J. (1968). A study of the non-standard English of Negro and Puerto Rican speakers in New York City. = Cooperative Research Report 3288. Philadelphia: U.S. Regional Survey (= Linguistics Laboratory, University of Pennsylvania).Google Scholar
Landick, M. (1995). The mid-vowels in figures: hard facts. French Review, 69/1: 88–103.Google Scholar
Lefebvre, A. (1988). Les voyelles moyennes dans le français de la radio et de la television. La Linguistique, 24/2: 75–91.Google Scholar
Lennig, M. (1978). Acoustic Measurement of Linguistic Change: the modern Paris vowel system. PhD thesis, University of Pennsylvania; distributed as Pennsylvania Dissertation Series, no. 1.Google Scholar
Léon, P.R. (1972). Étude de la prononciation du ‘e’ accentué chez un groupe de jeunes Parisiens. In: Valdman, A. (ed.), Papers in Linguistics and Phonetics to the Memory of Pierre Delattre = Ianua Linguarum 54. The Hague: Mouton, pp. 317–328.Google Scholar
Lepelley, R. (1975). Français régional de Basse-Normandie: Les marques du genre et du nombre dans les adjectifs à finale vocalique. Le français moderne, 43: 1–11.Google Scholar
Lepelley, R. (1999). La Normandie dialectale. Caen: Presses Universitaires de Caen.Google Scholar
Lyche, C. (2010). Le français de référence: éléments de synthèse. In: In: Detey, S., Durand, J., Laks, B. and Lyche, C. (eds), Les variétés du français parlé dans l'espace francophone: Ressources pour l'enseignement. Paris: Ophrys, pp. 143–165.Google Scholar
Marie, É. (2012). Dictionnaire normand-français d'après un inventaire des usages en Cotentin. Bayeux: OREP Éditions.Google Scholar
Martinet, A. (1945). La Prononciation du Français Contemporain: témoignages recueillis en 1941 dans un camp d'officiers prisonniers. Paris: Droz.Google Scholar
Martinet, A. and Walter, H. (1973). Dictionnaire de la prononciation française dans son usage réel. Paris: France Expansion.Google Scholar
Meyerhoff, M., Schleef, E., and MacKenzie, L. (2015). Doing Sociolinguistics: a practical guide to data collection and analysis. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Montreuil, J.-P. (2003). La longueur vocalique en français de Basse-Normandie. In: Delais, E. and Durand, J. (eds). Corpus et variation en phonologie du français: methodes et analyses. Toulouse: Presses Universitaires du Mirail, pp. 349–372.Google Scholar
Nycz, J. and Hall-Lew, L. (2014). Best practices in measuring vowel merger. Proceedings of the Meetings on Acoustics, 20: 1–19.Google Scholar
Peretz, C. (1977). Aspects socio-linguistiques du parler parisien contemporain. In: Walter, H. (ed). Phonologie et Société. Montreal: Didier, pp. 65–77.Google Scholar
Pope, M.K. (1952). From Latin to Modern French with Especial Consideration of Anglo-Norman, 2nd edn. Manchester: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Preston, D.R. (1986). Fifty some-odd categories of language variation. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 57: 9–47.Google Scholar
Rey, A. (1989). Le Grand Robert de la Langue Française: dictionnaire alphabétique et analogique de la langue française. Paris: Le Robert.Google Scholar
Scherrer, Y., Boula de Mareüil, P., and Goldman, J.P. (2015). Crowdsourced mapping of pronunciation variants in European French. Proceedings of the 18th International Congress of Phonetic Science, 1–5.Google Scholar
Schortz, M. (1998). Le parler de Senneville-sur-Fécamp. Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis.Google Scholar
Séguy, J. (1950). Le Français Parlé à Toulouse. Toulouse: Édouard Privat.Google Scholar
Spence, N.C.W. (1985). Phonologie descriptive des parlers jersiais: I. Les voyelles. Revue de Linguistique Romane, 49: 151–165.Google Scholar
Taylor, J. (1996). Sound Evidence: Speech Communities and Social Accents in Aix-en-Provence. Bern: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Thomas, E.R. and Kendall, T. (2007–2015). NORM: The vowel normalization and plotting suite. http://lingtools.uoregon.edu/norm/Google Scholar
Tranel, B. (1987). The Sounds of French: An Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Tyne, H. (2003). Introduction et remarques sur le point d'enquête PFC à Cherbourg. La Tribune Internationale des Langues Vivantes, 33: 159–165.Google Scholar
Université Populaire Normande du Coutançais (UPNC). (1995). Essai de Grammaire de la Langue Normande. Périers: Garlan.Google Scholar
Violin-Wigent, A., Miller, J., and Grim, F. (2013). Sons et sens: la prononciation du français en contexte. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Walker, D. (2001). French Sound Structure. Calgary: University of Calgary Press.Google Scholar
Walter, H. (1976). La dynamique des phonèmes dans le lexique français contemporain. Paris: France Expansion.Google Scholar
Walter, H. (1977). La phonologie du français. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.Google Scholar
Walter, H. (1982). Enquête phonologique et variétés régionales du français. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.Google Scholar
Walter, H. (1992). Les fluctuations mettent-elles en danger une opposition phonologique? La Linguistique, 28/1: 59–68.Google Scholar
Woehrling, C. (2009). Accents régionaux en français: perception, analyse et modélisation à partir de grands corpus. PhD thesis, Université Paris-Sud.Google Scholar