This Special Issue of the Journal of French Language Studies celebrates a recent surge in enthusiasm for sociolinguistic studies involving the regional languages of France. Taking our cue from the contributions to the volume, which we introduce here, we argue that a changing twenty-first century landscape offers an exciting new agenda for these regional languages (and minority languages more widely), and set out what we see as six key directions for contemporary research.

In February 2016 the French spelling reform of 1990, which introduced changes to approximately 2,000 words, became the object of discussion online, after it was announced that the new spellings would be included in textbooks from September. Analysing a corpus of tweets, containing key terms from the online discussion, JeSuisCirconflexe; ognon and réforme orthographe, this study gives an insight into the reactions to this governmental linguistic intervention, the recurring themes in their discourse and how this can be interpreted as prescriptive or purist behaviour. Although previous studies have extensively analysed reactions to the 1996 spelling reform in Germany, little research has considered online lay-reactions to the French reform. Given observations that online interactions differ in many ways to equivalent offline interactions, this study can form a point of contrast to previous studies conducted in offline contexts, thereby enriching the existing literature in this field. It is also often claimed that France is a country in which linguistic purism is deeply entrenched; this article will seek further evidence for these claims.

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).

Although often seen as a medieval rival to French, Picard has received far less official recognition and support than more celebrated regional languages such as Breton or Occitan. A shared history and high degree of linguistic similarity with the national language appear to have engendered a perception that it is simply ‘bad French’, but for supporters such Eloy (1997) Picard remains potentiellement une vraie langue, worthy and in need of status enhancement initiatives enjoyed by other regional languages. Promotion of language status for Picard, however, is found to be fraught with practical difficulties, not least of which are a lack of territorial unity and major cultural differences between the north and south of the picardophone area. Equally importantly, the discourse of languagehood fosters notions of linguistic purity which ignore the extensive mixing of local, supralocal and national elements that has always been evident in Picard writing and speech. This in turn engenders linguistic insecurity, notably among urban working-class speakers, whose speech can all too easily be caricatured as both ‘bad French’ and ‘bad patois’, with obvious consequences for intergenerational transmission. The well-intentioned promotion of Picard as a regional language may therefore, perversely, be detrimental to the very varieties it serves.

La présente étude compare l’évolution récente du français parlé à Montréal et celle du français parlé à Welland (Ontario) où réside une minorité francophone. Le phénomène variationnel retenu est l'emploi des connecteurs (ça) fait (que), so, alors et donc. Les corpus utilisés ont été recueillis à l'aide d'entretiens enregistrés de 2011 à 2015 parmi des échantillons de locuteurs stratifiés selon l’âge, la classe sociale et le sexe. L'analyse des données révèle des différences marquées dans l’évolution de ces connecteurs dans les deux communautés. Par exemple, à Montréal on observe une forte montée de (ça) fait (que) et l'obsolescence d'alors et à Welland, une forte montée de so (forme absente à Montréal), le net déclin de (ça) fait (que) et le maintien relatif d'alors et donc. L’étude de la configuration sociale de la variation montre plusieurs points de convergence entre les deux variétés de français laurentien (ex. association de (ça) fait (que) avec les locuteurs de la CSE basse et d'alors avec ceux de la CSE haute). Toutefois, l'analyse de l'effet combiné des facteurs âge, CSE, sexe et bilinguisme sur la variation met au jour des différences importantes entre les deux parlers et l’émergence de normes endogènes divergentes.

Le présent article défend la thèse selon laquelle (i) le participe passé est une forme purement aspectuelle représentant le temps interne du procès sur la borne terminale de sa phase processuelle ; (ii) cette représentation détensive du temps interne, qu’il ne partage avec aucune autre forme verbale, permet de rendre compte des trois principales constructions dans lesquelles entre le participe passé : l’emploi nu, la construction du passif périphrastique, la construction analytique. C’est à l’analyse du rôle du participe passé dans la construction analytique, du fait de son aspect détensif, qu’est consacré le présent article.

Louisiana French is undergoing gradual language death. In such situations, it is common to find increased variability and rapid change, as speakers use the language less often and in fewer domains (Wolfram 2004; Palosaari and Campbell 2011). These processes have been observed in the pronominal system of Louisiana French (Rottet 1996; Girard 2013), with both phonological and morphological sources of variation leading to an exceptionally large inventory of first-person-singular forms in the French of the Pointe-Au-Chien Indians of Pointe-Aux-Chênes, Louisiana. Using data from a translation task, we examine the range of forms used by French speakers from this community varying in age and fluency. We note a sharp distinction in forms used by fluent versus non-fluent speakers, with the latter making use of the non-clitic form mon. To answer the question of why mon is so common amongst non-fluent speakers in this task, we apply insights from the field of second language acquisition, considering the systems of these non-fluent speakers as autonomous and systematic. We ultimately propose a potential interaction between the previously documented phonological and morphological patterns observed in this community, influencing in the forms observed.

Souvent classé comme un argot obsolète des bouchers de la Villette, le louchébem, l’argot des bouchers de Paris, continue de se pratiquer beaucoup plus qu’on ne le croit. Cependant, il faut s’inquiéter de sa vitalité en raison du nombre sans cesse décroissant des bouchers traditionnels. Même si on peut citer quelques auteurs, force est de constater que l’argomuche a suscité peu de travaux. Ce projet documentaire, la première grande étude de terrain sur le louchébem, intègre les témoignages de 201 bouchers, interrogés sur leur lieu de travail (les boucheries artisanales de Paris et de sa petite couronne) à l’aide d’un questionnaire sociolinguistique, principal outil à notre disposition. Cet article en présente les premiers résultats : il rappelle d’abord le procédé de formation de cet argot à clé et esquisse l’histoire, ou plutôt l’origine, du louchébem ; il décrit ensuite la démarche méthodologique mise en œuvre pour recueillir les données et s’entretenir avec les bouchers ; enfin il identifie et analyse les fonctions pour lesquelles on utilise actuellement le louchébem dans la communauté linguistique que constitue la corporation bouchère parisienne.

This article argues that data from the Atlas Linguistique de la France (ALF, Edmont and Gilliéron, 1902–1910) can shed light on the fine-grained syntax of sentential negation in the Oïl dialects spoken in North Eastern France, Belgium and Switzerland. The Gallo-Romance dialects spoken in this area possess a larger variety of negative structures than those found in (Standard) French: in addition to ne…pas, ne can be followed by negations mie, pont or even appear alone. Although the dialects under study are highly endangered, I show how we can use syntactic data ‘hidden’ in the ALF to study their syntactic patterns. I present a quantitative study of variation in sentential negation in authentic transcriptions and French translations of the 22 negative data points in the ALF at 150 points in France, Belgium and Switzerland (N = 2989). I show that the pont form is significantly more frequent in negative constructions with ‘weak NPs’ (de phrases) and that there is a significant correlation between dropping of secondary negation and the ability of the secondary negation mie to be realized as an enclitic -m. This study supports Dagnac (2018)’s conclusion that the ALF is an invaluable tool for the study of syntactic microvariation in France.

Picard faces challenges in its quest for recognition, in part due to its perceived similarity with French. While scholars recognize that Picard and French phonology, morphology and lexicon differ considerably, some scholars maintain that Picard syntax differs little from French. Suspecting that such assessments are based on superficial comparisons, we test their validity by performing comparative variationist analyses of Picard and French morphosyntactic structures. This article focuses on interrogatives. We compare older and contemporary written data, as well as contemporary oral data, and show that Picard and French use their shared structures differently and that the Picard Yes/No interrogative system is complex but constrained by two linguistic factors: polarity and person. We report very different distributions of SV, inversion and interrogative –ti based on polarity and show that negative markers point and mie constrain the choice of interrogative structure. For affirmative interrogatives, we show that the distribution of interrogative structures is strongly constrained by the subject person. A diachronic analysis of text from nine authors from three generations reveals overall stability over time, with some signs of convergence toward French in the middle generation but a reversal to the older patterns in the youngest generation.

L’article soulève la question de la polarité de la construction un tant soit peu, faisant suite à une analyse récente de Spector (2012) qui relève son statut d’item bipolaire. L’analyse menée dans le cadre de la pragmatique lexicale d’Israel (2011) récuse un tel diagnostic. Empruntant à Israel (2011) l’hypothèse selon laquelle les items à polarité se laissent prédire par la conventionnalisation de la valeur argumentative, emphase ou atténuation, l’analyse montre le statut argumentativement sous-spécifié du quantifieur et, conséquemment, son échec à devenir un item à polarité. La diachronie se trouve convoquée à travers un réseau de relations reliant le quantifieur soumis à l’analyse à si peu que ce soit et un peu. Issue du paradigme de peu où elle instancie à l’origine une concessive extensionnelle, la construction intègre par réanalyse le paradigme de un peu en raison, entre autres, du sémantisme existentiel que les deux partagent. Le statut argumentativement sous-spécifié de un tant soit peu reflète ainsi le comportement de un peu auprès de laquelle un tant soit peu sert à varier davantage le domaine de quantification.

Dans ce travail nous proposons un examen des emplois de l'adverbe honnêtement en français contemporain, ainsi que de leurs propriétés les plus saillantes et des liens existant entre ces emplois et la catégorie sémantique des marqueurs d'attitude énonciative. Notre hypothèse de départ est qu'honnêtement connaît aujourd'hui un triple fonctionnement: 1. comme adverbe qui caractérise la réalisation de l'action évoquée par le verbe de l’énoncé (i.e. Il essayait de faire honnêtement son travail; Michel Houellebecq, 2010, La carte et le territoire); 2. comme adverbe qui montre l'attitude du locuteur vis-à-vis de sa propre énonciation (i.e. Honnêtement, je ne pouvais pas les laisser là. N'importe qui aurait pu les voler; Daniel Pennac, 1999, Aux fruits de la passion); 3. et comme un adverbe qui indique un degré moyen, ou un peu plus élevé que la moyenne, du contenu de l'adjectif qu'il modifie (i.e. Le passage s'est fait dans l'euphorie factice d'un réveillon organisé chez Pinaud. C’était bon et honnêtement copieux; Benoîte et Flora Groult, 1994, Journal à quatre mains). Pour atteindre notre objectif nous avons eu recours à une série de tests linguistiques (de type foncièrement syntaxique et sémantique) qui ont été appliqués à un corpus personnel de deux centaines d'occurrences tirées de la base de données FRANTEXT.

L'article porte sur la formulation des demandes des usagers dans une permanence d'accès au droit dans un centre social en France. Il se concentre sur les usagers habituels, dont certains sont peu francophones, et met en évidence des procédés spécifiques par rapport aux descriptions existantes de la formulation des requêtes en français. L'article se situe dans une approche de linguistique interactionnelle multimodale, à partir de laquelle est décrite la construction progressive et collaborative des demandes et la variété des ressources, y compris gestuelles, utilisées par les usagers pour les formuler. L'objectif est, d'une part, d'examiner l'influence de la formulation de la requête sur le traitement qui en est fait par la médiatrice. C'est, d'autre part, de mettre en évidence les ressources privilégiées par les demandeurs.

À travers l’examen des contours intonatifs d’une variété de français parlée au Nouveau-Brunswick (FNB), nous cherchons d’abord à vérifier l’hypothèse prédisant que l’intonation du français est sous-tendue par le patron sous-jacent /LHiLH*/, tel que décrit par Jun et Fougeron (2002) dans le cadre de la théorie métrique-autosegmentale. Notre but second est de déterminer si le FNB présente des particularités intonatives le distinguant du français québécois (FQ), la variété la plus parlée et la plus documentée au Canada. Pour ce faire, la parole semi-spontanée de trois locuteurs de chaque variété est analysée. Nous comparons les types de contours intonatifs, la fréquence d’apparition de ces contours, ainsi que deux propriétés phonétiques (soit la hauteur de la fréquence fondamentale et la durée) des syllabes accentuées dans les deux variétés. Les contours répertoriés démontrent qu’effectivement, l’intonation du FNB est régie par le patron /LHiLH*/, mais que cette variété fait état d’une prédominance de continuités descendantes. L’analyse des paramètres phonétiques des syllabes accentuées révèle que le FNB privilégie l’usage de la durée à la frontière des syntagmes accentuels non finaux, tout en exhibant des variations de durée syllabique importantes en fonction de la position du syntagme accentuel dans la phrase.

Like France’s other regional languages, Breton has seen a steep decline, followed by a period of revitalization in recent decades. Today there are two largely separate communities of speakers: older, traditional speakers who grew up speaking Breton at home, and younger speakers, generally from French-speaking homes, most of whom have learnt Breton through immersion schooling. It is claimed that this ‘Neo-Breton’ differs from the language of older speakers, lexically, phonologically and grammatically. This article examines morphosyntactic (impersonal) and morphophonological (mutation) data to explore exactly how Neo-Breton differs from that of traditional speakers, and how the variability in the data might be explained. The data show that contrary to what might be expected, new speakers do not differ greatly from older, traditional speakers in these areas. Influence from French is more subtle than might be supposed. Children and teenagers who attend Breton-medium schooling seem to show an extended period of acquisition, but the data from adult new speakers suggests that with enough Breton input, these young speakers can reach full proficiency. However, as the number of older speakers decreases, Breton seems likely to see more widespread language change.

In Basque, there is evidence, especially in early loans from Latin, that a sequence #DV(R)T… where D is a voiced stop and T is a voiceless (aspirated) stop was optionally produced with devoicing of the first of these stops. An additional particularity of this sound pattern is that the devoiced word-initial stop typically surfaces with aspiration, while the previously aspirated stop loses it: #DV(R)T(h)… > #T(h)V(R)T… This typologically uncommon sound pattern has been described as assimilation of voicelessness in the literature, or spread of [-voiced]. I propose that this sound pattern is triggered by aspiration, not voicelessness, and that it is a case of metathesis, not assimilation. Under the proposed analysis, aspiration of the second stop in the word is reanalysed as originating in the first stop, an instance of perceptual metathesis. This approach accounts for the distribution of aspirated stops before and after the optional change, and the failure of post-sibilant stops to trigger. This account also has implications for the chronology of aspiration-loss in Western dialects: at the time the earliest Latin loans were borrowed, all Basque dialects still maintained a historical series of aspirated stops. Only later, after this process of optional metathesis, did the Western dialects lose *h and stop aspiration.

Although previous research has documented dislocations in which a dislocated noun phrase (NP) occurs with the co-referent pronoun ça (e.g., Carlier, 1996; Jones, 1996), this study represents the first corpus-driven examination focused on this syntactic construction. In examining examples identified in both an oral and a written corpus, the investigation serves to nuance the association between dislocation and orality (McLaughlin, 2011). The research also interrogates the relationship between dislocations featuring co-referent clitic ça and genericity. The extent to which this construction more frequently signals a pejorative attitude towards certain groups of animate NPs than others is also explored. Finally, this study advances methodological considerations for research on rare syntactic forms.

Occitan and Catalan are in an increasing state of language obsolescence in France. Their phonologies both contain a voiced palatal lateral approximant /ʎ/, not present in modern French, that is being replaced in all positions by the palatal approximant [j]. It is not clear whether this is an effect of language contact with French because [j] commonly emerges as a variant of /ʎ/ in non-contact varieties of Romance. This article examines the distribution of /ʎ/ in Occitan and Catalan, using auditory and acoustic data from a wordlist-translation task conducted with 40 native speakers. The analysis aims to determine the nature of this sound change either as the result of transfer from French or as a regular sound change that is motivated by the phonetic similarity of [ʎ] and [j]. The mechanisms governing transfer from French are modelled statistically to account for the distribution of historically appropriate and contact-induced variants of /ʎ/, and acoustic analyses test the hypothesis that the change is internally motivated and occurring gradually. Results show that the factors conditioning the change may be different in each of these related languages in that it is contact-induced in Occitan, but potentially due to internal and external factors in Catalan.