On the Socio-Indexicality of a Parisian French Intonation Contour

Abstract

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. Stimuli with the most numerous and strongest cues to penultimate prominence were reliably identified with cities low in linguistic prestige. Sociolinguistic experience was shown to predict stimulus evaluations. The conclusions reached speak to the socio-indexicality of certain Parisian intonation contour types and the methodology used herein may lend itself to future studies of socially sensitive language variation.

Exploring the social meaning of contemporary urban vernaculars: Perceptions and attitudes about Citétaal in Flanders

“…These results may not necessarily be groundbreaking, since previous studies have already found that vernacular varieties are often associated with lower socio-economic status (vertical dimension) and, at the same time, evoke associations regarding speaker attractiveness (horizontal dimension) that are not necessarily low, viz. humorous, friendly, popular (Bijvoet & Fraurud, 2010; Stewart, 2012a). They do offer, however, interesting perspectives on different topics in recent sociolinguistic research on contemporary urban vernaculars, as will be shown in the discussion.…”

“…These studies have largely documented the way CUVs and their speakers are treated in society, and in this way they have provided clear insights into the status and (stereotypical) associations of CUVs in Europe. Only a handful of studies have addressed attitudes and perceptions by applying quantitative variationist measurement tools (Bijvoet & Fraurud, 2010, 2011; Kerswill, Torgersen, Khan, & Fox, 2008; Stewart, 2012a, 2012b).…”

“…Up until recently, however, only a few studies considered evaluative behavior by the broader community by applying a quantitative variationist measurement tools approach (Bijvoet & Fraurud, 2010, 2011; Stewart, 2012a, 2012b; Torgersen, 2012).…”

“…Other studies have focused more on the social indexical meaning of urban vernaculars. Stewart (2012a) explored the socio-geographic representations of linguistic prestige in the Paris region. His study showed that perceptions of linguistic prestige are closely related to the reputation of different cities and suburbs in the Paris region.…”

On Sociophonetic Competence

“…It is also in this position that tonal movements occur to distinguish the pragmatic meanings of an utterance. The alignment and slopes of these F0 movements have been linked to socioindexical meanings, for instance to signal the vernacular of urban Parisian youth (Fagyal, 2003(Fagyal, , 2005Stewart, 2012). Schwa-tagging, or the pronunciation or insertion of a word-final, posttonic schwa, as in bonjour [ǝ] or Yvett [ǝ] also occurs in prepausal position and has been seen, variously, to index a faubourien accent (Léon, 1973) or the speech of educated, young Parisian females (Armstrong & Unsworth, 1999;Hansen, 2001).…”