French

Abstract

French is used on every continent, spoken not only in France but also in Belgium, Switzerland, North America, the Caribbean, Polynesia and Africa. This is a comprehensive and accessible guide to the structure of French, suitable for those with little prior knowledge of linguistics or of the French Language. It clearly introduces the language's history, phonetics (pronunciation), phonology (sound system), morpho-syntax (how words and sentences are formed), pragmatics (how speakers express meaning), and lexicology (the study of word composition and derivation) - with each chapter showing how these aspects are subject to regional and social variation. English translations are provided for all examples, and the book contains an extensive bilingual glossary of linguistic terms, and numerous exercises and essay questions in every chapter. French: A Linguistic Introduction will be welcomed by advanced language learners, and by linguists studying the structure of this important language.

On the Socio-Indexicality of a Parisian French Intonation Contour

“…Conein and Gadet (1998) analyze several recordings in an attempt to delimit potential linguistic markers of this vernacular. In an analysis of the contours realised on five target words, Fagyal (2005) finds that her bilinguals' productions did not appear to contain reliable lengthening of IP-penultimate syllables as compared to those of the monolingual speakers. The first pattern is termed 'héréditaire (parigote ou faubourienne)', or 'hereditary (vernacular Parisian or suburban)', and is said to be 'caracterisée par lesécarts mélodiques, les accents d'intensité, et une accentuation sur l'avant-dernière syllabe d'un groupe, longue et intense' 5 (109).…”

“…Although a discussion of the origin of this contour's use in neutral declarative contexts in the Parisian urban youth vernacular is outside the scope of this article, the possibility of influence of language contact between Parisian French, le français populaire and immigrant languages has been evoked elsewhere (see Fagyal, 2005). It is also conceivable that this modality has become a 'marker' (Labov, 2001: 197) of the Parisian urban youth vernacular.…”

“…The existing studies on the subject, however, describe a prevalent intonation contour similar in form to Léon's (1974) contour expressing an 'implication of threat or warning', potentially explaining the threatening interpretation of a verbal argument ( Figure 2). Fagyal ( , 2005 presents a production study undertaken with recordings made during ethnographic fieldwork in La Courneuve, 'among the poorest neighborhoods north of Paris' (Fagyal, 2005: 91). In reference to intonation, the authors cite two prosodic patterns with which they associate two different social meanings.…”

“…For each stimulus word in the current study, two productions were located in recordings of male adolescents performing picture-naming tasks during fieldwork in a middle school in La Courneuve (Fagyal, , 2005. In the first production, target words were produced with an F 0 rise beginning early in the penultimate syllable and culminating in a pitch peak on the final, the final syllable typically being marked by lengthening and increased intensity.…”

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ab st rac tThis study examines how intonation contours prevalent in a Parisian French urban youth vernacular (Conein and Gadet, 1998;Fagyal , 2005 index sociolinguistic meanings for Parisian French listeners. In a web-based experiment, listeners placed recordings with stress patterns ranging from clearly penultimate ('nonstandard') to clear phrase-final ('standard') in cities whose linguistic correctness they had previously evaluated.

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