Use of discourse markers by 17 speakers of Anglophone Montreal French (AMF) showed^reM,YMiatipjijruridividual repertoires and frequency of use. Only five subjects manifested rates of usag^corrip^rableTo thos^ToTliaFive speakers or to their own LI usage in English. In decreasing order of frequency, the speakers used tu sais 'y'know'; la 'there' (the most frequent among LI Montreal French speakers); bon 'good', alors 'so', comme 'like', and bien 'well'; and the local discourse conjunction fait que 'so'. The subjects occasionally made use of the English markers you know, so, like, and well. Quebecois French markers with no English equivalent were used by the speakers who had been exposed to French in their early childhood environment. The one marker that showed influence from English was comme, apparently calqued on English like. Overall, frequent use of discourse markers correlated only with the speakers' knowledge of French grammar-evidence that a higher frequency of discourse marker use is the hallmark of the fluent speaker. As a feature that is not explicitly taught in school, mastery of the appropriate use of discourse markers is thus particularly revealing of the speakers' integration into the local speech community.

RÉSUMÉÀ partir de deux ensembles de données recueillies principalement auprés des mêmes locuteurs à 13 ans d'intervalle, le cheminement de cinq marqueurs discursifs dans la communauté francophone de Montréal est analysé. II s'agit de alors, tu-sais, je-veux-dire, tu-sais-veux-dire et disons. L'alternance des formes restrictives juste, rien que et seulement est aussi examinée. Les résultats obtenus montrent clairement que la différenciation selon l'âge observée à partir de données synchroniques peut (a) correspondre à des emplois qui se modifient au cours de la vie des locuteurs: c'est le cas de alors dont le taux augmente en vieillissant; (b) indiquer un changement en cours: c'est le cas de tu-sais qui a connu une augmentation significative entre les deux années, et de juste qui tend a supplanter les autres variantes; (c) traduire une mode associée à une génération spécifique (cf. disons). Par ailleurs, certaines variables connaissent une progression importante dans la communauté sans être associées à un sousgroupe social particulier (le marqueur tu-sais-veux-dire).

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Although there is no consensus on whether French has any true modal auxiliary, devoir ‘must’ is one of the very few possible candidates. Most studies of devoir concentrate on criteria for distinguishing its epistemic and root semantic values, but some also explore the subtle semantic nuances it conveys depending on context. Here, we identify discrete meanings through the analysis of semantic overlaps between devoir and other French modal expressions, such as probablement ‘probably’, être supposé ‘to be supposed to’, or falloir ‘ought to’. The analysis of data from two corpora on Montreal French, collected in 1971 and 1984, shows that:1. There is only one root semantic value exclusively associated with devoir, namely, the notion of desirability (as in the English ‘should’).2. There are different patterns of use of the competing modal expressions within each semantic field analyzed, according to the social class of the speaker. Moreover, some patterns characterizing a specific social group are acquired relatively late.

L’article fait le survol de la recherche sociolinguistique canadienne des trente-cinq dernières années s’insérant dans le cadre de la linguistique variationniste. Trois thèmes sont abordés : 1o l’évolution du traitement de la notion de variable, qui est au coeur de la démarche empirique des variationnistes ; 2o le type de données sur lesquelles reposent les analyses, et 3o le lien dynamique entre les locuteurs dont le parler est analysé et la communauté dont ils se réclament. Les recherches rapportées sont centrées autour de la caractérisation des variations au sein d’une communauté, des effets du contact entre deux langues et des sources historiques des variétés étudiées.This article reviews sociolinguistic research carried out in Canada over the last thirty five years, under the rubric of variationist linguistics. Three themes are developed : 1o The evolution in treatment of the «variable», a notion which is central to the empirical method of variationist linguistics ; 2o the type of data on which analyses are based ; and 3o the dynamic relations between the speakers whose speech is studied and the community to which they claim allegiance. The research reported is centered around the characterization of variations within a community, the effects of the contact between two languages, and the historical sources of the varieties studied

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