Reviewed by Carolin Patzelt, University of Bochum
This volume represents an interesting and diverse collection of articles on the variability of contemporary French, including research on the varieties spoken in France, Belgium, Switzerland, Africa, and Canada. The articles are grouped into three main sections: phonology, syntax, and semantics. They do not provide comprehensive coverage of the array of phonological, syntactic, and lexical features of contemporary French, but they do have a unifying theme: the role of external sociolinguistic factors in language variation and change. On this basis, the contributions collected in this volume analyze a wide range of aspects of contemporary significance.
In the introductions to the three main sections, the editors provide overviews of their respective areas of expertise: Nigel Armstrong focuses on phonological variation and leveling in hexagonal French and elsewhere (3–8), whereas Françoise Gadet gives an overview of recent developments in research on syntactic and stylistic variation in contemporary French (115–20). Kate Beeching and Richard Waltereit introduce current directions in research on lexical variation and semantic change (195–99). These introductory articles are followed by more focused studies in the respective chapters.
The largest section, Section 1: ‘Phonological variation and leveling’, begins with a contribution by Nigel Armstrong and Zoë Boughton,‘Perception and production in French dialect leveling’ (9–24). In this article, the authors look at dialect leveling in hexagonal French, focusing on the intersection between social factors and phonological change. Examining word final consonant devoicing as a phonological variable, Philippe Hambye analyzes language variation in Wallonia in ‘The sociolinguistic relevance of regional categories: Some evidence from word-final consonant devoicing in French spoken in Belgium’ (25– 42). In ‘Prosodic style-shifting as audience design: Real-time monitoring of pitch range and contour types in Swiss French’ (43–62), Jessica Sertling Miller studies style-shifting in Swiss French with a focus on prosody. Tim Pooley in his article ‘The immigrant factor in phonological leveling’ (63–76) analyzes the relationship between the immigration of young people of Maghrebian origin and phonological leveling in France. Finally, the articles by Elissa Pustka, ‘A prototype-theoretic model of Southern French’ (77–94), and by Anne Violin-Wigent, ‘The law of position revisited: The case of mid-vowels in Briançon French’ (95–112), both focus on the phonological features of Southern France and the impact of age on language variation. Although the articles mentioned focus on diverse aspects of phonological variation, they all show one interesting development. Apparently, European French is shifting towards a supra-local norm, which does not correspond exactly to classical standard French.
Section 2: ‘Stylistic and syntactic variation’, commences with a contribution by Mireille Bilger and Henry Tyne who focus on the distribution of parce que in native and non-native speakers of French in ‘Variation in first and second language French: The case of parce que’ (121–40). Laurence Buson, in her article ‘French preadolescents’ perceptions of stylistic variation: A contrastive sociolinguistic study’ (141–58), traces the perceptions of pre-teenagers regarding stylistic variation and relates them to social class. Anne Moseng Knutsen analyzes relative clauses in the French spoken in the Ivory Coast in ‘Sociolinguistic variation in African French: The Ivorian relative clause’ (159–76). Finally, Nathalie Rossi-Gensane ends this section with her examination of stylistic variation in the non-standard use of non-finite forms in ‘Register variation in the non-standard use of non-finite forms’ (177–92).
In Section 3, ‘Lexical variation and semantic change’, Gaétane Dostie focuses on diatopic variation in Canadian French in ‘Discourse markers and regional variation in French: A lexico-semantic approach’ (201–14), suggesting that the degree of pragmaticalization of discourse markers in Quebec French may vary from one region to another. Kate Beeching, in her article ‘Sociolinguistic factors and the pragmaticalization of bon in contemporary spoken French’ (215–30), examines sociosituational variation as a factor of raising the distributional frequency and pragmaticalization of the discourse marker bon in modern hexagonal French. Finally, Bruno Courbon investigates the social and economic factors behind the shift in meaning of fortuné from ‘luck’ to ‘wealth’ in ‘From “luck” to “wealth”: The stylistic (re)distribution of fortuné in Modern French’ (231–52).
Given the wide range of topics dealt with, this volume will certainly appeal to anyone interested in contemporary French and sociolinguistics in general.