The aim of the chapter is to propose a ToBI transcription system for French, F_ToBI. The system is designed in such a way as to (i) be (surface) transparent and easily learnable by researchers working in different theoretical frameworks; and to (ii) make the exchange of data more feasible. It is couched in the Autosegmental Metrical framework and follows the usual ToBI conventions. This is to facilitate research in prosodic typology in particular within Romance, for which ToBI-style systems are often used. F_ToBI is designed to transcribe distinct intonation contours that are generally accepted in the literature on French intonation and which are supported by the analysis of empirical data. While it is inspired by existing theoretical accounts of French phrasing and intonation, it does not follow one single precursor, since its primary goal is to allow for an adequate and comprehensive transcription of French prosody in a cross-dialectal perspective.

The present investigation deals with regional variation and articulation rate in French. The articulation rate in read speech and in spontaneous speech was examined in seven variants of French: Paris and Lyon in France; Tournai and Liège in Belgium; Geneva, Neuchâtel and Nyon in Switzerland. Results showed that Swiss speakers articulate at a lower syllable rate than French speakers (especially Parisian speakers) and Belgian speakers, independently of the speaking style (reading or conversation). This finding confirms that articulation rate varies regionally. Moreover, results revealed that extralinguistic and linguistic factors, such as the speaker's age and gender, the speaking style, the utterance length and the articulation rate of the adjacent inter-pause chunk, also affect articulation rate. AbstractThe present investigation deals with regional variation and articulation rate in French. The articulation rate in read speech and in spontaneous speech was examined in seven variants of French: Paris and Lyon in France; Tournai and Liège in Belgium; Geneva, Neuchâtel and Nyon in Switzerland. Results showed that Swiss speakers articulate at a lower syllable rate than French speakers (especially Parisian speakers) and Belgian speakers, independently of the speaking style (reading or conversation). This finding confirms that articulation rate varies regionally. Moreover, results revealed that extra-linguistic and linguistic factors, such as the speaker's age and gender, the speaking style, the utterance length and the articulation rate of the adjacent inter-pause chunk, also affect articulation rate.

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Résumé. Dans cette contribution, nous présentons les premiers résultats d'une enquête visant à étudier la vitalité et l'aire d'extension de certains régionalismes du français parlé en Europe. Un questionnaire a été proposé et diffusé via les médias sociaux, mettant ainsi à profit la méthode dite du crowdsourcing, qui a permis de recueillir les réponses de plus de 10 000 francophones. L'enquête porte principalement sur des items lexicaux mais inclut également des régionalismes grammaticaux, plus rarement étudiés. Cet article présente les principes qui ont motivé la mise au point de cette enquête, la structure du questionnaire, les participants, ainsi que quelques résultats préliminaires. Nous nous interesserons ici en particulier à des faits linguistiques bien connus (l'idée étant de comparer nos données aux éléments fournis par les dictionnaires de régionalismes traditionnels). Nous présenterons une douzaine de questions du sondage, en précisant la tâche proposée et une visualisation des réponses sous forme de cartes. En regard des travaux précédents, plusieurs cas de figure se dessinent : certains régionalismes restent bien employés, alors que d'autres semblent en perte de vitesse. Dans d'autres cas, l'aire d'extension des variantes à l'étude est tellement large qu'on ne peut y voir un fait de variation régionale.Abstract. This paper presents the first results of a large survey which aimed at investigating the vitality and extension area of some regional expressions in spoken French in Europe. We took advantage of social media to broadcast our survey, using the crowdsourcing method. Therefore, we were able to gather responses from more than 10'000 French native speakers from France, Belgium and Switzerland. The survey not only investigates regional lexicon, but also regional syntactic features which have remained under-studied. In this paper, we explain how the survey has been built: its motivation, its structure, its participants; we also present preliminary results. We focus on the usual suspects: one of our aims is to compare our results with what specialised dictionaries generally state. We present a dozen questions of the survey with their results shown on maps. Compared to previous studies, our maps make clear that whereas the use of some regional expressions is enduring, the use of others is diminishing. Furthermore, the use of some items is distributed in such large areas that it makes difficult to continue considering them as regional variants., Web of Conferences 03001 (2016)

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