Problèmes méthodologiques de l'évaluation des pratiques socio-linguistiques en langues "régionales" ou "minoritaires" : l'exemple de la situation en France

Blanchet, Philippe

doi:10.3406/lsoc.1994.2669

Cited by 11 publications

(14 citation statements)

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“…The interviews indicate that the decision to use this category was justified. This tendency to under-report language use is reminiscent of the widely-reported phenomenon that speakers of 'patois' have tended to deny that they know the 'patois' at all (Blanchet, 1994). A recurrent theme across the majority of interviews was the desire to learn Breton for two main reasons: (1) to provide the means for cross-generational communication in Breton (especially between the informants and their grandparents) and/or (2) to reinforce Breton identity.…”

Section: Section 1 Of the Questionnaire: Use Of Breton Attitudes Andmentioning

confidence: 90%

Linguistic Competence and Regional Identity in Brittany: Attitudes and Perceptions of Identity

Hoare¹

2000

Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development

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This article outlines a research project conducted in Brittany in 1994 and 1995. The object of this project was to investigate the attitudes of young people in Brittany (aged 8-18) towards varieties of language in the region (especially Breton), using a questionnaire survey and interviews. A brief outline of the project is followed by a discussion of the sociolinguistic situation in France and in Brittany and a description of the methodology and fieldwork. An assessment is made of the attitudes of informants towards issues of language and identity together with knowledge of Breton and the desire to learn the language, the combination of which is designed to provide an insight into perceptions of Breton identity and the likely future of the language. IntroductionQuestionnaires and interviews are used to explore in some depth the attitudes of young people in Brittany towards Breton and French, and to closely examine questions of identity and perceptions of the future of the Breton language. The study differentiates between informants on the basis of region of origin (Upper and Lower Brittany), gender and age (12 years and under, 13-14, 15-16, and 17 and over).Regionality was considered to be an important criterion for the selection of informants and although the areas of Upper and Lower Brittany have never had any administrative status, the division represents the linguistic dichotomy (Humphreys, 1992: 621), and Lower Brittany now generally designates the traditionally Breton-speaking part of Brittany. This division is confirmed by a number of sources including Falc'hun (1963), Fleuriot (1980, Abalain (1989) and Broudic (1995). Significant differences between the attitudes of the informants from the two regions could be expected, given the differences in their sociolinguistic profiles and historical backgrounds. The entity now known as Brittany has never been wholly Breton-speaking, even though the linguistic frontier with langue d'oïl varieties has receded over the centuries. In fact certain studies, for example Loth (1907), clearly indicate that at the time of the greatest expansion of Breton (in the ninth century), the frontier was considerably further eastward, stretching beyond Dinan and Redon (cf. Broudic, 1995 for an account of the changing limits of the frontier between Upper and Lower Brittany).In view of the findings of W.R. Jones (1949( , 1950( ), Sharp et al. (1973 and E.P. Jones (1982) that girls had more favourable attitudes to Welsh than boys, it was hypothesised that this would also be the case with female attitudes towards the Breton language.Age has often been found to be an important parameter in attitudes research (cf. relevance to this study is Baker's (1992) study of language attitudes in Welsh schools which found important attitude changes in the 13-14-year age group. These changes were accounted for by the maturation process, the emergence of different value systems, changing reference groups and the differences in local and global culture. The categories for the current study were chosen w...

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Section: Section 1 Of the Questionnaire: Use Of Breton Attitudes Andmentioning

confidence: 90%

Linguistic Competence and Regional Identity in Brittany: Attitudes and Perceptions of Identity

Hoare¹

2000

Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development

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“…favourably regarded by some 80% of symbolic users, including non-natives (Hammel and Gardy, 1994;Moreux, 2002;Oyharçabal, 1999;Blanchet, 1992Blanchet, , 2002aBlanchet and Schiffman, 2004). 17 The varieties of French spoken in the southern third of France share noticeable similarities, mainly in pronunciation, although people from these different regions can identify the differences between them (Moreux, 1985: 97;Walter, 1982).…”

Section: A Specific Situationmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…All authors stress that, for intermediate cases (where neither death nor development is clearly present), any evaluation yields not definite results and predictions, but rather indications and tendencies. These restrictions are justified by specific case studies that also show the extent to which ideologies are involved (Blanchet, 1997(Blanchet, , 1998Eloy, 1998). The problem of 'dialect vitality vs. dialect death' is much more complex than a simple alternation between 'loyalty (to the dialect) vs. shift (to another variety)', where in everyday terms these are thought of as opposites.…”

Section: Eth Odolog I Cal and Conc E P Tual P Roble M Smentioning

confidence: 99%

The sociolinguistic situation of ‘contemporary dialects of French’ in France today: an overview of recent contributions on the dialectalisation of Standard French

Blanchet

Armstrong

2006

French Language Studies

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This article presents a synthesis of the sociolinguistic situation of what the authors refer to as the ‘contemporary dialects’ of French in the France of today. The introduction emphasises the methodological and conceptual problems attending any such definition and evaluation, attempting to clarify the complex situation and to identify the various kinds of ‘dialects’, ‘uses’ and ‘speakers’. We then concentrate on the regional ‘dialects’ of French in continental France, urban and rural, and summarise a series of important recent studies, concentrating on local variation. We also distinguish the sociolinguistic situations of the northern and the southern parts of the country. Even though France is known to be a highly centralised country, whose linguistic policy has been aiming at monolingualism for the past two centuries, the article offers some possibly surprising and nuanced results that show more variation than established opinion would generally admit about contemporary France.

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“…The degree of reliability of the quota sampling done depends on the relevancy of the variables chosen (in the present case: gender, age, socioeconomic group). Furthermore, the methodology, based on an auto-evaluation of the people questioned during brief, face-to-face or telephone interviews, is poorly adapted to the objective (Blanchet 1994). For the most part, however, the results are similar to those of field surveys.…”

Section: Linguistic Competence: Quantitative Data and Evolutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Béarnais and Gascon today: language behavior and perception

Moreux¹

2004

International Journal of the Sociology of Language

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Problèmes méthodologiques de l'évaluation des pratiques socio-linguistiques en langues "régionales" ou "minoritaires" : l'exemple de la situation en France

Cited by 11 publications

References 0 publications

Linguistic Competence and Regional Identity in Brittany: Attitudes and Perceptions of Identity

Linguistic Competence and Regional Identity in Brittany: Attitudes and Perceptions of Identity

The sociolinguistic situation of ‘contemporary dialects of French’ in France today: an overview of recent contributions on the dialectalisation of Standard French

Béarnais and Gascon today: language behavior and perception

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