Wendy Ayres-Bennett

Socio-historical linguistics and the history of French

This paper outlines the development of socio-historical studies of French and examines some of the problems with attempting to apply sociolinguistic methods and models of the type derived from Labovs work to the study of a past etat de langue . It is argued that, despite the many difficulties both of data collection and of analysis and interpretation, the study of past variation is essential.

Variation and change in French : essays presented to Rebecca Posner on the occasion of her sixtieth birthday

The variationist paradigm of sociolinguistics launched by Labov has brought about radical revision in the way we view linguistic evolution. This book is the first to systematically apply the insights within French linguistics. This book should be of interest to students and teachers of linguistics, sociolinguistics, French and Romance linguistics, historical and comparative linguistics.

Periodization, Translation, Prescription and the Emergence of Classical French†

In this article we demonstrate how fine-grained analysis of salient features of linguistic change over a relatively short, but significant period can help refine our notions of periodization. As our case study, we consider whether it is appropriate to distinguish a period called francais preclassique (‘Pre-Classical French’), and if so, what its temporal limits are. As our contemporary informants we take, on the one hand, the comments of writers of remarks on the French language, who were highly conscious of language change, and, on the other, usage in successive French translations of the same Latin source text which can be exploited to track and date the adoption of ‘modern’ linguistic variants. We find atypical patterns of change – and notably changes which move rapidly through Labovs different stages – that contribute to the sense of discontinuity or periodization. However, this sense of ‘rupture’ does not coincide with the chronological boundaries hitherto suggested for francais preclassique, thus throwing the validity of this period into question.