Hélène Blondeau

Second language acquisition and "real" French: An investigation of subject doubling in the French of Montreal Anglophones

We investigated the French of the first generation of Montreal Anglophones who had had access to French immersion schooling. Our aim was to determine the extent to which these Anglophones had acquired the variable grammar of their Francophone peers and how that was related to the type of French instruction received and to the types of exposure to French. In Montreal French, a subject NP may be “echoed” by a pronoun without emphatic or contrastive effect. Because this is not a feature of standard French, Anglophones who learned French primarily in school were not expected to exhibit it. On the other hand, Anglophones who frequently spent time with Montreal Francophones were expected to have picked it up. To test this hypothesis, we used a database of speech from 29 speakers, varying in their quantity and type of exposure to French. Multivariate analyses determined the degree of correlation of several linguistic and social factors (related to type and quantity of exposure to French) to the presence of a doubled subject. These data were then compared with that for L1 French. Speakers who were more nativelike with respect to the rate of subject doubling and effects of linguistic factors were those who had had more contact with native speakers, especially as adults.

Real-Time Changes in the Paradigm of Personal Pronouns in Montreal French.

Based on the results of three variationist studies on personal pronouns used in Montreal French, this article shows how real-time data can shed light on ‘apparent time interpretation’ and increase our understanding of morphosyntactic changes. Longitudinal data for a 24-year period from three corpora of spoken French are used to discuss cases of variation: variation between the clitics on and nous, alternation between on and tu/vous, and variation among non-clitic plural pronouns. While the first case illustrates a change occurring over a long period of time, the other variables show changes observable in the 24-year time span under study. In particular, analysis of the variation among non-clitic pronouns suggests a socio-stylistic specialization of the variants at a certain stage in the grammaticalization of compound forms. In sum, this article uses longitudinal evidence to show how the variables are involved in a process of restructuring the paradigm of the French pronouns.

Future temporal reference in the bilingual repertoire of Anglo-Montrealers: A twin variable

This article focuses on the development of sociolinguistic competence in a second language, (here, French being acquired by young Anglo-Montrealers) in a naturalistic context where the target language is part of daily life. Sociolinguistic competence is assessed through analysis of Anglo-Montrealers’ use of a morphosyntactic variable, Future Temporal Reference (FTR), in both French and English. Variationist analyses reveal that Anglo-Montrealers possess distinct FTR variation systems for each of the languages of their linguistic repertoire. Results show that substantial contact with native speakers is a necessary condition for detailed and complete mastery of target sociolinguistic variation, in particular because the rules that govern it are rarely, if ever, explicitly taught.

The Representations of French as Part of the Linguistic Repertoire of Young Anglo-Montrealers.

Abstract Examining the linguistic repertoire of the Anglophone community living in Montreal, this article provides an analysis of the representations of the variety of French spoken by the first generation of young Anglophones who had experienced different types of contact with French. The relation between functional competence and usage of French is examined through a qualitative analysis of interviews collected from young Anglo-Montrealers, and an analysis of an attitudinal experiment of Francophones judging the spoken French of Anglo-Montrealers. The results show that lexicon is the most important criterion for Anglo-Montrealers, followed by grammar and phonology. This suggests an implicational scale corresponding to their level of competence and their own perception of their performance in French. However, phonology acts as the most important criterion among the Francophones assessing the L2 French of Anglo-Montrealers. Sociostylistic competence also plays a major role, since Anglo-Montrealers point out the difference between the French they acquired at school and the actual norms of Quebec French, and recognize the need for manipulating stylistic variation. Among the Francophone judges, sociostylistic competence acts as a clue for evaluating the participation of L2 speakers in the speech community.

Panel Studies and Language Variation

The panel study methodology is categorized in the study of linguistic variation as a real-time study, an investigation that considers the linguistic behavior of speakers over a period of time. The main objective of the panel study is to document longitudinally the linguistic behavior of individuals. Panel studies could shed light on the lability of the linguistic system over the life span, in testing the apparent-time hypothesis, in distinguishing age-grading from community change, and in measuring the individual contribution to linguistic change at the community level.