LINGUIST List 22.3166 Mon Aug 08 2011 Diss: Phonology/Socioling: Villeneuve: 'A Sociolinguistic Study of ...' Editor for this issue: Mfon Udoinyang <mfonlinguistlist.org> To post to LINGUIST, use our convenient web form at http://linguistlist.org/LL/posttolinguist.cfm. Directory         1.     Anne-José Villeneuve , A Sociolinguistic Study of Vimeu French Message 1: A Sociolinguistic Study of Vimeu French Date: 07-Aug-2011 From: Anne-José Villeneuve <avilleneindiana.edu> Subject: A Sociolinguistic Study of Vimeu French E-mail this message to a friend Institution: Indiana University Program: French Linguistics Dissertation Status: Completed Degree Date: 2011 Author: Anne-José Villeneuve Dissertation Title: A Sociolinguistic Study of Vimeu French Linguistic Field(s): Phonology                             Sociolinguistics Subject Language(s): French (fra)                             Picard (pcd) Dissertation Director: Julie Auger Dissertation Abstract: The French Constitution states that 'la langue de la République est le français' [the language of the French Republic is French]. Yet, this prescription does not make France a linguistically uniform country, given that what we hear in many areas are regional varieties that may have arisen in part due to the influence of obsolescent regional languages. This study examines the variety of French spoken in Vimeu, a rural area of northwestern France which borders on Upper Normandy and where Picard, a Gallo-Romance language, still enjoys a relative vitality. Based on a corpus of sociolinguistic interviews I conducted in 2006-2007 with 31 adult speakers of Vimeu French, this study investigates the extent to which local French features are constrained by social and linguistic factors. By analyzing data from both Picard-French bilinguals and French monolinguals, I also look into the possible influence of Picard on Vimeu French. Using the methods of variationist sociolinguistics, I argue that the use of phonological and morphophonological features which distinguish this variety from the standard are influenced by a speaker's sex, age, social network or cultural identity, and - most importantly - bilingual status. Moreover, a quantitative analysis of variables that Picard shares with colloquial French - liquid deletion in word-final Obstruent-Liquid (OL) clusters, for instance - reveals finer-grained differences between the bilinguals' linguistic system and monolinguals' linguistic system. Read more issues|LINGUIST home page|Top of issue Page Updated: 08-Aug-2011       About LINGUIST    |   Contact Us       While the LINGUIST List makes every effort to ensure the linguistic relevance of sites listed on its pages, it cannot vouch for their contents.