A Sociolinguistic History of Parisian French

Abstract

Paris mushroomed in the thirteenth century to become the largest city in the Western world, largely through in-migration from rural areas. The resulting dialect-mixture led to the formation of new, specifically urban modes of speech. From the time of the Renaissance social stratification became sharper as the elites distanced themselves from the Parisian 'Cockney' of the masses. Nineteenth-century urbanisation transformed the situation yet again with the arrival of huge numbers of immigrants from far-flung corners of France, levelling dialect-differences and exposing ever larger sections of the population to standardising influences. At the same time, a working-class vernacular emerged which was distinguished from the upper-class standard not only in grammar and pronunciation but most markedly in vocabulary (slang). This book examines the interlinked history of Parisian speech and the Parisian population through these various phases of in-migration, dialect-mixing and social stratification from medieval times to the present day.

De invloed van Brussel op het Frans in België

“…Deze rol van Brussel als motor voor taalinnovatie werd totnogtoe nog niet beschreven. Vergeleken met de rol die Parijs speelt in de ontwikkeling van het Frans in Frankrijk (Lodge 2004) is ze noodzakelijkerwijze beperkter, zowel in de tijd als wat betreft zijn impact, vooral om historische redenen (zie hiervoor).…”

L’influence de Bruxelles sur le français en Belgique

“…Ce rôle de Bruxelles comme pôle innovateur en matière linguistique n'a pas encore été décrit jusqu'à présent. Comparé avec celui joué par Paris dans le développement du français en France (Lodge 2004), il est nécessairement plus limité, dans le temps et dans son impact, essentiellement pour des raisons de nature historique (voir plus haut).…”

Modeling the emergence of a typological anomaly: Vowel nasalization in French

“…The concept of salience as developed by Trudgill (1986) and discussed by Lodge (2004) is helpful in identifying the sociolinguistic variables at the origin of high nasal vowel loss in Modern French. Trudgill defines salience, or the level of awareness associated with particular variants, in terms of various factors such as overt stigmatization, linguistic change, phonetic distance, and phonological contrast (1986:11).…”

“…At the same time, a feature may remain below the level of social consciousness and become an unconscious socio-stylistic indicator. Following Lodge (2004), lower levels of salience will lead to a process of reallocation from which a new social consensus will evolve. According to Lodge, one possible measure of a variable's salience is "its capacity to engender metalinguistic comment."…”