Who’s not palatalising?Trying to understand the status

of palatalised variants in French

Cyril Trimaillecyril.trimaille@u-grenoble3.fr

Labo LidilemUniversité Stendhal Grenoble III France

8th HDLS Conference, Albuquerque, NM, 6-8 Nov. 08

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Introduction• What is palatalisation of /t/ and /d/ befor front vowels

/i/ and /y/?

– A continuum of realizations between • A slight ‘mouillure’, yod insertion after the stop• A potentially strong affrication, i.e. frication after occlusion (like in

English)

– A phonetic non standard variant (NSV from now on) in spoken French

– 3 recordings to make your own idea

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Introduction (2)

• Aims of the presentation– Give a brief overview of previous studies

– Bring new empirical elements to document the presence of the variant in speech of high social level speakers : ministers

– Try to determine what kind of sociolinguistic variable palatalisation is…

– … to answer the following issue: is palatalisation an ongoing linguistic change?

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1. Methodology and data

• Choice of reading style for the previous studies and public/ecological interviews for politicians

• CodingA 5 degrees coding scale0 = occlusive

0,5/1 = palatalised

1,5/2 = affricated

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1. Methodology and data (2)• Indices

• Frequency• Index of perceptive salience (“intensity” of PAL)

second speaker:Tu = 1Partir = 1Dimanche = 0Frequency = 2/3= 66%Mean or IPS= 0,66

illustration

Third speaker:Tu = 2Partir = 2Dimanche = 2Frequency = 3/3= 100%Mean or (raw)IPS = 2

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2. Previous empirical findings for the NSV (1):An old and ‘peripheral’ feature

• Not an innovative feature in spoken French• local dialects feature in metropolitan and overseas

regions of France• Also in other French varieties (Quebec, North

Africa…)• Consistently as a working class feature

• Linguistics constraints (cf. Jamin, 2005:133)

– Voicing tends to prevent: T > D ; – Right Vowel : /y/>/i/ ; – Stress tend to favor :+ > -

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Previous empirical findings for the NSV (2)

• Recently PAL was documented as a feature linked with adolescent street culture (Jamin, 2005)

• Geographical distribution – Ile de France, (Jamin, 2005; Candea, forth.)

– Grenoble, (downtown, suburbs, neighborhoods,

Trimaille, 2003) – Marseille (North areas, but also center : Binisti &

Gasquet-Cyrus, 2001)

– suburbs of others cities…

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Where palatalisation was recently found

PARIS’ suburbs

GRENOBLE

MARSEILLE

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Previous empirical findings for the NSV (3)

(PAL) was found particularly within (Jamin 2005):• young, men,

• from immigration background, particularly North African,

• (high) involvement in street culture,

• dense & local social network

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Previous empirical findings for the NSV (2)• At the time, palatalisation was understood as

(Jamin & Trimaille, 2008 [2005]): – a working-class variant– with a supra-local dimension,– a case of sociolinguistic convergence in the

divergence movement from the standard form

• we hypothesize the influence of :– Internal/systemic factors (assimilatory process)– External factors: language contacts with substrats

(regional languages) and adstrats (immigrants languages)

– Extralinguistic factors : social & geographical mobility ; identity work & strategies

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diversified sample study (1)(Grenoble 2006 + Valence 2007)

• Sample Sample : -13 speakers from Grenoble; Upper Middle Class (age mean 25);- 28 speakers from Valence and Ardèche ; all social origins (age mean 13,5) ;

• Empirical dataEmpirical data : self-presentation and sentence reading tasks recorded by close-relations of the informants• Only readings style analyzed

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• All speakers produce the palatalised /t/ with a raw ISP ≥ 0,12

• They also produce palatalised /d/ but less than /t/

0,00

0,50

1,00

1,50

2,00

Valence (p =5,2E-06)

Gre 2003 (p =1,2E-06)

Gre 2006 (p =2,7E-06)

d

t

diversified sample study (2) : Results

Fig. 1: comparison for t and d

in 3 samples

• Same pattern in the sample Grenoble 2003 (WC adolescent)

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  ≤ 11 ans ≥ 13 ans

moyennes 0,37 0,57

anova p = 0,03  

Table 1: two age sub-samples :

diversified sample study (3) : Results

Moving to town and adolescence socialization seem to favor the emergence of PAL

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The ministers’ sample • Two national radio stations : France Inter and RTL • 13 ministers’ public interviews• Podcast or encoded online

Table 2: the 4 mentioned samples

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Figure 1 : fréquence et Indice de Saillance Perceptive Net exprimé en %(locuteurs classés par âge croissant de g à d)

0

20

40

60

80

100fréquence

ISP net exprimé en %

Fig. 2 : frequency and ISP net in % for ministers

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Minister study: Results (1)

• All ministers produce palatalised• 8 of 13 with a frequency > 34%• Youngest of the government…but also the oldest… Not an aged-graded variant for this sample

• All palatalizers but Fadela Amara hold diplomas from prestigious “Grandes Ecoles”… but it doesn’t prevent (PAL)

• Huge social gap between Amara and Pécresse or Kosciusko-Morizet…

• No genre significant difference was found

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4. Discussion (1)

• A qualitative zoom to begin:Fadela Amara personify the figure of “speaker with

an expanded centrality” (Labov 2001); – she’s a woman, – she has humble origin, – she’s upwardly mobile – but also non conformist and proud of it

Thus, she may :– represent a model for much,– be acting as a bridge between socially separate close-knit

networks,– be a typical social agent by whom changes from below

can rise and spread upwards

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• Palatalisation is an assimilatory process likely to concern all speakers, but

• high classes speakers are generally known for inhibiting phonetically motivated variants, which are changes from below (Kroch 1978)

What kind of variable (PAL) is?– Marker : socially and stylistically stratified, in same

direction according to style axiom (Bell 1984): a kind ok “subconscious awareness”

– Indicator: only socially (or geographically) stratified, but unconscious, no awareness of speakers

– Stereotype:consistently and explicitly object of stigma– (Labov, 1972 for the typology, see also Trudgill 1986)

4. Discussion (2)

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0,00

0,50

1,00

1,50

2,00

2,50

1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25

ados working classGrenoble

children + adosValence all CSP

adults UMCGrenoble

ministers

Fig. 3: comparison of raw ISP for speakers of 4 samples

4. Discussion (3): a marker ?

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A marker ?– It does exist a social stratification, but– No stable stylistic variation was found– need to be verified

A stereotype?– Unconscious dimension– Lack of stigmatization

4. Discussion (4)

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• Then an indicator?• Sorry, it depends…• Evidences of lack of general awareness to

PAL• But signs of evolution and association with an

overtly stigmatized set of speakers (Amara)• What about covert prestige of that form?

• Theoretical issue: a perceptive threshold between indicator and stereotype : Laks 1983

4. Discussion (5)

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Conclusion

• PAL seems not to be a variant consciously identified and avoided yet (national channel journalists, FLE’s method)

• But the level of awareness may be changing

• e.g. Amara

• Is it accurate to talk about spread?

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Thank you !

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References

Armstrong, N., 2004, « Le nivellement dialectal en anglais et en français : le jeu de facteurs perceptuels », in Actes du colloque MIDL, 109-114.

Binisti, N., & Gasquet-Cyrus, M., 2001, Le français de Marseille : description sociolinguistique, rapport de recherche remis à la DGLF, non publié.

Bourdieu, P., 1982, Ce que parler veut dire, Paris, Fayard.Devilla, L. & Trimaille, C., à par., « Variantes palatalisées/affriquées en français hexagonal :

quel(s) statut(s) sociolinguistique(s) pour quel destin ? », in Actes du XXVè Congrès de la Société de Linguistique Romane, Innsbruck, septembre 2007.

Fónagy, I., 1989, « Le français change de visage ? » Revue Romane, 24, p. 225-254. Jamin, M., 2005, Sociolinguistic Variation in the Paris Suburbs. Thèse de doctorat, University

of Kent at Canterbury.Jamin, M. & Trimaille, C., 2008, « Quartiers pluri-ethniques et plurilingues en France:

berceaux de formes supra-locales (péri-)urbaines? » in Abecassis M., Ayosso L., VialletonE. (Dirs), Le français parlé au XXIème siècle, Vol. I : Normes et variations géographiques et sociales, L'Harmattan, Paris, 225-246.

Jamin, M., Trimaille, C. & Gasquet-Cyrus M. (2006) « De la convergence dans la divergence : le cas des quartiers pluri-ethniques en France », Journal of French Language Studies, 16, 335-356.

Labov, W. (1976 [1972]) Sociolinguistique, Paris Minuit.Labov, W. (2001) Principles of linguistic change. Social factors, Oxford, Malden, Blackwell.Laks, B. (1983) : “ Langage et pratiques sociales ”, in L’usage de la parole, Actes de la

recherche en sciences sociales n° 46, p. 73-97.Trimaille, C. (2003) « Variations et marques d’adaptation dans les pratiques langagières de

pré-adolescents dans le cadre d’activités promues par un centre socioculturel et ailleurs », Cahiers du français contemporain, 8, 131-161.

Vernet, M. & Trimaille, C., 2007, « Contribution à l’analyse de la palatalisation en français parlé contemporain », Nottingham French Studies, Vol. 46, 2, 82-99.

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samples